The challenge of horse training just got a whole lot easier with the release of Eric Bravo's Gentle Natural Horsemanship horse training videos. This system, which is available for instant download to view on your computer, covers the most important aspects of horsemanship on the ground and in the saddle. These horse training videos are broken down into small segments, allowing you to learn at your pace. Plus you'll have the luxury of watching them over and over again as needed. You'll be able to focus on specific problem areas. This is different than going to a clinic, where you're bound to be overwhelmed with information over a couple of days that you'll have a hard time remembering later. Having these horse training videos is kind of like being able to personally hire Eric to work with you all the time and keep explaining difficult concepts.

So what's in these horse training videos? Here's an overview.

Catching a Horse
Eric starts off showing you how to catch a horse that doesn't want to be caught. He shows you how to do it without using treats or bribes or having to chase him down. Instead you learn the way to approach your horse as a herd leader and bring him in naturally.

Leading a Horse
Once you've caught a horse its important to establish leadership. Demonstrating 4 key exercises, Eric shows you how to lead for leadership and safety. Once again, he explains how horses communicate with body language and how to use this to your advantage. He also explains how to condition a horse to pay attention to you.

Lunging a Horse
In this information-packed video Eric shows you the right way to lunge a horse. Instead of just running the horse around in circles he shows you how to lunge to build a communication line with your horse that will carry over to riding. In fact the entire exercise is turned into a pre-riding development session.

Basic Groundwork
Here we learn how to move the forehand, the hindquarter, and back up the horse on the ground. Then Eric shows how to disengage the hindquarter. Also learn how to flex and drop the horses head.

Round pen Training
Learn how to become a horse whisperer in under 30 minutes. In two different horse training videos, Eric shows you how to establish leadership and earn trust and respect from your horse in the round pen. He also discusses signs your horse is giving you to communicate acceptance.

Personal Space
Get a quick lesson on teaching a horse about personal space, to make handling on the ground safer.

Basic Riding Skills
In the first of Eric's riding horse training videos, he teaches you basic riding skills from a natural horsemanship perspective. Learn how to ask the horse to go, how to stop, turn the forehand, and disengage the hind in the saddle.

More Riding
In two more riding videos, Eric moves on to more advanced topics. These involve riding at walk, trot, and canter. Working on your seat so you don't bounce while riding, and learning advanced moves like shoulder in and side passing.

Bareback and Bridleless
This video gives you step by step instructions for training you and your horse to ride bareback and bridleless.

Bonus Horse Training Videos
In two bonus videos, Eric teaches you about using approach and retreat, a critical concept in natural horsemanship. It's applied trailer loading a horse that's never gotten in the trailer, and putting a halter on a green horse.

For more information, please visit http://horse-training-tips.com where you can learn about horse training videos.

Leading a horse is one of the most important activities you do with your horse. Not only does it involve safe handling on the ground, but the way you lead your horse cements the pecking order in the "herd". The herd in this case is you and your horse. Being social animals that live in herds where everyone has a rank in the dominance hierarchy, horses are always sizing you up to see where they fit. A horse that's in charge isn't a safe horse.

There are two main issues for basic safety when it comes to leading:

• Keep the horse out of your personal space
• Keep the horse from rushing past you

Beyond that, establishing your own "leadership" - and we mean this in a mental and emotional way, not the physical act of leading - is an important aspect of this exercise. It will effect safety down the road when you're working the horse in the round pen or even riding the horse. So let's go over some tips for how to lead a horse safely.

1. Don't hold the lead rope too close to the horse
A mistake people often make is grabbing the lead rope right up next to the halter, an inch or less from the horses chin. Do not attempt to lead a horse this way. You cannot control a horse using physical restraint. She is a lot stronger than any human and if she decides to go you're not going to stop her using your might. If you're holding the halter way up at that point, you're going to be in trouble if the horse decides to take off running. It puts you in a position that is too close to the horse, and she might knock you to the ground.

