From: Susan_
I am trying to make a decision as to whether or not it is feasible for me to keep a 5 yr old gelding or if it would be better to find him a new home.
It would a most lengthy post to fill you in on the whole background but suffice to say that I am very fond of him and want to do what is best for the horse as well as what is realistic for me. I am 43 years old; work full time, have all the usual family, work and social life commitments that take up much of my time. I am a green rider. He has had a minimum of training.
I live in a rather sparsely populated area. As far as I know, the closest trainer is about a 3.5 hour drive from my town. The horse has had 30 days of basic training. I also took several lessons on him in an indoor arena.
In my estimation, as well as that of the trainer and my
riding instructor, he is basically a good horse with potential but is still green, a bit spirited though not really hot, a curious mind (and easily bored at times), can be willing and cooperative but needs a firm hand.
Previous to my owning him, he bucked three people off. I don't know the circumstances in any of the cases. He bucked me off once (after the training). My feeling is that it was a combination of his desperately not wanting to leave his pasture mate and my inexperience. It shook me up a bit and has taken me several months to come to terms with. I have looked into many options and what I have come down to are these:
a. I look around as diligently as possible for the right home for him; one where he will get lots of time and attention and not be mistreated and then sell him. I am willing to lose money on the prospect if I could find the right person, who was happy to bring along a green horse.
Advantages: more time for me, less expense, less responsibility
Disadvantages: missing the horse and possibly missing out on the
experience of solving the problem
b. I take him back to the boarding facility with the indoor arena and keep him there for a few months (which will be costly), take more lessons on him (which will be more expense) and hope that this will give us both confidence in each other. It was okay before though I was starting to get a little bored myself with going around and around the arena. Also, the facility is about a 45 minute drive away; it took up a lot of time with the travelling when I had him there before.
Advantage: I have experienced people helping me every step of the way
Disadvantages: Heavy cost in both time and money; somewhat boring after awhile; horse is still not experienced on the trail (which is where I plan to do most of my riding)
c. I keep him at home and try to work with him myself. This would require some expense as well as I would have to have some major work done on an area that I could use as a riding arena. We are planning on doing some work on our property so it would an added expense but not outrageous and then I would have a place that would go on (as opposed to spending the money for boarding and have nothing to show for it long term). I would have to try to educate myself on horse training, which would require a minimum of books and/or videos.
Advantage: Would have a riding arena for future use; more likely to spend time with him both in training and in just hanging out if he is in my back yard; could be a richly rewarding experience
Disadvantage: Could be a horribly demoralizing experience; cost in time and money; am totally inexperienced and could make everything worse.
I know that there are probably a million things that I haven't covered here as far as background info but I didn't want to write you a book either. I also know that no one can really help me decide whether or not I should sell him. What I am hoping you could help me with is painting a realistic picture of training him myself, given that every horse is an individual and works on their own schedule. Perhaps you comment on generally how many hours a week should I expect to devote to this. I know that you cannot tell me whether those hours will be enjoyable or a chore for me but if I had some idea of what other people do, I could make a more informed decision. Also, in your opinion, is it even possible for a green rider to do such a thing?
I tend to believe that I need experts to do everything for me, whether it is building a rock wall or making a dress. I am starting to think that maybe that is not necessarily true. After all, people have been training their horses for hundreds of years without professional trainers; surely they couldn't have all been disasters? My
feeling is that horses do the things that they do for a reason and the job of the trainer is to have enough imagination and patience to figure out what those reasons are and work from there. I believe that I have excellent communication skills with humans and I know that 90% of communication has nothing to do with the words that are spoken or written. I believe very strongly in cooperation and mutual respect. I believe my weakness is being overly sympathetic and sensitive. I could see that I would struggle a bit in convincing myself that even though I know that my horse is uncomfortable or scared with something, I have to get him through it anyway (perhaps baby step by baby step but he still has to do it). I at times question our right as humans to enforce our will, our rules, our desires on animals. I can see that this could be a problem in the training process.
If you could comment on the joys and frustrations of the training process including the time involved and give your opinion on inexperienced people attempting this, also if there are particular qualities that you see in people that are good with training, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your time.
Susan
Hi Susan! First, I really must congratulate you on the amount and depth of thought you have put into this question. There isn't a quick and easy answer, but I can give you my thoughts on the matter.
