Learning to Back Your Horse

Good morning everybody, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship and welcome to the Ranch Road.

"For years I've earned a reputation of getting horses to be good stoppers at a fairly young age and people have always asked, well how do you get those little young horses to stop so big? And number one, I don't really work on it in particular, I just work on the basic fundamentals. Number one, I want every horse to understand first and foremost why they're going. It's less of all, you used to say all the time, you make them going and let them whoa. So I don't really force a horse or ask a horse to stop, I just simply let them. And number two, I really believe in what I refer to as my three steps to stopping, which is number one, quit making them go. Number two, the magic word, whoa. And then lastly, we support with our hands to reinforce what the first two things indicated. And then every time I back a horse up, I actually say whoa, and then I draw them backwards. Whoa, and then I draw them backwards. After about 30 rides or so, what whoa means to the horses back up. So now let's move forward to say you're loping them out. And then you say the magic word, whoa. Now what is a horse thinking? Not whoa, not stop, but they're thinking back up. But what have they got to do before they back up? They've got to stop. So to me, just working a lot of backing a horse up, working a lot on getting a horse very come about backing, both on the ground and in the saddle, and then reinforcing the word whoa when we go to back them up. And they stop thinking about what it is we're asking to do next, which is in this case, to back. Appreciate you guys. Until next time, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship."

 

For more equine podcasts, visit Equine Podcast Search, made possible by Van Hargis Horsemanship.

www.equinepodcastsearch.com