08/01/2025
"If you aren't going to teach 'em, don't touch 'em."
That was my motto back when I started lots of colts for the public; I'd rather have someone run a wild brumby off their trailer, than be led off by a spoiled, no-mannered barnyard pet. Yes, you read that correctly. I always found that it was easier to tame one who had never been handled, than to train one who had been handled wrong.
Both scenarios take effort, but the first takes less than the second.
You are absolutely doing your horse a disservice by allowing them to be pushy and rude on the ground; by accepting them as hard to catch, when not addressing their nervousness leaving their herd mates or by making excuses for them clearing a hitching rail when they're tied. Every time you say, "Oh she is just mare'ish," or, "He gets herd bound away from his buddies," so you haul a companion every place you go.
You know what I say when I have horses come in like that?
"Suck it up buttercup, life is tough and you have to be tougher."
I don't chase horses to catch them. I hobble train AND tie train everything. I ride alone...A LOT. Mares get treated like geldings...no excuses for squealing and making flirty-time at the hitching rail. I will nip that behavior in the bud. 🤷
I don't believe in going around problems. If I do, you can bet it's a timing thing and I'm eventually going to circle back to it when I feel they can take in the correction.
I don't let horses lay the ground rules. They lead at my shoulder, they send onto the trailer with the shank over their neck, they ground tie where I drop their rein, they don't rub their heads on me, they pick up their feet and stand to be saddled...and all these good habits take time to teach. But so do the bad habits I have seen developed in horses coming in for training.
So, once again, don't touch them if you aren't going to teach them...keeping in mind of course, that every interaction with a horse, you are training them. You can either build the one you want, or build the one absolutely nobody wants, either way it is going to take some effort.
Have a good day folks. 😊
Pictured below; 3 yr old gelding we call Kink ground tying after a particularly tough job rounding up yearling steers.
