Time to get outside

                   First Day outside with my 4 year old

Catalina’s first day outside went very well.
We did take her outside last year as a 3 year old, but have kept most of her training inside.

Yesterday I lunged her outside in our arena and she was very good.
I will begin riding her outside this week.

Keep in mind we only have a show ring set up so there is no “real fence “ in our outdoor which means we need to go slow with the babies in the outdoor.

We have many deer, coyotes, and cows near by the ring which is great atmosphere for all horses but they need to get used to it.

We also had a new motorcycle track put up on our neighbor’s property which surrounds our property and is not far from the outdoor, making yet another challenge for young horses.

However I feel lucky to have all this atmosphere right at home to help prepare my young horses for the “real world” meaning horse shows.

Everything can be used as a training tool if one is patient and persistent, giving horses the time they need to handle new things both mentally and physically.

I always work on my young horse’s minds before making anything to difficult physically.

Just like when you go to the gym and are lifting weights or doing a new aerobic move, it’s important to learn to do the move correctly before adding weight and it’s important to also teach the aerobic move in a slow way before making it quicker.

The same holds true for training our horses.

They must understand what to do with their bodies and how to do it, so we do exercises to help the young horse have “body awareness”

Cross training young horses with jumping is a great way of doing that as well as ground work such as jogging, reining back  and high school work such as bowing.

If you are not a jump rider or do not have access to a good jump rider; free jumping works just as well to teach the horse about their body.

Without body control and mind body awareness the horse will never be truly trained.
This is the difference between “riding the horse” and “training “the horse.

My Dad always said “The horse can do all the movements; we are the ones who have trouble communicating with the horse”