Slow movements tend to draw one horse to another. Horses express calmness with relaxed, slow steps. This is how they welcome other horses in their space.

If a horse is trying to show you he’s General you may see a clamped-down tail with pinned ears. To get him to accept you as General you will move him out of his space. You do this by matching any quick moves he makes with your own quick moves. The trick is to make first strike before he does.

One way to do this is with a quick arm movement towards him – almost like you’re violently shooing away some pesky flies. Also, you can use an aggressive tone of voice towards a horse if he’s being aggressive.

How can you tell if he’s conceding to you? If he turns his head or drops it, relaxes his tail, begins chewing, or takes a deep breath, then that’s how you know. If any of these happen he’s saying, “Okay, I’ll do what you say because I want to listen to you.” Pay attention to these clues that tell you your horse is in Private mode (the follower) instead of General mode.

When you go into round pen to work with your horse first check to see how he responds to you. If he rubs his head on you or swings his rear end toward you then he’s challenging your position in pecking order. If you’re with a horse that’s not dominant you want to make sure he has confidence. Thus, be very careful not to be threatening.

So what you must do is keep this in mind and help your horse deal with it. How you help him deal with it is treating him kindly when wagon doesn't move.

Thus, when you're in wagon and he steps to move but wagon holds him back, you should get out of wagon and go caress him. It may sound funny, but tell him you know this is a little difficult but that he can do it. Do it in a soothing tone.

Why tell him he can do it? Does he really understand words? No. I'm simply saying you must be sympathetic with your horse. Talking to him like this will help you be sympathetic and talk soothingly to him.

Being kind to your horse like this helps his confidence. It keeps him from getting confused and thus frightened - or at least it minimizes it. It's a big key to getting him to pull that wagon.

You see, when he pulls on that wagon first time and he can't move as freely as he's used to, then it's confusing and frightening to him. If handler is behind him yelling and striking him on rump with a stick or whip then it's going to frighten and confuse him worse. Soon, he'll be so overwhelmed with confusion and fright that his senses will get blunted and won't do anything. He'll simply freeze.

That's why you want treat your horse kindly when he doesn't instantly pull wagon. He needs reassured because he's a bit confused and frightened.

That, in a nut shell, is how a horse learns to balk.

But what about bucking, bolts, biting, spooking, kicking, and others?

Again, it's mismanagement. The horse doesn't arrive in this world with those habits. They are learned - particularly through bad handling.

The key to knowing how to stop a bad habit is to prevent it in first place. You learn to prevent it from educating yourself about do's and don'ts of horse training.

But if you have a horse confirmed in habit from either your handling or from previous owner, then it takes stronger measures to stop it.

There is a horse training manual written in 1800's that includes cures to stop bad habits and vices like ones I mentioned earlier. The book was written by Jesse Beery. He was a famous horse trainer.

If your horse has a bad habit and you don't know how to change it then this book is your magical answer. It has directions to stop AND prevent bad habits. The instructions are so detailed and thorough it's like reading a recipe.

The other alternative is to take your horse to a horse trainer. You'll spend from $400.00 to $900.00 per month to fix habit (if trainer thinks he can fix it). Or, you could (and should) learn how to do fix problem yourself. If you're going to be a responsible horse owner, you should learn all you can and Jesse Beery's information is one of bible's of industry.