training

Some horse carers have an incredibly close connection to their horses that it seems almost telepathic. Their horses are able to respond so well to their cues that it seems like the horses are reading their minds. This phenomenon is actually common among horses themselves. They have no voice to communicate with each other, but can communicate effectively anyway. Using animal communication is using telepathy to communicate with the horse.

For instance, fear is something that spreads very easily in a group of horses. This characteristic evolved for the sole purpose of improving their survival in the wild where raising an alarm on a threat is crucial to the safety of the herd. This characteristic is something that natural horsemanship practitioners have learned to make use of in horse training. read more

Anybody who is interested in taking up traditional horse breaking approaches used in the early days of American history can simply check out some western movies.  Nowadays, much better methods are in place that are gentler to horses.  The goal of any kind of horse training is to get the horse to a point where he becomes responsive to human commands so that he can be trained to do specific tasks and become more than just a ride.

Horse breaking, by its very name, calls for the horse’s spirit to be broken, often with the use of fear and threats of pain so that it will accept a horseman’s dominance.  This is the type of horse training that is being idealised in western movies.  But many have come to question the method, believing it to be inhumane and cruel.  Today, there is an alternative method to train horses which believes that the use of fear and pain will not result in an ideal training situation.  This horse training method is called natural horsemanship and its goal is to promote a feeling of safety for the horse during training so that the horse will willingly bond with the trainer. read more

Natural horsemanship has come to be the most widely used approach for training horses today.  The application of this approach varies from one horseman or trainer to another, but they all share the same principles:

1.  Horses have a highly evolved system for communicating with each other.  This system is mostly based on body language.

2.  Horses can be trained to be very responsive to human body language since this is the primary way in which they communicate.  The important thing is for the trainer to learn to use their entire body — hands, eyes voice, and hip and knee movements as cues to their horses.  When a trainer or a horseman learns to successfully use his body language to communicate to horses, the need for physical threats to get a horse to obey would become unnecessary. read more

Horses have played a very important role in the history of man. From fighting in battles to hauling loads, horses have played a vital role in the development of society. What has changed though is the way we approach the training of horses and natural horse training is becoming increasingly popular.

Years ago horses were literally ‘broken’ and forced to submit to the needs of men and to recognise men as their leader. There is another way though which brings far more satisfaction to both horse and rider. There are a number of different methods of training through natural horsemanship methods. read more