Blindfold Training for Your Horse

Months ago I wrote an article about organizations and agencies providing equine emergency response training for horse owners and emergency personnel. This training is designed to help get horses to safety during emergencies such as wildlands fires, floods, hurricanes and accidents such as truck and trailer wrecks, and also helps owners get themselves and their horses rescue ready.

I received comments and e-mails on recommendations on getting horses ready for emergencies such as blindfold training your horses in case you had to lead them through fires and smoke or other spooky things, such as statutes of George Soros,......sorry I couldn't resist.

If your horse is pretty sacked on his ears,...meaning your can handle the ears without problems, and your horse has worn a fly mask, then blindfold training will come a little easier. Training your horse to accept being blindfolded is not only good for emergencies, but may come in handy if you are caught in a hail storm or 80 mph sand storms and need to protect this head, face, eyes and nose, but blindfold training also serves to gentle your horse just a bit more and help develop more trust in you.

Once you get your horse okay with the item you are going to use as a bindfold....try using a shirt, as this is what you will probably have available out on a ride or what responder may have,....hold if over your horse's eye's and check his acceptance. Using a halter is a good idea so you can control your horse with the lead line. A few seconds to start is okay. He gets a release when you take the blindfold away and restore his ability to see. Build on this like you would with any task. If he is troubled by the blindfold he will probably try and back out of it.

As your horse becomes more comfortable covering his eyes, you may try to secure the blindfold so you can move him around. A long sleeve shirt is good for this as you can use the sleeves to tie together, using one round turn, underneath his throat latch. Be ready on the halter lead line to control your horse and to pull the blindfold off your horse if he gets too panicky. It wouldn't be good to have a blindfolded horses getting away from you and running into something. But the idea is that if he gets panicky in 6 seconds, remove it in five,....and build upon that. 

Once your horse is okay with this, you can move him around more,.... get to lead up correctly,....and possible lunge him on a line in a small circle. When you need to securing the blindfold better, you can tuck in a portion of the shirt underneath the cheek pieces of the halter or the browband of a bridle.

While I have drapped rain slickers over my horses head while I have been riding him, blindfolding him on the ground and getting him to lead up is much different - at least for him. I think one key during blindfold training is to continue to talk to your horse so he can hear your voice, and pet on him, but again the release is when he stands or leads calmly and you remove the blindfold restoring his vision. Good luck and safe journey.