Posts tagged as:

Horse Training

Passion or Pastime?

by Cowgirl on July 14, 2012 · 2 comments

I’ve been mulling a bit lately, over the horse ownership thing again. I’ve mentioned before that I feel guilty about owning horses and not spending much time with them, aside from feeding time. I confess that it’s been about three months since I’ve ridden….in fact, I can’t even remember the ride at all, or when it was. I have a pretty good excuse for not riding any broncs, though….I’m pregnant with our third child.

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Choosing A Bit For Your Horse

by Cowgirl on March 19, 2012 · 2 comments

When you’re just buying a horse, or beginning riding a new horse, it can be really hard to know what type of bit to use. There are two ends of the spectrum, where you don’t want to use a bit that is too severe and risk ruining a horse’s mouth, but you also don’t want to use a bit that the horse doesn’t respect at all and risk getting thrown or run away with. So choosing what bit to use for your horse is a very important decision, and I’ll share some tips that might be a help.

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A Little More To The Story

by Cowgirl on February 20, 2012

I am a writer, and one of my favorite things to do is to tell a good story. I have often said that getting a horse is like getting a brand new notebook. You open it up, and it’s blank….just waiting to be filled in with adventures, experiences, knowledge, sentiment, good memories, colorful adjectives, and whatever else comes your way. So it is when you get a horse….I went for a ride with Cowboy Dad yesterday. We had talked about trailering out to some trails or something, since we had a whole afternoon and warm sunny weather.

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Trailer-Loading Techniques

by Cowgirl on December 7, 2011 · 1 comment

I had our weanling colt on the lead line the other day, working on halter training a little bit more, and I thought it would be a good time to introduce him to the horse trailer. I wasn’t there when my husband went to pick him up, when we first purchased him, but I heard that he was hard to load, and wouldn’t follow his mother into the trailer. They had to use portable corral panels to box him into a small space behind the trailer and then adjust them smaller until he was forced to jump in. So I knew that trailer loading was an area we needed to work on with him.

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Weaning A Foal

by Cowgirl on October 29, 2011 · 1 comment

When you have a foal, everything is sweetness and light. But only for so long. Then the life lessons begin and they have to learn to wear a halter, to follow a leader, to stand tied, and face their biggest fear of all—being separated from their mommy. It is a difficult change for both mare and foal, to give up that comfort and connection. But weaning a foal helps develop the disposition a horse needs to have—a working horse has to be able to go out and do a job without throwing a fuss when it is separated from other horses. Weaning is a very important step in the life of a foal.

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Halter Training A Foal

by Cowgirl on October 18, 2011 · 2 comments

As you know, we have been working on halter breaking the new stud colt we purchased a month ago. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a horse this young to work with, so I’m trying to remember any tricks on how to train a foal to lead, and am looking back through some old horse training articles I’ve written to see what advice I’ve given to others on this topic. Every horse is different, and with this particular colt, we’ve been able to slide right past some trouble spots that might affect others.

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First Ride on the New Mare

by Cowgirl on October 13, 2011

I finally got a chance to test drive the new horse last night. We have been in the process of building new pens for our feeder calves through the summer, and all of the portable panels for my round pen were being used to complete the half-finished pen. So last weekend we finished up that project, which allowed me to set up my round pen and try riding the new buckskin mare for the first time. I was anxious to see if our craigslist purchase was a good find or a big mistake.

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Horse Training Quotes

by Cowgirl on September 7, 2011 · 2 comments

I always enjoy reading horse training articles and stories about amazing horsemen. I am always inspired by the things they have learned from the thousands of horses they’ve handled, and thrilled when they share their knowledge with us. Here are some horse quotes from some of the best horse trainers in the world.

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Pick Your Battles

by Cowgirl on June 14, 2011 · 6 comments

I have always been a non-confrontational person. And believe it or not, it carries over to how I deal with horses, too. It’s not that horses scare me or that I’m afraid to push my luck or take chances around them. I grew up with horses and I’ve never been seriously hurt by a horse, so I’ve never had any fear to overcome. But I have seen horses get hurt in bad situations, and spent subsequent years thinking of what I could have done differently that might have prevented their injury, and it makes me cautious and more respectful when handling them.

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A Horse That Bites

by Cowgirl on March 26, 2011 · 5 comments

Writing in response to a recent question from a reader of my horse blog, I’d like to address the issue of how to correct a horse that bites you when you’re handling it. In this day and age of political correctness, what kind of discipline is acceptable to train a horse to not bite?

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Friendship With Horses

by Cowgirl on March 23, 2011 · 2 comments

It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to just spend the day following my horse around. But today I was thinking back to when I was a kid, when I would be at the barn all day, not necessarily riding, but just spending time with the horses. There’s a lot to be said for getting solid hours of horse time.

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My Black Colt

by Cowgirl on March 13, 2011

I always think about my black colt this time of year. If you read my previous post about saying goodbye to a horse, and my horse poems I wrote about his death, you understand part of the story. But I would like to tell the rest of the story and give more of a background about this horse that was so special to me.

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Rewarding the Try

by Cowgirl on February 16, 2011

Training a horse can be really hard and really easy. It depends on how well you can communicate to the horse and how well you can read what the horse is thinking. If you can recognize the moment in which the horse is trying to work for you and reward him for it, it creates a trust and a learning progression that will develop a strong foundation in the horse’s training.

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Choosing A Trainer

by Cowgirl on February 12, 2011 · 1 comment

Whether you’re paying someone to train your horse, give you lessons, or simply choosing which trainer to watch and follow on RFDtv, it’s important to understand what you’re learning and make an educated choice concerning trainers.

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A Horse of Her Own

by Cowgirl on February 9, 2011

I know what it’s like to want a horse of your own and work to find a way to make it happen. My dreams have always revolved around horses, and whether it was saving my allowance money to buy a saddle or mucking out stalls to secure a spot for my horse to live, I was willing to do whatever it took.

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Gentling a Spooky Horse

by Cowgirl on January 29, 2011 · 1 comment

I had a reader contact me through my blog awhile back. She said that she and her family had acquired two yearling horses, and were having a little trouble getting them gentled down. These are just a few ideas to help you work through the first steps of gentling and training your horse.

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Herd Dynamics

by Cowgirl on January 21, 2011

Horses are funny animals. If I had a chance to sit out there in the corral all day and watch them, I would. I have five horses right now, and they are each so different, it is so interesting to see how they act and respond to each other. I believe in animal behaviouralist’s technical terms, this would be called herd dynamics.

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Honeycomb

by Cowgirl on November 25, 2010

The prettiest horse on my parent’s ranch in Idaho is a 2 year old buckskin AQHA filly named Docs Honeycomb. She is the 2008 baby out of their big bay mare, Steel Hickory, by their buckskin stallion Docs Cold Cash.

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Taming Tasha

by Cowgirl on November 24, 2010

I was visiting with my dad the other day about horse stories from my childhood. I don’t remember some of the earliest things of course, so my dad was filling me in on some history of horses I remembered but didn’t know a lot about. It is so interesting to hear another viewpoint on things that I only remember from a child’s point of view, and I love thinking back on those old days.

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Good Ride on a Bad Horse

by Cowgirl on October 7, 2010 · 1 comment

I’m a little baffled today. We brought a couple new horses home to train over the weekend, and last night was the first chance I got to work with Toby. He’s a solid Paint, nine year old gelding, supposedly greenbroke but too nervous and wild for my brother to ride, so he sent him to my place for some training.

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