Tag: Charles Wilhelm

Do you have a battle with your horse every time you try to clip his bridle path? Is clipping around his ears and feet impossible? Here are some tips on how to get your horse to accept being clipped, or being what I call a “clipper broke” horse. In other words, the horse accepts the noise and vibration of the clippers and stands quietly.

Over the last 35 years I have worked with many blind horses, probably three or four dozen. Most have been blind in one eye, and some totally blind. Through practical experience I’ve found that when a situation like this happens, the horse wakes up one morning and can’t see and life goes on. Unlike the human reaction where we, with our mental processes and rational minds, understandably fall apart until we come to terms with it. We must become familiar with what we have and with our space. We must learn to accept and cope with life. With a horse, blindness comes much easier. They don’t have the trauma of the loss of something and they don’t have the emotional stress. I think with horses that are blind in both eyes, they learn to rely on other senses just like humans, hearing and smell and a level of acuity. Like humans, they utilize their other senses to adapt to the best of their ability.

I see a lot of rude, pushy horses. Probably 90% of the horses brought in to the barn for training are pushy and do not respect our space.  As owners, we usually spend more time riding than dealing with ground issues. There is nothing wrong with riding and having a good time. We buy a horse so that we can go out on the trail, rope, sort cattle or do any number of activities.  However, believe it or not, more accidents happen on the ground than while riding.  

We’ve been talking about the part that personality plays in the training of a horse. We know about the herd instinct and the fight or flight mechanism, but the personality of the horse is also an important factor in the training of a horse. Last time we discussed five of the seven distinct types of personalities: compliant, bully, indifferent, timid, and the Nervous Nellie. This time we are going to cover the last two personality types.

I’ve done a couple of articles on this topic but I always think this subject is worth revisiting. So what is foundation? It is the basic training that makes up the building blocks of performance. It is the point where you start with a horse and revisit to reinforce behaviors or correct them when the horse goes off track. Or, in other words, it is the skill set that makes up the foundation of all training.

Is it better for a horse to be kept in a stall, a paddock or a pasture? Sometimes we don’t have a choice but when we do, it is best to consider what is right for your horse.

I have had a lot of horses come into the barn and have received many telephone calls related to horses that buck. There are many reasons that a horse will buck. It may not be a broke horse, or the freshness may not have been taken off of it before it was ridden. There may also be medical or saddle issues. Medical and saddle issues can be one and the same.

I remember growing up and hearing that we must always ride with light hands and not pull on our horses. But what if the horse does not respond to a light rein and he pulls the reins through our hands? I believe this means we are not communicating with the horse. So, through lack of education and knowledge we end up making our horses heavier by pulling harder on the reins.

Spurs are a training aid to assist us to get a horse to go in the direction we would like it to go. We are looking for a well trained horse, whether we want the horse to be an eventer, a dressage horse, a reiner or just a good trail horse. You can look at spurs as the training wheels on a bicycle. At first the wheels are on the ground but as the rider becomes more proficient, the wheels are raised and eventually removed.