Beginner looks for help

Welcome ‘burbfarm. We are excited to have you here looking for guidance. I think we need to know where you are located before anyone can respond to your site visit need. Anyway throw in your two cents and we can see if we arre any help to you. Carl

Brubfarm,

So are you looking for someone to come to your place and train your horse and you at the same time?

That would have to be a high paying gig, because it will not be easy to train a horse trainer and train a horse at the same time.

It could take quite a bit of time, because that is the nature of training any horse. It takes time, particularly if the horse will work in a very public setting around lots of people.

It may be possible – but I have never known anyone to do exactly that sort of thing.

If you can’t find someone to come to you place there could be some other options.

It could be easier for you to enhance your skills buy attending some courses by horse trainers and take that knowledge back to your site and train your horse, yourself.

It may be easier to just trade the horse (with some boot probably) for an already broke horse. Then you could take some courses as time goes along to upgrade your skills in training.

Good luck man, it sounds like a great mission to demonstrate what you are doing to the public, particularly a urban and suburban public. I hope you figure out how to get it all done and keep us up on how you do it. I would bet that you can do it if you want to, one way or another.

If we were closer I would try to help. I am in Virginia.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

My two cents would be to reaffirm Jason’s suggestion, get yourself an already broke horse. The difference in purchase cost between a well-broke animal and one like yours is less than what it would cost you to train it and/or yourself, most likely by a lot.

If you already know how to drive you can accomplish a lot around the farm with a patient, willing horse and the right equipment, and your future training skills can naturally arise from that working relationship.

At our place we are “transitional animal power” and I decided early on that it was biting off too much to learn to train green horses while also attempting to learn to get work done with them. Some people can do both at once. I’m not one of them.

If you’re looking for instruction with a focus on farming, fair winds farm outside brattleboro, vt offers that to teamsters. I got my start from them and feel that the time and money was well spent.

Suffolk horses are the most willing of all the breeds from any age in my thirty years experience with all breeds. However a horse is a horse and if this horse was not started well he may not have a good foundation of ground manners, respect for the handler and courage about working in various situations. Maybe you can start with some basic handling on the ground and then have someone lead him while you drive him on a sled so he is comforted and encouraged to follow the leader person. After he gains some confidence that he can work alone with good contact with the lines and consistent signals to start, stop and stand you just keep working him until he is relaxed when ask to stop and stand and you will be making progress. Remember the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand. Whoa needs to be a reward, but you have to be working them to get to that point. Whoa starts being a reward on the ground when they stand quietly in hand and you stop contacting or giving them any signals on the head and scratch them on the withers for standing quietly.

From there just keep working him single until he relaxes after pulling a while and keep up consistent signals and reward him with rest. You may increase the load after he gains confidence and strength, maybe pick some rocks out of the cultivated ground and put them in a mud hole somewhere.

It is a good thing you are doing….keep working.

Jason Rutledge

You may notice that the best handlers only have tight contact with their horses when they are giving them a signal with the lead line. The idea is that when they don’t stand still give them some multiple signals or tugs on the lead line, while saying whoa and when the stand still release all pressure or contact with the lead line and then reward with a friendly scratch on the whithers.

Some horses for what ever reason are nervous and insecure about standing quietly. It is the job of the horseman to give them confidence to relax and stand quietly accepting their being a part of the herd of you (the handler) and them the horse. They can only think as horses and a horse is a herd animal that is always looking for a leader, so it is your role to be that leader and give them confidence that everything is alright and they are secure in the herd of two, you and the horse. I hope this makes sense.

It is funny that sometimes the most powerful things we do are the things we don’t do. The idea is to get what you want from the horse with the least amount of exchange and that includes recognizing that the horse is reading body language all the time and by being relaxed yourself you will impart comfort and confidence to the horse. This is speaking of the relationship on the ground of course. That exchange will transfer into harness and work.

