Down The Fence with Richard Winters
Article II

Many years ago a man wrote a book entitled “Everything I know I learned in Kindergarten.”  His theory was that the early education of a child is really the foundation of life skills that everything else is built upon.  I believe it’s the same way with horses.  “Rocky,” the young Quarter Horse stallion we’re chronicling in this column, has a lifetime of learning ahead of him.  Yet what happens in these first couple months is critical to his future success.

It’s now been approximately thirty days since this two-year old colt arrived.  It’s been raining and our round pen is flooded.  So the work I do in this first session will have to be in an open arena. Training begins with ground work.  I want to open the lines of communication with this colt and begin to direct his feet.  I prefer my hand tied rope halter and 12-foot lead rope.  Horses tend to not brace up and pull against the rope halters as compared to a wide web traditional halter.  The extra length of my 12-foot lead with its weighted end allows me to move my colts around and play some different ground games, yet not so long as to get tangled up.  

I want to be able to disengage my colt’s hindquarters from either side by tipping his nose and stepping his hind end away.  I’m looking for the inside hind to cross over the outside hind.  This will be the same thing I want to accomplish when I first get on his back.  If I can disengage his hindquarters, whether on the ground or in the saddle, I can probably survive the experience.

Much of what happens in early training is sensitizing our colts to some things while de-sensitizing him to others.  Horses have a great way of separating these things out if we present our ideas clearly and consistently.  I’ll throw the rope over his back numerous times to desensitize him.  If he can’t handle the rope over his back he probably can’t handle my leg over his back.  I have a great big meal for him to eat, yet I can’t shove it down his throat.  I’ll need to feed it to him one bite at a time.  Every exercise presented to this colt should be a building block to the next level.

He’s handling things pretty well in this first session.  I’ve hopped up on him on both sides, (remember that everything must be taught equally from both sides) and he’s ready to saddle.  Out of the hundreds of colts I’ve started, about seventy five percent of them will buck a little, (or maybe a lot!) the first time they’re saddled.  About seventy five percent of all the colts I start never buck when first ridden.  Putting the saddle on is like tying a ribbon to a puppy dogs tail. At first they’re likely to do all kinds of gyrations to rid themselves of that ribbon.  After a little while, if it’s still there they just go on about their business.

During this saddling process it’s important that you are smooth and deliberate in what you’re doing.  I’m going to draw my cinch up a little snugger this first time than I normally would.  If he blows up and the saddle turns because the cinch was too loose, he’s going to get really scared.  I’ve taught him how to move around a little on the end of my lead rope, so I’ll have a framework to direct him when he starts to move his feet.  That’s better than him blindly bucking over the top of me!

I also spent a few minutes desensitizing his cinch area with my lead rope around his belly.  All these things make the transition to the next step a little easier.

The saddle is going to feel different at the trot then it does at the walk.  And it will be a different sensation at the lope than while trotting.  If the round pen wasn’t flooded, I’d turn him loose and work him both ways in there.  Instead I’ve commandeered my daughter Sarah to pony him around the pen for a few minutes. (Photo 5) When he can travel through the full range of motion without grabbing himself or getting scared, he might be ready to mount.

Rocky is passing every test along the way with good grades so I think I’ll step on.  No, not all the way on. Not yet.  First, halfway up on each side and disengage his hindquarters.  If he can’t handle that, I’ll just step down and start over.

Now it’s all the way on with a lot of rubbing and reassurance.  Let’s see if he can move his feet. At first I’ll tip his nose and use my inside leg to move his hindquarters.  After a couple times each way, Rocky takes some forward steps.  In these first few rides, I don’t care where my colt goes.  I just want him to go somewhere.

I like to ride these colts the first few times with just the halter and lead.  I don’t need any more direction and control then that at this stage of the game.  Since I’m not the world’s most talented bronc rider, I don’t want to accidentally jerk and pull on a snaffle bit in an effort to survive a wreck in the first couple rides.  That would be like throwing gasoline on a fire that I want to extinguish.  Once he’s moving comfortably around the pen in all three gaits (walk, trot, and lope), then I’ll transition him to a plain smooth snaffle and I’ll ride him in that for the foreseeable future.  Each day I’ll get just a little more specific in my direction and leadership.  For now he just needs to learn to go forward without getting scared.  Too much direction and rein handling early on is going to be confusing to this young horse and he’ll feel like I’m pushing on the brake and the gas at the same time.

What’s my expectation for this colt with thirty days training?  Except for the rare exceptions, my colts will be easily saddled, lunged, mounted and we can walk, trot and lope simple circles.  I’m also riding outside the confines of the arena showing them what the real world looks like.

If you were to observe this colt once a week for the first four weeks, I believe you’d see big leaps of progress with each visit.  As we enter the second month and beyond the changes will be no less important, but perhaps more subtle.  He’s started, but he’s sure not finished.  We’ve poured the foundation in the first month.  Now we’ll begin the construction.