Safe Cobs Archived Newsletter - Continued Training

 

 

 

Here at Safecobs we are well known for finding and training safe hacking horses. We don't necessarily put ménage work in place, this can be done later with the help of your instructor.

When you get your cob home, his education shouldn't stop there. In fact it should continue by reinforcing what has already been learnt, and by building on familiar patterns of behaviour. We know horses are creatures of habit. Horses can be trained to master good habits and keep them going, especially if they are already in place.

Your horse will learn quickly and enjoy his lessons if the sessions are short and include praise coupled with guidance. Submission by domination is unnecessary, and can sew the seeds of fear and resentment. Cobs are easily worried by too much pressure too soon. This can lead to insecure behaviour, so if he's young, he needs a sympathetic and easy approach to formal schooling.

As a horse owner you will want to do your best to encourage that special bond to develop. It does take time, and also an acceptance of responsibility on your part when it comes to handling, riding and training. By looking at how we do things, we can see that it is just as easy to keep a good habit going as it is to allow a bad one to creep in.

Structured riding out is enormously beneficial from a training point of view, of which riding in the ménage forms a small part. Horses cope mentally much better with a natural environment, and will generally be more relaxed and less pressured than in the confines of a school. Of course if your horse is mostly ridden in a school and is then asked to hack out, you can expect him to be somewhat reluctant, especially if he's asked to go alone. We can see that it's often easier to put ménage training in place later on from a hacking perspective than to do it the other way round.

Which brings us to the subject of history. Our horses often don't come with any, which we think is a good thing. When we are given the history of a horse from the vendor's point of view, it is nearly always subjective and angled towards the best case scenario, with detrimental elements often not disclosed. This is misleading and can be dangerous. I know many of you will have direct experience of such things.

Most young horses from Ireland have been bred and reared purely for sale to UK and European buyers. They are unlikely to have been in private homes, and although it's true that they will have had a mixed experience when to it comes to breaking and handling, as trainers we are interested in the fact that they are unspoilt. To use my own phrase, "They haven't been got at." They are like blank sheets of paper, which allows us to do what we call imprinting. This means we can write our own history for the horses we produce. We can imprint through correct training habits that are safe and desirable. We don't choose to work with horses whose history or behaviour shows they are somewhat damaged or spoilt in some way. It's sad to say, but there are too many like that out there already.

When you own a Safecob, you become part of that horse's history. What you do and how you do it will determine the strength of your future partnership together. We are as excited as you are to find out how you develop as horse and rider in the months and years ahead.

Happy Riding,

Until next time,

Avril