Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Retraining a pastured horse

From: Melissa

We have recently obtained a horse that has not been worked in at least a year. She is rather sweet but as stated has not been worked with and can be rather stubborn and antsy at times. Any suggestions for re-training her to be the children's horse she has been and was intended to be? Melissa

Hi Melissa! If this horse hasn't been worked with in at least a year, she's certainly not very fit, although she may be quite fit enough to run around in the pasture. That's not a bad thing in this case, because it means you'll be able to build her up gradually and put muscles on her exactly where you want them to be. ;-)

The best way to re-train her is to train her. Since you bought her recently, you weren't the person who trained her originally, and you don't actually know exactly what the mare knows, how well she knows it, and what she can do and how well she can do it. This gives you an opportunity to start her over from the ground up, and train her exactly the way you want to.

I'd start her just the way you would a youngster: have her legs and back and teeth checked, begin with ground-work on the leadrope, then longeing or round-pen work, and finally ridden work. It may take you several months or a full year to bring her back, but when you've finished the re-training process, you'll have a mare that you know really well, and you'll be able to use her to help those children learn to ride.

Jessica

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