Horse Training - 3 Most Common Mistakes

Horse Training Is a Delicate Dance

You spent weeks and weeks in horse training schools, clinics, and watched hundreds of horse training videos to learn new techniques of communication to help guide your horse, but still struggling to get results. Guess what? You are not the only one.

As horse trainers and experts with more than 20 years of experience, we have seen many common horse training problems, that prevent individuals from mastering the art of communication with their horse.

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Here are the three most common mistakes we see students in our online horse training schools struggle with:

1. Moving On Too Quickly 

Often, we are simply going quickly through the motions with our horse but not slowing down to allow the horse training to become a part of the horse’s memory.

Your goal is to have the horse stop resisting and become submissive so they are no longer looking for a way out. They need to accept your training 100%, and you can accomplish that by slowing down.

Pay attention to their body language. If you feel as though your horse is no longer attentive, you will need to restart each time but push them a little longer the next time, until they complete the skill instantly with no contact. 

The horse then needs to hold their position from the command for 3 seconds off contact. After you release the command, take their head away respectfully.

2. Forcing Your Horse Physically

If you are moving too quickly with your pressure, you may end up forcing the horse into each physical exercise as opposed to allowing them to make a choice.

To create a genuinely willing horse, make it more work for the horse if he makes the wrong choice. Teach your horse to make the right choice and time your release to that.

Your goal is if your bridle breaks out on the trail, your horse is not looking for a way out; they see you as the leader and accept it. Our training techniques are focused on one goal and that is working on control and reaction of your mare.

If you have this problem, regardless of how your animal does the exercise, it’s great to practice. However, when your horse is behaving, leave him alone and try to let him give you a reason to work on something as opposed to continually knit-picking.

Continually knit-picking the horse will eventually make them cranky. If they are behaving correctly, let them be and acknowledge their corrected behavior.

The reward is a loose rein, which is what we both want!

3. You Have the Tools but Aren’t Getting the Most out of Them

You may have the right tools for your horse training but aren’t quite sure which tool to use when problems arise is a common problem. 

There are many exercises designed to look for holes in your training and address problems before they arise. Sometimes your horse won’t stand still when you try to mount, spooks, or won’t stay between the reins.

To keep it as simple as possible, on the ground your tools for misbehaving would be:

• Moving their hips and shoulders longer until they accept you as the leader
• Continue moving softly, into second gear with no taps, while staying soft in your hand and holding for three seconds

The bottom line is when you lose them, do one of the exercises until you get acceptance.

For the more advanced students, the fastest fix to this mistake is to recognize what body part and direction they are running away and push them back to where they came from.

If you are on their back, the best way to fix a steering mistake is through the shoulders. If there is any fear, danger, or bad behavior, you would move the hips.

Do you recognize yourself in these 3 most common horse training mistakes?

If these common horse training mistakes are you, don’t worry, we can help you get past them quicker and cheaper than ever with our online horse training!  

One way to master the art of communicating is through our 7 steps to advanced horsemanship. Our online horse training is unique and compelling. It consists of horse training videos, one-on-one sessions with Doug Mills himself, and more. Apply today to achieve your full horse riding potential with Training Thru Trust - Online Horse Training Course.

Interest in some of our other horse training camps and clinics in Canada and the USA? Click here to learn more.