TRAINING PROGRAMS 2022
Good behavior is habit forming … so is Bad behavior! The earlier you teach a young horse to behave well, to be obedient, to trust the rider, the more satisfying your relationship will be with your horse. Horses have really really long memories, a bad experience can stay with them for life. If a horse believes it can bully you, it often will. If it had a bad experience in a horse trailer for example, it will resist getting into a trailer. The longer a horse has been allowed to behave badly the longer it takes to set them on the right path again. Horses are like youngsters and with the proper gentle guidance they can grow up to be great partners and training is the key.
This program is administered over a 3-year time frame. Typically, the horse will stay at the R&K Ranch for a period of 30 days. At the end of this time the owner will come to collect their horse(s) and learn the training techniques with their own horse. A horse trained for 30 days each of 3 consecutive years will be vastly better than a horse trained only once for 30 days when they are 2 or 3 years old.
Every horse and every owner is different and while our Basic and Advanced Programs suit the majority of our clients, we will discuss and plan with the owners and customize for specific requirements. The horse should want to cooperate all the time rather than resisting or fighting.
One customer has chosen the following training plan as he wants extremely safe and compliant horses for himself and his grandchildren.
o Yearling 1 month
o 2-years-old 1 month twice a year – Spring and Fall
o 3-years-old 1 month twice a year – Spring and Fall
o Tune up in following year if needed for 30 days (Optional decided on a per horse basis)
o Problems
When an owner collects their horses, Robin will demonstrate the training with their horse and he allows the owner to videotape the demonstration. This allows the owner to continue the training and build on their relationship with their horse when they return home.
Robin will also give the owner a list of safety tips that might help the owner become ever more alert when handling their horse for the safety of both the horse and the owner.
Some of our repeat customers bring their young Sport Horses for basic training, and instead of Trail Riding, these programs teach the basics: obedience, willingness, flexibility, de-sensitizing, etc. The horse leaves full of confidence and has learnt to think for itself and to trust that it will be asked to do things in future training that it can handle. This applies to horses that specialize in Barrel Racing, Stadium Jumping, Dressage and 3 Day Eventing.
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The purpose of the Yearling Program is to expose the young horse to many basic but critical activities. They are much to young to ride, but they can be taught many basic lessons so they will be easier to handle, and later when they are old enough at age 3 to be ridden, it will only be a small step from what they have already learnt.
BASIC GROUNDWORK: (30 days in the Youth Program – from weanlings to 2-year-old).
The purpose is to have a horse that is easy to be around while you have to do the things during the day that you need to do with a horse.)
Respect:
- 3 Back Ups
- Lunging: Short Lunge for Respect
- Both eyes for respect
- Flexing:
- Stay out of your space
- Desensitizing: Change their minds, flight method to stop and look and watch it go away.
NOTE: NO FURTHER LESSONS ARE GIVEN UNTIL THE ABOVE LESSONS (a – f) HAVE BEEN SOLIDLY ABSORBED BY THE HORSE
Side Pass:
To the mounting block (towards pressure and away from pressure).
Standing Still:
Necessary for mounting and dismounting.
Hobbles:
Learn to handle hobbles – mentally changes them to be more docile, keeps them safe, so if they get stuck somewhere they will stand and wait for assistance.
Temperament Adjustment:
Change a bully temperament to become docile and mix with the herd.
Patient Pole:
Purpose of the Patient Pole is to have horse learn to stand and have patience – works on their mental state, they have to stand, they find out they don’t have to stand still, they can go round and round for hours if they want, so eventually they work out they can drop their head and nap. Then when you tie your horse to a hitch rail, they have already learnt that this is a place to stand and take a nap. The Patient Pole is very gentle, a horse can rear, lunge etc. but cannot hurt themselves or people. For a horse to learn this it can take from 2 hours to 24 hours and it works almost all the time. Repeat this exercise for about 3 days with progressively less times spent at the Patient Pole. From that point forward the horse will stand just with a rope halter.
Hitch Rail:
Once horse has been trained on the Patient Pole, they will be perfectly well behaved at the hitch rail for as long as you want them to stand there.
Socialization:
Mix with other horses and farmyard animals.
THINGS THEY NEED TO KNOW
Teach them to pick up their feet.
Trailer Loading In/Out and Send them in.
Games:
- Walk on the bridge
- Jump the barrels
- Step up different heights in the platform
- Walk through tires
- Expose to cattle, dogs, chickens, ducks, goats etc. etc.
Hold the saddle and bridle:
- Learn how to carry saddle with a breast collar, back cinch, and cropper on the tail
- Be ponied (led by another horse) in difficult terrain
- Cross different water crossings
Give to the bit.
Free lunging and rope lunging to come and ‘hook' on to me.
If there is a real problem horse Robin will teach them to lay down.
The purpose of the 2-Year-Old Program is to refresh and remind the horse of what they learnt previously and to add new activities to further enhance their training.
1. Repeat exercises above as well as the following:
a. Expose to truck traffic, construction, go through county shop .
b. Cross black top with white/yellow lines.
c. Housing development, bicycles etc.
2. Lunge in round pen, and change directions
3. Move off hind quarters
4. Move off front end
5. Understand the bit and what it is for
6. Learn the different gaits and transition them (walk to lope etc.).
7. Ride them a little.
8. Be capable to leave the herd with a rider and return without urgency.
9. Leave the buildings alone.
10. Split off from the group.
11. Don’t have a fit if another horse ahead leaves.
12. Build confidence.
13. Work as a team, horse gains confidence in himself, and then in his rider, this enables him to handle assorted situations calmly and confidently.
The purpose of the 3-Year-Old Program is to refresh and remind the horse of what they learnt previously and to add new activities to further enhance their training.
1. Repeat exercises for the Yearling and 2-year-old program as well as the following
2. Teach the horse to carry a rider and to obey rider commands of hands and legs, and to learn to balance with the rider. The horse will learn to trail ride with other horses over rough terrain.
3. Collect up when riding, ‘on the bit’.
4. Teach to Side Pass
5. Push cattle around
6. Go on the highway and through a housing development
7. Take them on challenging trail rides, to work really hard to handle difficult trails
8. Use to pony (lead) other horses and this helps train the new kids on the block.
MISCELLANEOUS SPECIALIZED TRAINING:
Problems:
Horses with typical problems are often sent to R&K Ranch, these problems include but are not limited to:-
- Rearing
- Bucking
- Bolting
- Kicking other horse or people
- Not standing still when required
- Spooking
- Biting
- Aggressive in the stall
- Weaving
- Cribbers
- Trailer loading
- Farrier work.
