Mistake #6 – Assuming A Horse Trainer’s Technique Is The Only Way To Train A Horse When novice horse owners begin to experience problems with their horse, they go looking for answers. The first place they look is in books. When author of book explains a training technique, reader assumes that’s how it’s done by everyone. But when they can’t train their horse with that technique, they assume a dumb or untrainable horse. What novice horse owners need to know is that there are typically lots of ways to train a horse to do one thing. If you try something and it doesn’t work, try something else.

Mistake #5 – Not Riding A Horse Enough New horse owners experience problems with horses not because horse suddenly went sour, but because they don’t ride their horses enough. About best thing you can do to have a good horse is to ride it and ride it and ride it. Don’t ride him just once every couple weeks. Horses need to ridden a lot to make them a good riding horse.

It’s scary to be on a horse that runs on his own volition and can’t be slowed down. Many people will sell their horse because they’re so scared of that happening again. How do you keep a horse from bolting like that?

There is a way to temper your horse even if he spots something that scares him and he wants to run in fear. I call it, “Installing an emergency brake.”

This is done on ground while you’re doing ground training. Every time you work with your horse you should spend a few minutes doing this – even if you know your horse “gets it.” It simply cannot be done enough.

What does it look like when you use emergency brake on your horse? While you’re riding, you reach down to either rein. You tightly grab rein, slide it up your legs along seam of your pants up to your hips. At same time, you are loosely holding other rein. As you do this, your horse’s nose will be pointing back towards his rear end.

Why does this work? Ever try to run forward while looking backwards? Need I say more? (There are exceptions. Some horses are so limber they will run forward with their nose buried in their sides – but not many)

But you can’t simply get on your horse and expect to pull his head back if he takes off. You must do some ground work first. And here’s what you do.

Put a halter on your horse and hook a lead rope to halter. Stand on left side of your horse. Stand by your horse across from his back leg. Take your right arm and put it over his rump. Next, pull lead rope towards you and rest your left hand on his back.

At this point your horse will resist some. If he pulls his head forward you hold lead rope in place. Eventually he will move his head back towards you and give into pull you have on lead rope. The second he moves his head back towards you then you release lead rope tension and praise him. In other words, when you see lead rope has slack in it because he moved his nose back towards you, then release.