2. Don't coil the end of the lead rope around your hand
When leading a horse, avoid coiling the loose end of the lead rope around your hand. It's a natural instinct for people to do this. Problem is, if the horse takes off running, he may pull you down to the ground and could even drag you-leading to serious injury. Leave the rope unwound and hold it loosely.

3. If the horse takes off, let her go
If the horse does decide to run off, just let the rope slip out of your hands. Think it can't happen? Its happened to me several times with my crazy Arabian! Luckily I had my rope correctly so it just slipped away.

4. Watch your position
When you lead a horse, the position of the horse is more than a convenience. If you come to a stop and the horse is out in front of you, she considers herself the leader. If you're walking along, and she edges past you, she considers herself the leader. Visit the link below to learn some tips on training a horse to lead in the proper position and watch a sample video.

Sample Video and Article: Leading a Horse

5. Remain calm
Portraying confidence is always important for safety around horses. Look up and out to where you're going as you walk, instead of looking at the horse worrying that something might happen. Take deep breaths to relax your body if you're nervous.

6. Go through gates first
To maintain a psychological position of leadership and to maintain safety, walk through gates before the horse does. The horse should respectfully wait until you ask him to come forward. If he doesn't, practice leading in some open areas with some stops.

7. Back the horse up if he invades personal space
Finally, if the horse crowds you, use backing up to get him out of your personal space. Imagine a bubble around you that the horse is not allowed to enter. Make the bubble large enough so that if the horse were to suddenly run off, it wouldn't knock you over. If he enters the bubble, back him up.

Leading a horse is one of the most important activities you do with your horse. Not only does it involve safe handling on the ground, but the way you lead your horse cements the pecking order in the "herd". The herd in this case is you and your horse. Being social animals that live in herds where everyone has a rank in the dominance hierarchy, horses are always sizing you up to see where they fit. A horse that's in charge isn't a safe horse.

There are two main issues for basic safety when it comes to leading:

• Keep the horse out of your personal space
• Keep the horse from rushing past you

Beyond that, establishing your own "leadership" - and we mean this in a mental and emotional way, not the physical act of leading - is an important aspect of this exercise. It will effect safety down the road when you're working the horse in the round pen or even riding the horse. So let's go over some tips for how to lead a horse safely.

1. Don't hold the lead rope too close to the horse
A mistake people often make is grabbing the lead rope right up next to the halter, an inch or less from the horses chin. Do not attempt to lead a horse this way. You cannot control a horse using physical restraint. She is a lot stronger than any human and if she decides to go you're not going to stop her using your might. If you're holding the halter way up at that point, you're going to be in trouble if the horse decides to take off running. It puts you in a position that is too close to the horse, and she might knock you to the ground.

2. Don't coil the end of the lead rope around your hand
When leading a horse, avoid coiling the loose end of the lead rope around your hand. It's a natural instinct for people to do this. Problem is, if the horse takes off running, he may pull you down to the ground and could even drag you-leading to serious injury. Leave the rope unwound and hold it loosely.

3. If the horse takes off, let her go
If the horse does decide to run off, just let the rope slip out of your hands. Think it can't happen? Its happened to me several times with my crazy Arabian! Luckily I had my rope correctly so it just slipped away.

4. Watch your position
When you lead a horse, the position of the horse is more than a convenience. If you come to a stop and the horse is out in front of you, she considers herself the leader. If you're walking along, and she edges past you, she considers herself the leader. Visit the link below to learn some tips on training a horse to lead in the proper position and watch a sample video.

Sample Video and Article: Leading a Horse

5. Remain calm
Portraying confidence is always important for safety around horses. Look up and out to where you're going as you walk, instead of looking at the horse worrying that something might happen. Take deep breaths to relax your body if you're nervous.

6. Go through gates first
To maintain a psychological position of leadership and to maintain safety, walk through gates before the horse does. The horse should respectfully wait until you ask him to come forward. If he doesn't, practice leading in some open areas with some stops.