My advice would be to go with your first scenario, in which you find a suitable home for this horse and free yourself to look for the sort of horse you need right now: a quiet, kind horse that enjoys trails and can help a novice rider to learn in comfort and safety. You've described a horse that might possibly be a good second horse for you , and would probably be a good third horse, but is really not what you need as a first horse. You are green, and so is he. Thirty days of training is very little training -- and the same can be said of sixty or ninety days! What you want is a seasoned, experienced horse that can take care of you and teach you, so that you will be able to enjoy the process of learning about horses.
Let me take your points one by one.
1) You want what's best for him: that will be consistent handling and training. This gelding is only five and has had very little training. Your instructor and the trainer say that he needs a "firm hand", and although he has had only 30 days of training, he has already learned to buck people off, and has bucked off four people including yourself. Assuming that this horse is a sound animal that is comfortable in his tack, this behaviour indicates that he has been pushed too hard and handled inconsistently. Bucking ought not to be part of the training process.
2) You want what's realistic for you: that will be an experienced, well-trained, kind, comfortable trail horse, probably 8-15 years old. You are a green rider, your time is limited and there are a lot of demands on you: the full-time job, your family, your social life. You're in an isolated area where you don't have easy access to regular help. None of this will interfere very much with your enjoyment of an older, quieter, well-trained horse -- but all of it will interfere with your enjoyment, your progress, and your safety if you are trying to work alone with a young and green animal in your spare time.
3) When you were bucked off, you were shaken by the experience and needed several months to come to terms with it. Don't set yourself up for this again, by trying to work with a green horse -- especially not a green horse that has learned that the way to cope with an uncomfortable situation is to get rid of his rider. At this point, you simply haven't had enough mileage on quiet, well-trained horses. That's nothing to be ashamed of -- you're a novice, after all -- but it means that you really do need to acquire that mileage before you take on a young horse. And some quite competent, experienced riders never do "start" a young horse -- it's not for everyone.
3) Although you were a beginning rider, you were bored by what you were doing, and you thought that your horse was bored too. This is usually a warning sign of poor instruction. Even if your entire lesson takes place at a walk, it should all be interesting to both you and the horse, and it should be a pleasant experience for both of you. You can work at the walk for an hour and find yourself physically and mentally exhausted -- you should never be BORED. Boredom may mean that you are being told what to do and then left alone to do it -- but you need to know more than WHAT, you need to know how, and why, and when, and for how long, and how to reward the horse.
4) Learning to ride is complicated and time-consuming enough -- focus on that for a while, without adding the host of complications that arise when you also try to train a horse. Learn to ride, and learn about horses.
Someday you may be able to train one of your own from the ground up, but not now. You may find yourself training a young horse when you are 53 instead of 43 -- so what? The determinants should be experience, understanding, and skills acquisition, NOT age.
5) Good help matters, very much -- even when you have an experienced horse, you won't want to be entirely without assistance or guidance. And for a green rider with a green horse, trying to work alone is a burning formula for disaster. Even when the two ingredients are a good-hearted young horse and a good-hearted human, the combination produceds misunderstanding upon misunderstanding until utter mutual frustration sets in, or until an injury occurs to one or both of the individuals -- whichever comes first.
6) Training a horse is like educating a child, and requires experience, knowledge, and skill -- and you also have to factor in the physical risks to both student and teacher. And as you know, educating a child is difficult enough, even when teacher and student are of the same species and already share a common language! You would, I'm sure, prefer that your children NOT be taught math or art or music (or anything else) by teachers who have never taught anyone, who have had no training in teaching methods, and who are just now learning the subject themselves... ;-) In fact, I'd guess that you would raise a fuss if you had children entering school and the local school board had decided to save money by hiring such "teachers".
Your other points are well-taken too, but the trial-and-error method isn't a good one for horse-training. A key difference between horse-training and making that rock wall (or dress) is that mistakes in horse-training will make the horse suffer and can put you in real danger, whereas neither of these results is likely to occur when you are dealing with inert substances such as rocks or fabric. If you drop a rock or two, there's no harm done. If you tear the dress material, you can replace it without feeling more than mildly annoyed and inconvenienced. If you get horribly frustrated with your work-in-progress all or your dress, you can scream at it and then ignore it completely for several days or a week or a month -- it will be there, in the same condition and utterly unaffected by your outburst, when you return. ;-) If you're an adult, you'll be able to keep yourself from blaming the rocks or the fabric for your own difficulties in dealing with them -- most of the time, anyway (although I've heard some people cursing at their sewing machines). But a horse is another matter: horses are large and reactive and remember everything, and they will react to your behaviour, not to your own belief in your good intentions.
