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Horse Sense for People

What age should a horse for training?

By:

nathanielbowman6677

Date:

2025-Jun-11 at 02:06PM

Is there a minimum age a horse should be to start long lining/saddle-rider training? I've got a filly about 1-1/2 years of age that I'm doing long lining with and she responds well but I assume such sessions should be kept very short...

JoHewittVINTA 2025-Jun-18 at 12:09PM

Hi. With my two homebreds I totally changed MY perception of what was to happen. I didn't think of it as training - we started our relationship from day one. Bella was very happy to let me interact with her babies. Holy Moley was just standing & still wet when I first touched her. Kirk regarded me as a plaything but then Kirk was born super confident & has always been enthusiastic to explore all new possibilities. So we had regular play times. I didn't try & 'work' them - I tried to make it a fun game for us both.

Yes, I kept it to short periods of interaction, stopping as soon as I got a positive response. I didn't set a time frame - the horse decided that. It could be 30 or more minutes or it could be 5 minutes. If I needed to be more incremental then longer than if the horse sucked it in like a learning sponge. What I made sure to avoid was the TREBLE MATHS syndrome - the child who finds maths difficult will only resent the subject more if it comes in longer periods of torture. I didn't let anything become mundane by yeah, sure repeats but each with an added something. So, not just use the same work area - once they long lined we went out long lining - but to carefully chosen places. Or we went with a friend one lining. I worked very hard so the horses didn't have to.

I will give you an example. The farrier came yesterday. My guys live out but there was no need for them to be caught, haltered and tied in readiness as they all congregated at the gate and watched proceedings whilst they waited their turn to have their feet trimmed. I never trained them to do this coming over and greet us stuff and then stay, that's all their idea but it's really handy. It works for the vet too. Because they are doing this from choice they are happy, confident, calm and cooperative. They choose to stand in a wide open space without any restraint. Yes, lots of horses stand for the farrier. Try it in a field, as part of a herd with just a loose rope over the neck.

My advice would be to approach your filly with a view to spending learning time together not going to give her another training session. This change in the humans attitude leads to much faster and more sound learning which then acts as a solid base to build on thereafter. Don't get me wrong. Kirk is a dream to partner but he has a wicked sense of humour, loves a practical joke and wouldn't last two minutes in the wild because he insists on exploring everything new. However, when on a rare occasion something does upset him he goes fully all horse so no, I haven't robbed him of his ancestors legacy, just buried it under trust and bonding. Let us know how things go and good luck. Cheers, Jo.