Years ago I believed that all horses were trainable and/or rehabilitated I got attached to them and would not accept giving up on a horses!  After working with horses for over 30 years, I changed my mind.  I have worked with a variety of problem horses; abused, neglected including horses pushed too hard and too fast by handlers, trainers and owners.  Every horse has a different potential for training. Some horses are easy to train. I’ve had Mustangs that I was able to take out on the trail by the second ride but I have also had Mustangs that took two months of work before I took them on the trail. I have worked with domestic horses that took much longer ride out on the trail because their Natural Survival flight/fear instinct had to be dealt with first. Every horse must be evaluated based on its individual background; past/present training and their emotional, mental, emotional state. In conclusion; after years and many, many hours working with hundreds of horses there are a percentage of horses that cannot be trained to be; safe, trustworthy and reliable! The reason being their Flight/Fear/Fight natural instinct their most important survival mechanism is too high therefore not acceptable for training or rehab! If we do decide to rehab horses knowing that the survival instinct is very high likely it will require a long period of time, dedication, disappointment, patience and nothing with labor! If we decide to go on this journey, please know; there is no guarantee we will be completely successful because sometimes we cannot train a horse not to be afraid, we can only help it work through their problem and/or suppress it!

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What Makes a Horse Easy to Train?

We may be confused and complain about our training difficulties and happy in the successes. Easy horses make us feel like great trainers and the hard ones teach us lessons.

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• An “easy” horse is one that retains the training and improves each day. It appreciates and seeks praise and pays attention to its rider instead of the environment or other horses. Responsive to the aids, it seems to enjoy the work. A good horse is like that girl in school sitting in the front row who always raises her hand when the teacher asks a question. When I ride an easy horse it doesn’t feel like I’m doing any work.

• Difficult horses, on the other hand need the same lesson repeatedly, sometimes going months without improving. They focus on things outside the arena and seem to resent or fear work. They resist the aids, can be barn sour, herd bound, or spooky. Hard horses can be innately stiff or crooked. Trainers (and we are all trainers if we handle a horse) stay awake at night wondering how to get the hard horse trained.

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Some cannot be trained

Out of the thousands of horses in this country, there are probably 3 or 4 percent that I would say cannot be trained due to emotional, mental and/or physical problems.  Some horses just belong in a bucking string. People don’t like to hear that but today, bucking stock is well cared for, fat and sassy, only worked once or twice a week and it is not really a bad gig. I speak with tongue in cheek but just because you don’t get along with your horse or you are having training problems doesn’t mean the horse can’t be trained.  Most clients want me to do all the training and riding; it doesn’t matter that I can train and/or ride the horse; the owner must participate in the training in order to understand and be able to correct bad behavior the undesirable behavior occurs. It is good to have a relationship with your horse, but the horse will be safer and more pleasant to be around if it is accustomed to working it on the ground and in the saddle.    We need to train our mind and the horse’s mind to exercises on the ground and then link our mind to the horse’s mind mimicking similar exercises in the saddle.  If we and our horse are not programmed to use exercises to control the horse’s feet we cannot capture the mind of the horse, we can’t control the emotions. If we can’t control the emotions, it is difficult to train the emotional, mental and physical parts of the horse.  Some horses may be more difficult than others to train, but I believe that most horses are trainable. We just need to be patient and consistent in our actions, and be willing to follow through. It takes years to develop a finished horse, but it is worth the effort and as you continue to work with the horse, you will also develop a better relationship with your horse.

survival mechanism!