Horse Training

There are many reasons people ask me to train their horse.  Some people want to fix a specific problem, others want to develop the potential in their horse for a specific sport and others just want to get the horse safe enough to trail ride!  Whatever your reason, my training program will improve your horse and if you train at the same time or watch the videos, it will improve you too!  

Most often, the obvious problem is not the actual problem.  For instance if your horse has trouble loading in the trailer, it's probably not so much the trailer as your horse doesn't trust or focus on you or understand how to give to pressure etc.  If your horse has trouble picking up correct leads it may have less to do with loping and more to do with how balanced the horse is, whether it's picking up its shoulder or how bracy against the reins it is.  

Therefore, whenever I get an outside horse in for training, I treat it just like it's the first day that horse has ever seen a human.   It'd be just like you were going to tutor someone and you had no idea whether the student was a PhD candidate or failed out of first grade.  You'd start with easy questions and keep increasing the difficulty until you find where the student starts to have issues.  

It's no different with horses.  Most horses have been rushed through their schooling and massive holes have been left which cause many of the problems people experience.  I start with the basics (asking the horse to move, stop and focus on the ground) and keep progressing till I find the holes.
Hopefully, an experienced horse will breeze through those first few questions, but by doing this, I identify all the holes in the horse's foundation.  Once we've fixed those holes, many times the problem that the owner was worried about no longer even exists.  

Most of the outside horses I train live here at our place so that I can work on them at least 5 days a week for average an hour a day (boarding fees do apply if you choose this option).  I structure my training a little differently than most trainers.  I don't operate on a per-saddling basis.  Instead, I start a stopwatch when I enter the pen and stop the stopwatch when I step out of the pen.  I'm a firm believer that training starts the moment you open the gate.  Some sessions last three hours, other sessions only last 5 minutes.  I train to achieve the best result for the horse, not for a specific amount of time.  My hourly rate is $40/hr. I use QuickBooks to track each training session so you'll get an official log of the hours and easy payment methods through the invoice which will be emailed to you.  

A lot of my clients wish to receive a video of every training session.  I'm happy to provide this.  If desired, I'll post each day's video to YouTube with a private link and send it to you each day.  I will also explain what I'm doing as I go along so you can learn and copy what I'm doing when you get your horse back.  You're also welcome to come watch in person if you wish.  You're welcome to come ride your horse and/or take a lesson at any point in the training and if at any point in the training you're  unhappy with the situation, you are free to take the horse back at any time and boarding/training fees would be prorated to actual time on our land and time trained. 

Give us a shout at 806-577-5503 (text preferred cause I'm probably on horseback!) to discuss your horse training needs!