I rode Rosie for the first time on Saturday, and she did excellently! Rosie is a mare who I did quite a bit of groundwork with last year, such as desensitization to bareback pads and a big green ball. She’s a smart mare and a quick learner. Rosie was in a foster home for a [...]

Question: How long does it take to train a horse?
Answer: As long as it takes.
This is a follow up post to my previous post, In a Whisper or In a Shout? Training under Time Restraints, which discussed training unhandled colts in 2 1/2 hours.
Do you remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? [...]

Rosie and I recently started playing with a big green ball. It’s not quite as big as some of the ones marketed by natural horse trainers, but it’s still pretty big! The ball is actually an exercise ball I bought at a sporting goods store. I just hope it will be strong enough for the [...]

This weekend was Rosie’s first encounter with a bareback pad. We’ve played with a saddle pad several times and she’s done a great job, so I felt she was ready for the next step. The bareback pad turned out to be a non-event, which was what I had hoped would happen. Even though I know [...]

Rosie and I played with a saddle pad for the second time yesterday. In traditional horse training, many horses will learn to put up with saddling without truly ever accepting the process. Or, through rough handling, they later learn to resent the act of being saddled. I want Rosie to like being saddled and to [...]