Here's this weeks column....



Horse Trainers Responsibilities

By Janet Huntington

I heard it again a few days ago.

“Horse trainers are all a bunch of thieves. I took my horse to a trainer a few years ago and he came home barely broke. He didn’t know a thing!”

The whiner, er, I mean, complainant, had taken a young, halter-broke 3-year-old to a reining trainer, left him for 120 days, and brought him home.

While the horse rode around fine at the trainers, he completely fell apart once he got home.

“Darn, that’s too bad,” I muttered and tried to excuse myself.

I wasn’t planning on asking many questions. I’ve quit training horses. I’ve heard these complaints before, some of them about myself, and many about other trainers. My curiosity about the how, who and why of unscrupulous trainer scamps is pretty much over.

Unfortunately my escape wasn’t to be. I was going to get an earful whether I liked it or not.

“I mean the horse could run a fancy circle, but when I took him out on the trail he just fell apart,” the unhappy owner went on.“He spooked, he wouldn’t cross water and there was no way I could get him out alone.”

OK. I admit, I bit. Chomp, chomp.

“Did you tell the trainer he was training a trail horse?” I asked. “I told him I wanted an all around horse, but I wanted him to have a good handle on him, so I figured reining was a good place to start. He didn’t disagree,” was the reply.

Well of course not, I thought, nobody is going to tell you their discipline isn’t a good base, especially if your check clears.

This isn’t as greedy and self-serving a thought as it may seem. Most trainers specialize in the area of horses they do best. They are attracted to dressage, reining, cow horse events, hunter jumper, or versatility because that’s what their good at. Of course the trainer will feel the base put on his colts is a good one. And like I said, regular, non-bouncing checks have a strong appeal in a world where non-payment means you get to start feeding the horse you aren’t getting paid for.

“The thing is, most reining horses go from the barn to the arena and back to the barn again. How could your colt learn about water and riding out alone when he was trained in the arena?” I asked him.

“Well broke is broke, if he was taught right he should have been fine,” the disgruntled horse owner grumbled.

There is some validity to this argument. The trainer who taught me to ride and train reined cow horses maintained you didn’t have to take them to the field to expect them to be broke in the field.

“If your horse knows his job is to listen to you then that’s what he’ll do, no matter what you throw at him. If you expect him to get along then he should do just that,” he told me.

I agree with this concept. I also am aware the horse who is obeying me only because it’s his job is going to be hyper aware, worried and on edge, even if obedient.

If the owner doesn’t have mad horse training skills and doesn’t know his horse well enough to handle some hijinks he’s going to have his hands full.

The complaining owner is not in an unusual spot. He now has a horse who knows how to do a bunch of stuff. If he’s been with a competent trainer he is pretty easy to get around on. He walks, trots, lopes, runs a circle and a straight line and probably is stopping and turning around pretty good.

He hasn’t learned to deal with conflicting cues, uneven weight distribution or hands, and especially, new situations.

He has been taught a lot of information very quickly and he was able to absorb it all because he received consistent handling, from the same rider, in a sequence, which very quickly made sense to him.

He knew every time he was led out of his stall he would be saddled, warmed up, loped in circles, run some straight lines and do some turns.

With each sequential ride more would be asked from him, but with refinement added to the basic, stop, start and turn introduced to him at the beginning of his stay.

Flexing, bending, foot control and energy expenditure would all be added as needed and be in the control of the rider.

The young horse would learn to wait for his rider to guide every single move he made for the duration of his training.

When he gets home, be it from a positive or negative learning experience he will only know what he has been taught.

On top of it, he will no longer think for himself. He will wait for his rider to think for him. So guess what happens when he heads out on the trail.

“Where’s the arena? “ He’ll ask and his little head will sling around.

His owner will either ignore him or kick him forward.

“Where is everybody?” Same little head raises up in the air.

“I don’t want to get in trouble, what do you want?”

This time the owner feels the rising hump in his newly and very expensively trained horse’s back and either grabs a hold of his face, kicks him again or yanks at his mouth.

“AHHHHHHHH” shrieks our little colt and the mayhem ensues.

Or something like that.

I have been really thinking about this. The natural horse guys have tried to approach it by teaching riders to work with their own horses and develop a bond.

But you can have a real good bond with your horse, you might be his favorite person on the planet, and he will still toss you in the weeds and run for home if he thinks this plan will save him from the horse eating scrub oak.

He will still hang you in a tree when another horse bolts towards you in the pasture if he thinks it will let him run too, even if he spent six months at the trainers and never got out of the arena.

A trainer can’t make up for your time in the saddle with your horse. He can’t give him trail savvy or teach him to calmly stay at a walk when a pack a bicyclists fly by unless he was specifically told to teach these things to your horse.

Even then it won’t be a guarantee unless the horse has enough hours in the saddle to let him know life out in the world is OK.

A trainer can teach him things, but these will never be a substitute for time.

My personal riding horse is seven years old. She is a very handy little cow horse and doesn’t embarrass me coming out of the herd.

Last summer we started to trail ride. She had been on a few cattle drives, but other than that she was pretty much an arena baby.

You would have thought she was two years old. Everything freaked her out. Bushes, wind in the trees, turkeys, log drags, downed trees, water crossings, mud, high grass, need I go on?

It was pretty frustrating until I realized what she was good at. Barking dogs? No big deal. Traffic? Not even an ear flick. I can throw her in any trailer and have her haul quietly for 10 or 1000 miles. Pavement, cattle, dust devils, new arenas, flapping flags, rolling plastic bags, none of these things bother her.

It’s because these are all sights and sounds she had dealt with many times over the five years I’ve been working her. We’ve been there, done that. In those circumstances she’s as broke as they come. She trusts me to take care of her and get her through these potential frights.

So I took heart and the challenge of our new world. I knew she was going to be fine, she just needed time under saddle. So did I. It wasn’t a matter of sending her out to be trained. It was a case of me spending the hours she needed.

She’s trotting across water, dragging those logs and jumping downed trees now. She’s still a little anxious alone, but it’s simply because I enjoy riding with my friends so much. We’re going to be fine.

A trainer can only teach your horse specific elements. If we want a solid citizen it’s our responsibility to put in the time. It’s also all the fun. Experience is what creates a partner.
Now if I ever want to cut a decent check in the cutting pen I’m going to have to go get some help from a cutting trainer.

But by spring I should be able to ride to him without worrying about getting tossed in the creek.