Are you eager to enhance the bond with your horse and take your relationship to the next level?
We have the perfect solution for you!
Introducing 5 carefully designed challenges that will help you and your horse develop Connection, Attention, Communication, Calmness, and Trust.
These essential elements will transform your partnership, enabling you and your horse to achieve much more together.
Each challenge includes questions to ask yourself and your horse.
When you can answer “yes” to these questions, your relationship will have reached the next level!
CONNECTION
Challenge 1: Walk with your horse for a least 20 steps at liberty.
Our first question is… are you with me and can we move together?
Being able to walk together shows you have a connection with your horse. He wants to be there next to you.
If the answer to this first one is yes, then it’s time to ask another question…
ATTENTION
Challenge 2: Walk next to your horse, stop, and back five steps without touching the lead.
Here we are, asking the same question, just stepping it up a little.
I see you can walk next to me, but are you paying enough attention to stay with me if I step back?
We want them to mirror us as we move and to want to stay with us.
When our horse mirrors our movements, we have their focus. All their attention is on us, not other horses in the pasture or what might be happening around them.
COMMUNICATION
Challenge 3: Guide your horse through an obstacle course, cones, and posts without pulling on the lead.
Anyone can pull their horse around. If we want true communication with our horses, we need to guide and maneuver them with our body language. To achieve a give and take where horse and human can communicate wordlessly to accomplish a task together.
Set up a course with what you have on hand… cones, jump rails, logs, then guide them through it.
Can you walk between these two narrow posts? When we get to the end, can you turn on your hindquarters? How about forequarters? Are you capable of more?
Ask for a sidepass over a rail or your horse to straddle the post one front and one hind on each side. Try to do your course without ever tightening up the leadrope.
CALMNESS
Challenge 4: Your horse will wait while you walk 10 feet from them.
Now that we’ve established that your horse wants to be with you, can you keep him away? Many horses will have a hard time being separated from you. When working with you is fun, you are an exciting place to be. We want to be able to ask him to resist the excitement, to remain calm.
Working in a safe place for your horse to be loose, ask him to stay while you walk away. At first, it may only be small distances, but once he answers the question correctly, you can add more distance until you are up to ten feet!
Then try to challenge yourself further. Can you make it twenty? Can you walk a circle around him? Can you call him to you?
When a horse can remain calm in the face of excitement, he will be able to stand quietly and wait until you give the next cue.
TRUST
Challenge 5: Your horse will touch something 'scary' at liberty.
Your horse should trust you to control how he moves his body when you ask this question. Trust is important in our relationship with our horses.
We will ask him to trust you enough to follow you wherever you lead him and trust that you will never ask him to face something that could hurt him.
We are going to find something that he is uncomfortable around. Balloons, tarps, and mailboxes are good, safe options. Practicing all the steps you have worked on up to now – a loose lead – a willingness to let you move his body – ask gently for him to approach the scary thing. It is important never to force. We need to let it be up to him.
Now we ask, are you willing? Will you trust me? Can you touch this?
When the answer is yes, you know your horse trusts you. ❤️
HORSE TRICKS CLUB is your ultimate guide to mastering these 5 Challenges and so much more. Unleash your horse’s full potential and enrich your partnership by joining us.