You're quite right, horses have reasons for the things they do. Once you understand horses thoroughly, you'll know what is natural for them, why they react as they do, what causes them to react, and how to encourage or discourage particular actions and reactions. When you know what is "normal", you'll be able to know what isn't -- but just as you can't evaluate a horse's illness or injury if you don't know what would be "normal" for the horse, you can't evaluate a horse's reactions or actions if you don't know which behaviours and reactions are "normal".
I don't think it's entirely true that people have been training horses without professional help for hundreds of years. There have been professional horse-trainers for thousands of years. The goals of training may have been different, long ago (transportation, warfare, and agriculture rather than recreation and competition), and the equipment has changed over the centuries, but there were always people who trained horses professionally, and the best trainers were in great demand. You're quite right that many people have trained their own horses, but not in a vaccuum, not without help -- where horses have always been part of the family and part of the environment, children learn to train as they learn to ride, because everyone around them can share knowledge with them even though it's not shared through formal classes. Children who come up through the ratings in Pony Club, and who achieve their B or HA or A rating, are ready to train horses by that time, because they have learned excellent riding and training skills. But remember that a 20-year-old "A" Pony Clubber will have had ten or more years of training, lessons, study, exams, and experience in a structured program of horse-related education.
Take your time with your education. You can be involved with horses for the rest of your life, and that gives you quite a lot of time to develop experience and even expertise. ;-) Learn, take lessons, read books, watch videos. Get as much education as you can. It will help you with the nice trail horse that I hope you will find soon, and it will help you with your next horse and all of the other horses you work with.
Your communication skills will help you. So will sensitivity and sympathy, because both are needed when you work with horses. The qualities you've described are essential for trainers, but they must be accompanied by a good knowledge base. Horses must be dealt with AS HORSES, and that's where your new studies will come in. Patience is vital -- imagination less so, because unless you understand the nature of horses, your imagination is likely to interfere rather than assist. Many kind, sensitive, imaginative humans are utter disasters as "horse trainers", because they simply don't know enough about horses. They can easily imagine all sorts of reasons that a horse might have for doing something, and they deal with horses according to their imaginations rather than according to horse nature, horse behaviour, and horse logic.
In order to teach horses well -- which is what you would want to do -- you have to understand how horses learn, and you have to understand how to teach them. Horses can and should be disciplined, but the wrong discipline is far worse than none at all, and you'll need experience to know how and when and why to discipline a horse.
For instance, a horse that is uncomfortable needs to be made comfortable, and a horse that is scared needs to be made emotionally comfortable so that it is no longer scared. An uncomfortable, tense, frightened horse is, at best, a horse that cannot learn; at worst, it is an immediate danger to itself and its rider, and possibly to others. Even for a highly experienced trainer, "pushing a horse through" pain or fear is a risky undertaking, and although the short-term results may suit the trainer's immediate desires, the long-term results will not be good for the horse.
I can't tell you how long the training process would take, although a well-brought-up young horse of four or five, just beginning his training, should be able to become a nice riding horse after two years of good, consistent, competent training. It might take longer. It might not take as long. In either case, the horse would NOT be a fully-trained, experienced animal at the end of that time -- it would be ready for more training. ;-) What I CAN tell you is that a horse that does NOT get the best early training will take much longer to train correctly, because the all-important early years create a pattern of learning and a set of expectations in that horse, for good or for ill. You might start now, trying to train a young horse through the trial-and-error method, and if you both survived intact, you would probably need to spend a couple of years REtraining it later, with help. Such horses take a lot of retraining and a lot of help and a lot of time -- it's better to learn more before you start in the first place.
Take your time and enjoy the process of learning to ride and learning about horses. Find a horse you can enjoy NOW, and enjoy it. You will learn from it, and as you learn more, you'll find that you are beginning to teach your horse in small ways. In the meantime, keep reading and studying. Expose yourself to as much information as possible, and be discriminating: learn to evaluate the information you read, learn to look for the best sources of good information. Educate yourself on horse-training even if you decide that you don't want to train a horse from the ground up -- it will help your riding too. And if you DO decide to take on a young horse later in your life when you're ready to deal with one, you'll enjoy the training process, and the horse will too. ;-)
Jessica
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