![]() ![]() ![]() While a foal is far too young to be ridden, it is still able to learn skills it will need later in life. Some, like this yearling, are shown in conformation classes. Horses too young to be ridden are trained to accept a halter, taught basic skills, manners, and become accustomed to human activity. By doing so, the foal should learn that no harm will be done to it at a human’s hands (hopefully) and that humans should be respected. However, even people who do not advocate imprinting often still place value on handling a foal a great deal while it is still nursing and too small to easily overpower a human. Others may leave a foal alone for its first few hours or days, arguing that it is more important to allow the foal to bond with its dam. Within a few hours of birth, a foal being imprinted will have a human touch it all over, pick up its feet, and introduce it to human touch and voice. Advocates of handling foals from birth sometimes use the concept of imprinting to introduce a foal within its first few days and weeks of life to many of the activities they will see throughout their lives. Most young domesticated horses are handled at birth or within the first few days of life, though some are only handled for the first time when they are weaned from their mothers, or dams. Regardless of the desired goal of training, most horses are exposed to a general series of steps that will ultimately prepare them for a designated discipline. That being said, only trainers or those with several years of experience should handle a foal’s entire regime alone. Like most animals, a young horse will more easily adapt to human expectations than an older one, so human handling of the horse from a very early age is generally advised.Horses need to be taught to rely upon humans to determine when fear or flight is an appropriate response to new stimuli and not to react by instinct alone. Horses, as prey animals, have an inborn fight or flight instinct that can be adapted to human needs.Horses are social herd animals and, when properly handled, can learn to follow and respect a human leader. ![]() ![]() Thus, the human has the responsibility to think about how to use the psychology of the horse to lead the animal into an understanding of the goals of the human trainer. Horses, like other animals, differ in brain structure from humans and thus do not have the same type of thinking and reasoning ability as human beings.Safety is paramount: Horses are much larger and stronger than humans, so they must be taught behavior that will not injure people.The initial goal of most types of training is to create a horse that is safe for humans to handle (under most circumstances) and able to perform a useful task for the benefit of humans.Ī few specific considerations and some basic knowledge of horse behavior help a horse trainer be effective no matter what school or discipline is chosen: The range of training techniques and training goals is large, but basic animal training concepts apply to all forms of horse training. The see also section of this article provides links to more specific information about various schools and techniques of horse training.Įffective communication and harmony between horse and rider are among the goals of proper training However, it is beyond the scope of this article to go into the details of various training methodology, so general, basic principles are described below. Some techniques are considered cruel other methods are considered gentler and more humane. There is tremendous controversy over various methods of horse training and even some of the words used to describe these methods. Horses are also trained for specialized jobs from movie stunt work to police and crowd control activities, circus entertainment, and equine-assisted psychotherapy. Today, most horse training is geared toward making horses useful for a variety of recreational and sporting equestrian pursuits. Historically, horses were trained for warfare, farm work, sport and transport purposes. Horses are trained to be manageable by humans for everyday care as well as for equestrian activities, ranging anywhere from equine sports such as horse racing, dressage, or jumping, to therapeutic horseback riding for people with disabilities. Horse training refers to a variety of practices that teach horses to perform certain behaviors when commanded to do so by humans. ![]()
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