Speaking of the female perspective, the role is to be the dominant mare in every relationship with your horses. That is who they learn how to be a horse from mostly. I think this is why sometimes women make really good horsemen, because they are better at subtle signals and not being heavy handed.

This all starts for us with imprint training or cradling a newborn foal under the chin and behind the butt and when they relax, whisper – whoa, whoa and you relax you grip or cradle on them. That single first act of training lasts a lifetime and it is where we want to be with them to be throughout their working life.

If I could think what I wanted a horse to do and they do it I would. Since I haven’t figured out how to get that response yet, I chose to keep my signals to a minimum throughout the experience of being a horseman.

It is a matter of being able to think like a horse, because the horse can’t think like a person. That is the essence of being a horseman because a horse can’t be a human or manhorse.

I am not trying to be cryptic or secretive about this and it is hard to explain in text. It is as hard as telling someone to load a horse on a trailer without looking them in the eye. They are prey animals and it is hard to convince them that we are not predators….but the boss mare they can trust and respect.

Jason Rutledge

Carl and Jason have made some great observations. But in my experience, it is extremely difficult to develop the level of sense and communication described in a vacuum, without experienced teamsters to help you and without a horse with a considerable level of trust. Mistakes made in handling reinforce this lack of trust. I’m not entirely clear on your depth of experience, burbfarm, but it seems that you might (like me at times) have just enough to really get you into trouble, so I feel obliged to add my school-of-hard-knocks voice (literal knocks) to the above.

Add in any kind of urgency to actually accomplish anything work-related (which divides your attention between the animal and the work) and you have even greater risk. If you have a lot of patience and time you and the horse may figure it all out and eventually develop a trusting working relationship as described above. But the odds against this happening are much higher than if you could work instead with a horse that’s already attuned to basic commands and is trusting.

You say you might get a teammate for your horse? Get a well-broke, older horse and work him/her singly to develop your senses and skills. Then apply what you’ve learned to the other.

I’m reminded of a joke I learned in Australia, where an outsider comes looking for a job at a cattle station, swearing he can ride and rope. Showing up for his first day at work, he admits that he stretched the truth–never been near a horse in his life. “S’all right mate,” says the station owner. “See that stallion over there in the paddock by himself? He’s never been ridden. Two of you can learn together.”

None of which is intended to be discouraging. But getting a start in this field is not easy–there is a lot to learn and much of it is very subtle. You need as many things in your favor as you can get.

I hopes of safety.

I want to repeat and embellish on some of what I wrote. Get an assistant to lead the horse while you are working it on a sled. Be sure they are aware that the horse may get scared and want to run. The assistant can help you hold the horse if it wants to run. Most of the time they just turn around and look at what is behind them and in the case the assistant should continue to lead them forward. Do this in a pen or round pen of fence in area that the horse is familiar with.

It still starts with ground work of letting the horse respect you on the ground.

Unlike Carl, I have had so many horses come through my life that I have had a few that I gave up on. I know it is supposed to be animal husbandry, but I just can’t marry them all….

I only have so much time and have allot of messed up horses come through my place and some of them keep on going…some place else.

When you have allot of experience people tend to bring you some fruit cakes that already have terrible habits and great fear of everything. I have one such horse here now and he is hard to gain trust from and I simply don’t have time for him. So he is being worked with by a former apprentice and who has that time and is making some progress. Getting this horse to the point of being hooked and working will also be a journey. I will be keeping an eye on it and will tell everyone what happens to this horse and apprentice.

Meanwhile I have plenty of young horses of my own to put signals on.

I am not a horse trader, I am more of a horse breeder, but over the years have had hundreds of horses come through the farm. I have never gave up on one I bred. There are plenty that come from somewhere else that didn’t give them any time as a young horse….like imprint training.

Take your time with him.

See if you can find an experienced horseman will come and work with you and your horse or go get some training yourself. You were on the right track when you started this thread. Continued good luck.

Jason Rutledge
http://healinghavestforestfoundation.org