7. Back the horse up if he invades personal space
Finally, if the horse crowds you, use backing up to get him out of your personal space. Imagine a bubble around you that the horse is not allowed to enter. Make the bubble large enough so that if the horse were to suddenly run off, it wouldn't knock you over. If he enters the bubble, back him up.

Head shy horses are not uncommon. As a prey animal, escape and evade is the operating program of the horse, and you shouldn't be surprised that many of them simply don't trust people touching the head area. Add to that many horses have had abusive pasts or maybe just rough handling that makes them uncomfortable with you touching the head or ears.

Dealing with a head shy horse is best accomplished by using a technique called approach and retreat.

Let's say that your horse in particular, evades you when you go to touch her ears. Start by placing your hand in an area that the horse is comfortable with. Chances are you can touch your horse on her neck right? Then move the hand up to find the point at which she evades you. Now take your hand off and then place it just below that point. Then move it up just a hair. But as you notice she is going to evade, pull your hand away.

Don't pull away with a jerky motion, be smooth and gradual. A jerky movement will startle the head shy horse.

Keep practicing and nudge up closer each time. Getting closer and closer and resting your hand on the highest point for longer and longer periods. When you can get near the ear, use the same approach. If you can hold the ear for 3 seconds and then she pulls away, spend some time holding it for 2 seconds and then you decide to pull away. After doing that a few times go back to holding the ear for three seconds.

Its also a good idea to show the horse that this can be comfort rather than something to fear. Do this by rubbing or massaging her ear. You can use the same approach for head shy horses that aren't particularly worried about their ears. For example, lots of horses evade when you go to pet the center of their face, between the eyes (with good reason-they can't see what you're doing there). In that case, rub or pet the horse there gently.

For more information about horse training visit http://horse-training-tips.com where you can learn more about dealing with the head shy horse.

Picking up a horses feet is a problem for lots of people and I’ve had my share of it. I have a paint horse that lets me pick up his front feet, but when I go to pick up his hind feet he’ll only let me hold them for a few seconds and then he pulls them away. Usually he starts struggling the second I go to clean them, so taking care of his feet is an issue. Several farriers didn’t have much luck getting them trimmed.

 

In the book “What your horse wants you to know” Gincy Bucklin suggests several reasons a horses won’t hold up their feet. The first reason she suggests is some simply aren’t used to standing on three feet, or a horse may be uncomfortable having their leg bent in the position necessary for cleaning or trimming. She also claims some horses find it scary.

 

That may be the case sometimes, but it was definitely not the case for my horse. He was simply defiant. Bucklin suggests doing exercises to improve balance and so on, but I found two approaches that have basically worked on any horse. The first approach is to put some cost into not picking the foot up. What I’ve found that works is lunging when you can’t pick up a horses feet. It works as follows. I’d untie the horse and go to ask for the horses feet. If I came to a foot he wouldn’t let me pick up and hold, then I’d lunge him for about 30 seconds, then try again. If he still wouldn’t let me pick it up and hold it, then I’d lunge him for about 60 seconds and so on. This method was pretty effective, but it took a course of a few weeks to work.

 

Eric Bravo taught me a better way to do it using approach and retreat. Basically it goes like this. Suppose your horse lets you pick up his foot and hold it for 3 seconds. You start desensitizing the horse by picking up his foot and hold it for only 2 seconds, then put it down. Do that over a couple of sessions. Then next time, pick up the foot and hold it for 3 seconds. As time goes on, you can hold it for a second longer each training session. The key is to find the point at which the horse wants to put the foot down, and you put it down just before reaching that point rather than pushing the horse into that zone where he’s going to get uncomfortable. If later on he can hold it up for 5 seconds, spend some time just holding it up for 4 seconds, then put it down. You can also take some time to just rub his legs down when you’re going to handle his feet so that he’ll see it as comfort rather than stress.

 

If you’re holding the foot and the horse goes to put it down, you take the initiative and put it down for him. That taps into the notion of leadership because you’re stealing the thought from the horse and turning it into your idea. When everything is your idea the horse will see you as a herd leader. When he sees you as a herd leader he is more willing to do what you ask.

