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| Joined: | Wed Oct 10th, 2007 |
| Location: | Eustis, Florida USA |
| Posts: | 176 |
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I feel for you. {{{hugs}}}
I, too, bought a young Rocky pretty far away from home and left him there for training. Unfortunately, he wasn't started gently, but truly "broken". The trainer also suggested I travel there for riding lessons, which was a hardship for me.
But I was fortunate enough, after much searching, to find a natural horse trainer that was willing to travel. Later, I even found a great horse trainer that worked with me, giving me lessons for confidence.
I agree about finding a way to go there at least go for 2-3 days./
My experience led me to exhaustive reasearch and here are some suggestions:
1. Make sure you have 100% the right saddle that fits your horse perfectly. My horse went through 9 saddles before we settled on the Imus that fit us both. Tack issues surface as "behavioral issues".
2. Read everything on GAITED horses, DVD's and subscriptions, books that you can. There are some Natural Horsetrainers that offer great general Horse info on ground manners and such.
3. Search the internet, contact other Gaited Horse people and find out about a local trainer. There are some good ones out there, that just don't advertise.
4. This is 100% the best board and source of info on Gaited horses you will ever find. The people here are super supportive, and always willing to help out with great advice when you get stuck with a problem. Just reading old posts will give you great new info. Brenda Imus offers this great website for free and it has without a doubt bettered the lives of many, many Gaited horses and their owners.tu1tu1
5. Gaited Horse owners are like a "special club"
, they are mostly experts on their horses and the subject and will help you, too. Find some of them near you that can trail ride with you and help you along the way.6. Listen to your horse and your instincts. This is probably been my biggest mistake, I had doubts about his early training, but the trainer told me "this is how my dad and my grandpappy did it 1,000 years ago"...........also, my horse tried to tell me for months that his saddle pinched him, I ignored it, till he resorted 6 months later to bucking- and still I ignored it and at the suggestion of another trainer put him in a Tom Thumb bit; once I figured out it was the saddle, all his bad behavior ended.
Always pay attention to your horse and learn to know him and her so you know right away when something is wrong. I believe now that they will tell you right away, you just need to know how to pay attention.
7. Don't be gullible enough (like I was), to think that "harsher" methods work better, just because an experienced trainer tells you so. At least in my case, the harsher training that some trainers did and suggested, always made my horse worse and took forever to fix afterwards.
8. If you're afraid to go on a trail or canter or do something on horseback, don't beat yourself up. Fear is just a sign that you are NOT ready yet to do something yet. Don't ride when you're afraid or upset or don't feel good. Your horse will know and react accordingly.
9.Also, don't rush into anything. Baby steps are fine. It took me two years after I bought my horse till I started riding him, another 2 months of riding on my property and then feel okay to take him out on the trail. Baby steps are great and let yourself enjoy the journey...even though I didn't ride him for almost 2 1/2 years, I spent those years bonding with him and learning and it was time well invested.
10....and when you finally get there and are 100% TRAIL PARTNERS-enjoy every second of it.
I now wear a bracelet that says "Live Your Dreams" to remind myself that I AM living a lifelong dream and every ride I take a few moments to take a deep breath, relax, feel my horse, feel thankful and I look up to heaven and say Thank You God.
Anne-Marie