 |
| Starting The Colt by: Joel Dibrell Much tension has arisen over what age & how to go about starting a colt. While there are many different methods out there, I'm going to discuss in this article a tried & true group of methods that have worked for me when starting young horses. First of all I begin ground work w/ him at about 6 months, at this point I only work him for about 45 minutes a day. My goal is not to train him so much as to get in his head & establish a solid bond & mutual trust & respect, the true foundation of training any animal. For this I would recommend just basic halterwork until he gets it downpat at which point l will continue to repeat it so he doesn't forget, but change it up everytime so he doesn't become bored w/ it. At this stage it isn't very useful to try & work him for long periods of time due to the fact that much like a young child he has a rather short attention span. At about a year or so I spend about a week or two working him in the roundpen w/ the saddle sitting in the center of it in plain view & will even let him come up & smell it & look it over when our lesson is done. After this I put a blanket on his back work him under it just so he becomes acustomed to having something back there. Once he's comfortable w/ the saddle being in the roundpen & the blanket on his back I take it one step further & put the saddle on his back then ask him to walk around the round pen slowly. When he gets used to the saddle & moving under it, I ask him to trot & then eventually lope under it. After he learns to move under the saddle well & it doesn't bother him any longer I proceed to introduce him to neck reining by first using a technique favored by my lovely fiancee. I walk along beside him & lightly apply pressure to his neck on the proper side when I ask him to turn for me, it's imperative you do this frequently & be sure to praise when he responds correctly. Now personally I add oral cues to the neck reining, these being in addition to the cluck, kiss, shhh & whoa, such as when I ask him to turn right I will say "right" or when I ask him to roll back for me I will say "hard right". I have found that these cues can prove to be invaluable later on down the road if the horse is used for cutting becuz he not only has the leg cues to work off of but the oral cues as well. Next I throw in ground driving not only to improve his neck reining but to acustom him to receiving cues from the saddle as well. At a year & a half I begin to put weight on the saddle. Depending on the horse that's usually either a pair of rock filled jeans or I will climb halfway onto & stay for a moment then get down. (Remember, it's NEVER a good idea to climb on a horse's back before they reach the age of two)When weighting the saddle w/ my body I repeat this many times thru out a lesson on both sides. I found that my horse, Flame, was more responsive to this method than the rock filled jeans which oddly enough caused him to buck, tho he offered no resistance to me on his back. At two it comes time for the first ride. In this article I'm not going into much detail, my next article will be a followup to this one & describe in depth how I go about putting the first ride on a colt. When I go to put the first ride on him I've already got a good foundation laid so he's not likely to misbehave (which is not to say he WON'T tho, many a bronc ride has been taken due to overestimation of the work that's been put in). It's usually a good idea to work him thru your usual routine & then get on his back... Well, there it is folks, my first article. I'm not a writer, just a cowboy so pardon any grammatical errors & such. I hope this helps anyone who reads it. |
|
 |
 |