 

This approach worked best for me, and it avoids any struggle with the horse.

 

To learn more I invite you to visit http://horse-training-tips.com where you can learn more about handling horses feet.

If a horse could talk what would she tell you? Well turns out horses are talking - but they're using body language to communicate how they feel about things. Horses are experts at reading our body language, and if you want to take your horsemanship skills to a new level it's a good idea to start learning how to read their body language. In this article we'll discuss 12 cues you should learn to pay attention to.

1. A Horse's Tail is her tension regulator
How many times have you heard that a horse was fine, then the rider got on and the horse exploded? Well OK maybe you haven't heard that but it does happen. That's because on the surface the horse looks fine but he's actually really worried about something, and he's a hair away from being pushed over the edge. Before getting on your horse you should have awareness of different cues that can indicate fear, tension, and anger. One of those cues is a tightly clamped tail. First of all- you should have a high comfort level with your horse so that you can go around behind him and touch him all over. Don't try this until you're at that point. But if you can, lift up his tail-or try to. Can you lift it up, or does it feel tense and clamped? If its tense, that tells you that your horse is worried.

2. Head straight up
Think of some horses calmly eating in a grass field. Then they hear something that could mean a pack of wolves over the hill. Are they going to keep their heads down and keep eating? Nope. The first horse that hears it is going to shoot her head up straight in the air-with ears forward. This tells us that a horse with her head in the air is on high alert for a threat she perceives in the distance. She could be on the verge of taking off.

3. Tight neck
This horse body language cue goes along with a raised head. A horse might have his head up but not really be worried about anything, but you can check his neck to be sure. Is it tight and tense? If so he's feeling threatened.

4. Bulging eyes
So-called hard eyes or bulging eyes, where you can see the whites of the eyes, indicates a state of fear.

5. Ears Pinned Back
A horse with his ears pinned back against the head is angry about something, or feeling a threat. This may mean a bite or kick is coming quick.

6. Cocked Leg
Some people think a cocked leg means a horse is about to kick, but most of the time it means the horse is relaxed. Think of a horse as just hanging out when he's shifted his weight over to one leg.

7. An ear forward, and an ear back
When a horse puts an ear back, he's heard something behind him that's caught his attention.

8. Horse puts her rear end on you
Talk about the ultimate in disrespect. Butts are significant for horses. The reason? Well they kick each other with their hind legs. A horse isn't going to put his butt on the stallion in the herd, unless he's looking for trouble or challenging the status quo. Since your horse sees you as part of a herd, if he puts a butt on you, he's showing disrespect.

9. Licking and chewing
Horses in the wild can't eat unless there are no threats around. A scared horse doesn't chew, a relaxed horse can eat to his hearts content. A horse licking or chewing is showing relaxation and trust.

10. Both eyes on you
When you're working with your horse, where is she looking? If she only has one eye on you, she's kind of paying attention but her mind is also a bit elsewhere. If she's got both eyes on you, she respects you.

11. Lowered Head
A horse drops her head for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is relaxation. A dropped head also signals submission, that is accepting you as a leader.

12. Walking past you
Where is your horse positioning her body when your leading her, going through gates and so on? Is she pushy? Does she have a tendency to walk past you or try to get in front of you? Is she invading your personal space? Positioning is very important for horses-it shows what the pecking order is. If she is doing any of these things it shows a lack of respect. She either thinks she's the herd leader, or is challenging your position as the herd leader.

Well there are our tips for reading horse body language. For more information please visit http://www.horse-training-tips.com where you can learn more about horse body language.

The other day I was searching for horse round pen training videos on you tube and came across this video featuring Monty Roberts (see below). In the video he uses the process of Join Up in the round pen to break a horse. The horse in the video has never had a saddle or been ridden, but within 30 minutes Monty has her following him and has a rider on the horse. During the video Monty explains why this process is so effective. Horses being prey animals (or flight animals as he calls them) need to investigate all options of escape. That's why you want to push the horse in both directions in the round pen. This lets her investigate all directions where she can flee, which is going left and going right.

