Take a Walk!
Get your horse used to items slowly.
When you think of taking a walk with your horse, you think of being on his back, in the saddle, or even bareback. But, did you know you can take your horse for a walk on a lead, like you would a dog! Have you even thought about doing this?
My horse is a show horse, not a trail horse. Most of his life was spent traveling in trailers, from one show to another, doing his job in the ring, being around fairs, rides, cars and people. So, when I decided I wanted to start trail riding with him, he acted like death had come for him. If a leaf blew in the wrong direction he would spin and bolt. Cars he could deal with, barking dogs never bothered him. He even walked in a parade behind a loud fire engine. But take him into the quiet woods and he is a completely different animal; a maniac who thinks every gust of wind is a tornado ready to swoop him away. See a cow in a field? Oh boy, now that is reason for full out panic!
To try and help him in his transitional phase, I have been taking him for walks. Use a soft rope lead, preferably one that is long enough that if he tries to pull away you have some leverage, but not so long that you and the horse are tripping over it or it becomes cumbersome. You might also want to bring along a whip something like a dressage whip. There are several reasons for this. With my horse it keeps his nose off the ground and his mouth off the grass. Just a light tap under the chin gets him to lift his head. It can also act as a training aid if you know how to use it without scaring the horse further. If it’s going to spook your steed more, it’s best to leave it home.
If you can, find a trail location with many distractions. When your horse shows apprehension or fear, relax yourself, talk calmly to him and reassure him everything is okay. Move him slowly toward the scary object. When he stops, snorts or otherwise acts like he’s going to bolt, stop and let him get his bearings. I will usually walk my horse right up and let him sniff the object if possible (that was rather difficult to do with cows and donkeys as they were as leery of him as he was of them). If you can do this with your horse, terrific. The point here is to let your horse know this object is not going to eat him. Once he’s relaxed, move on and so forth.
This is only the first stage to acclimating a horse to talking walks in the wild blue yonder (or any other place he might be fearful). I will continue this series with more tips and articles to come, including what kind of areas are safe for horses and which are not. Also, I will cover how to read your horse’s body language so you know how he’s going to act and be prepared before he acts, thus preventing disaster.
NOTE: NEVER wrap the lead rope around your hand! If your horse freaks, rears, backs up or bolts, the rope can tighten and break your hand or you could be dragged. It’s better to let the horse go and catch him once he’s calmed a bit.
