On a New Horse - Correct all Bad Habits at Once?

Kelsey wrote to say that she was just given a new horse, a 15 year old QH gelding who was used for team roping the past 8 years as her friend bought a new horse. She asked ".....Sam is a great horse, but he has only been in arenas and used for team roping for the past 8 years and he has several bad habits. Would you suggest correcting all bad habits at once or try to, or to address them one at a time?"

Kelsey did not elaborate on your horse's bad habits, but that's okay, even if she sent a list my answer would likely be the same. Come to think on it, it would be nice for our horses to give us a list of our bad habits now wouldn't it? But your question is a really good one as many horses change hands several times through their lifetime and are a compendium of all the handler/rider's traits, good and bad, that they have learned. I know you are thinking that if I am always correcting my horse then what can I expect out of him if I am always nagging him to change? Will I take away his confidence and make him a hesitant horse? If you were to prioritize the necessary corrections then the most dangerous habits would be the first to fix, but I'm of the mind that you can correct all bad habits as they present themselves. Not every bad habit is going to be a federal offense nor does your correction is going to cause him anxiety. You are just asking him to do something different. You should simply be asking him to change and you'll likely be doing it several times over many days to get that set in his mind.

An example would be leading. If he is crowding you when you lead him, then you use as little pressure as required increasing to as much as necessary to get him to maintain adequate spacing - walking to your rear and offset some - whatever you are comfortable with. While my horses normally lead up just fine, occasionally one of more of my horses will crowd me, I'll just simply apply a little drag or reward pressure on his lead rope to remind him of where I need him to be. They will respond in kind, almost like they are thinking "Oh yeah, I forgot for a moment." If a horse continued to creep up on me when leading, I would continue to correct him in the same manner. If he didn't respond I'd stop and back him with enough energy so that I was directing his feet backwards - so it was my idea for him to go backwards - then I would lead off again.

I have pulled a border's horse to lead him to turn out and taken 15 minutes to get there because of correcting little things, but not correcting them with a mad on. For instance, if I halter a horse and lead him out of his pen and he runs out, I'll bend him and send him back into the pen and ask him to try again to exit the pen at a walk. If he crowds me when leading, we'll correct that. If he spooks at something like a new feed bucket or coat on the rail, we'll spend some time getting him sacked out on that. Eventually we'll get to the turnout gate and I'll wait until he stands quiet and drops his head when I ask to get the halter off. If I didn't do all this calmly and in a matter of fact manner then I can see how the horse may get troubled. So I'd say much of your question can be answered by saying you can correct all you want, when you want, just go about it in a manner that's going to cause the least trouble with your horse.

Now let's take backing as an example. We all want a horse that backs soft, head down and vertical, feet moving on cue and backing in a straight line if that's what we are asking. But if your horse doesn't back well, then my priorities would be first getting his feet to move, making sure he gets a release with each step, then getting him soft in the face as we back, and thirdly backing in a straight line. This is the sequence I try for when I teach a horse to back. Once he can back in that manner well, but at some point gets sloppy at backing, I have no issue with correcting everything at once. And as sure as the world is round, my wife sure has no problems in trying to correct my bad habits all at once either, but sometimes she goes about it with a mad on.

Hope this helps, Kelsey. Good luck and Safe Journey.

Training or Re-training a Newly Bought Horse

Charlie wrote to ask a couple questions on buying a horse. " If I buy a horse that has been trained by a different owner, should I ask how they handle the horse, or should I retrain it to my qwerks? Or can the horse even be reconditioned to a new rider?"

The short answer is no, I would not ask them how they handle the horse. I’d probably ask the seller what the horse is like and why they are selling him. I won’t take what the seller tells me or doesn’t tell me as gospel. I’ll have to see for myself.

Just imagine if you asked the seller how he handles the horse and he said "well,.....I have to beat on him to get him to move and some times he wants to run me over, and when I'm riding him I have to pull real hard to turn his head.  And the biggest aggravation is that he's hard to catch in his pen to get a halter on him!"   You are not going to say "Okay, show where and how hard to beat him."......at least I hope you're not.  I would think that you would be planning on handling that horse in as quiet and gentle way as possible.  That doesn't mean that you're not going to get his attention from time to time.  It just means that you are going to give the horse the benefit of the doubt.  

The horse will tell you what he knows or doesn’t know, or how he has been handled. Your question Charlie, would be the same if someone was bringing me a horse to help them with, and again that's  seeing what the horse knows or doesn't know which is always a reflection on the owner. In many cases the horse could be a product of many different owners. I think most horses have an ability to act and work, or re-learn to act and work, at the level of the rider. It may take time, more time in some cases, but with a good foundation of ground training and fundamentals under saddle, most horses can overcome problems created by their previous owners.  

When looking at the horse for a potential purchase you'll usually see the owner handle the horse first and this will give you a good idea about the horse. …about the owner as well. When the owner puts a halter on the horse and brings him out of the pen, you’ll be seeing how that horse leads up and if the horse is focused on his handler or not. If the horse is distracted and not respectful then this will be your first indication of other issues in practically anything else you are going to do with this horse.

Likewise when the owner rides him. It's a good idea to have the owner ride him, then you can get in the saddle and see for yourself. A few months back we were looking at a horse for a client overseas. Although we wanted to purchase a 6 or 10 year old Gelding if possible, and something that was not going to run off with a novice to intermediate rider, we did look at a 3 year old Mare that was being used for barrel racing. I had the owner, a young lady in her early twenties ride the horse, then I got on to see what the horse was like. As you can expect with a 3 year old, especially one that was being used for barrel racing and not much else, this mare was bracey on the bit, didn’t have any idea about lateral flexion or moving her front end or back end independent of each other. She didn’t respond to leg pressure to transition from the walk to a trot, or trot to a canter. The seller was telling me “you really got to bang on her and then she’ll go!” While I don’t want a horse like that, this is something that can be retrained.

I am off the mind that it is usually a good thing to start over with a horse, like you would with a green 2 or 3 year old. You can progress as fast as the horse lets you and you'll catch and correct issues, both big and small.