When he's pushing the horse he looks directly at her and pushes the horse with a light line (selected as to avoid any pain to the horse). After the horse has gone both directions, he takes the pressure off and looks for a conversation with the horse. Signs the horse is having a conversation with you include:

• An ear locked on you
• Head turned in, eye on you
• Licking and chewing
• bowing down of the head

At this point he assumes a passive stance with the horse. Keeping your eye on the horse pushes her away, so Monty takes his eye off the horse, and then he turns at a 45 degree angle. This invites the horse in, and she approaches and begins sniffing, all the while he avoids looking her in the eye. Then you walk off in an attempt to get her to follow.

What happens next is literally amazing. Monty picks up all her feet, and then puts a saddle on. This is the first saddle the horse has ever had, and the saddle is on 10 minutes after starting her in the round pen. Ten minutes after that, a rider is on the horse.

The term horse breaking refers to getting a raw horse into a state where he can be ridden safely. In the old days horse breaking might have meant using force or domination to accomplish the goals of the horseman. But in modern times, using natural horsemanship we communicate using leadership instead of using force. In this lesson we will describe the first steps a trainer can take to start horse breaking using natural techniques.

We begin by teaching the horse basic movements that we're going to ask him to do while riding, but broken down in to basic, basic moves. In other words we want to teach the horse basic yields to get the horse to go left, go right, go forwards, or go backwards. Our strategy starts by diving up the body of the horse into three sections, where we'll apply pressure to get the horse to move in a certain way. The first section is the nose to the withers. Second, is the mid-section, the zone where teh saddle sits on the horse, basically. Finally the last zone is the hindquarter. All movements begin by teaching them on the ground first.

Applying pressure to the area between the nose and the withers will move the forehand over away from the handler. Stand on the left side by the neck of the horse, and apply pressure to the neck area. When you apply pressure to the forehand, the horse will move his forehand away from you. Controlling the forehand controls the direction that the horse goes.

Just like a car, which has steering and impulsion, a horse has a power drive and its the hind end. We can control speed and impulsion by controlling the hind end. So, applying pressure to the hip, the horse will swing his hip away from you. This is teaching the horse to yield the hindquarters. This motion of the hip away from you can be taken another step further for what's called disengaging the hindquarters. As the horse moves his hip around in a circle about where his nose is, the hind legs will cross over taking the horse's impulsion away from him. That's why its called disengagement. Power is taken from the horse in this instance because he has to put more weight on one hind leg rather than on both, which would be necessary for springing forward.

Sample Video:



Now remember that a horse has two sides. Each exercise you practice needs to be done with both sides, and practiced until the horse does the exercise equally well from both sides.

These are the first three steps in horse breaking-yielding the forehand, yielding the hind, and disengaging the hindquarter. We teach them on the ground first and then we'll teach them under saddle.

Visit http://gentle-horse-training.com to learn more about horse breaking.

At the ranch where I board my horses I have to admit I'd kind of laugh when all the Parelli afficianados would be out in the arena doing the seven games. It wasn't the games themselves that made me laugh, it was the fact that these people never seemed to get on their horses. In fact I'd say 80% of them never rode the horse. So what is the point of the seven games, or groundwork in general?

Well there are actually a lot of good reasons for doing groundwork, but in today's installment of horse training tips I'm going to focus on just one of them: groundwork carries over to riding. In other words, one of the reasons for teaching your horse certain moves on the ground is that its going to carry over to the saddle, where you're going to be giving the same cues. The advantage of groundwork is that introducing the cues and teaching him his yields on the ground first is safer than showing him for the first time in the saddle. Doing it this way, when you mount the horse he'll already know how to respond to different cues.

In this sample horse training video, Eric Bravo illustrates the process. In the first part of the clip, he teaches a horse how to yield his hindquarter on the ground. Then in the second part of the video, he disengages the hindquarter in the saddle. So yes, there is more to doing groundwork than just rubbing your horse down with friendly game.



For more information about Eric Bravo, learn about his horse training videos.