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How to Train Wild Horses
By Horse Guy | February 10, 2010
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Training wild horses is a full time job. It requires patience, understanding, and commitment. You need patience because wild horses can be a pain in the neck. They do not submit easily. You need understanding because understanding how the mind of a horse works can greatly help you in teaching the horse. You will also need commitment, because training wild horses takes time. You have to be committed to achieve your goal of gentling a wild horse.
Training or teaching wild horses that have never been in captivity is relatively different from training horses bred and raised around people and fences. Horses, in general, are creatures of movement. They learn everything through movement. As a herd, horses rely on each other for safety. They have a certain hierarchy within the herd, where the strongest stallion is the leader. Constantly, that leader is challenged by other stallions to ensure that the leader is still capable of leading them. In horse training, you will have to be that leader.
The first step in training a wild horse is to establish trust. You will have to gain his trust before you can do anything with that horse. You cannot work with any horse if that horse does not trust you. One way of achieving this is to put the horse in a small pen and visit him every single day. You feed him, water him, and talk to him in a mild, reassuring manner. Some people even sing to the horse. But if you cannot sing, do not even try. You will be doing more harm than good.
Eventually, the horse will start to trust you. The horse will soon realize that you are not there to hurt him. Once this happens, you can now go inside the pen and slowly but firmly give him a massage or body rub. This will help strengthen the bond that you are now starting to build with the horse.
When you are confident that the horse no longer sees you as a threat, you can now start showing him objects that he will be using in the future. The rope and the halter must be the first items you should introduce to him. Let him smell it, rub it against his back and neck, so he will get used to it. Let him wear the halter for a few hours everyday, but take it off when you leave.
When you have acquainted the horse with objects around him like fences, ropes, the halter, the saddle, and everything else, he becomes more trusting. Once the horse looks to you as a leader, you now do what you want. Training him will be easier. However, there will be occasional stubborn behavior displays; this means the horse is testing your leadership. As previously mentioned, horses constantly test the leader of the herd. You will have to be firm in showing him who is boss.
Originally posted 2009-07-29 17:56:26. Republished by Old Post Promoter
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