Tray Pelster on Groundwork

New Mexico Horsewoman and trainer Tray Pelster on how she likes to start horses.

 

"I like to do a lot of ground work so I don't have to deal with as much crap on top of them. I have the time to spend with them when I was training horses under people. You have 30 days so you spend across the board from a lot of my trainers on average about a week, week and a half in the round pin and then you just get on them. You learn how to take shortcuts and you learn how to do it quickly and I would rather start them on the ground for about a month and just see where they're at. I was raised on hand cocks and that's slow, start them on the ground thing. They don't look near as hard. It's mostly a scared thing or a fight. I don't trust you situation and the majority of the time I've found that hand cocks that get a bad rap for things because they're smart and they're smarter than most people. But if you can teach them that this is not a fight or fight situation and that you can trust me and they won't want to try anything when you're on their back. So I've had great success with starting them slow on the ground and just covering all your bases and moving with the horse. See my dad, he's a firm believer in starting them three or four. I am like 125 pounds. So for learning from horse trainers, honestly I like to start them at two. Some horses with exception just because they're not mentally ready or they're not physically ready."

 

New Mexico horsewoman, Tray Pelster.