Horse Training

Arakei is a little pony I have already mentioned in previous posts. He is a keen learner and a well coordinated little bloke. I had previously taught him to come and follow me without a lead rope or halter and, even after 2 weeks spent too far away to even see him, I was pleased to see he remembered his lessons and after a brief run about the paddock, followed me around the bending poles.

Today, I set up a curtain of bailing twine hung from a stick and set it across the top most setting of a jump stand. It was a simple and comparatively non terrifying piece of equipment and easily disposable since it is made of bailing twine and we have it coming out of our ears. This is the first step, I think, to teach him to do other such scary things as walking over a tarp, walking through a sheet, or walking in a puddle.

I walked him round some bending poles to get him in practice and to give him a success and then led him up to the curtain, I let him look at it for a bit then encouraged him to come through, unsurprisingly he bolted. I brought him back and tried many times before noticing that he would bolt to the side even before he approached the curtain. I did not want to teach him to run out all the time so I made him run around for ages and then put on the halter and led him to the curtain. I used the halter to guide him through and to discourage bolting out the side, after a very little bouncing around I moved a section of the curtain aside and he dashed through. He went through a lot more times after that, from both sides, and then I tried it without a halter. He bolted every time so I hunted him round the paddock again for AGES and then tried again and again. Knowing that he would be ready to stop soon and wanting to end on a high, I put the halter on him and led him through 10 times and eventually got him to be able to walk through pretty calmly.

The next step for tomorrow is to get him through without a lead rope. I need to work out how but I think it will involve the round yard.