07.03.07

Roundpen Basics Yearling Horse Videos

Posted in Horses for the horse crazy at 11:59 am by petArtist Cmoses

Training a horse in a roundpen establishes in the horse’s mind that a human is worthy of their attention and respect. By controlling the horse’s movement through body language, cues and signals and with no physical restraint on the horse, the handler establishes a mindset in the horse that the human is the dominant partner. Because horses have pecking orders among themselves and there is always a herd leader or alpha horse, they understand the concept of a human who is the boss of them; effective training of this concept is done in a roundpen.

You can tell when this yearling horse is paying attention to his handler by watching his ears. Glendale’s inside ear turned towards Emmie indicates he is listening to her. He is aware of her body position relative to him and also how she holds her lunge whip. A raised whip is more active than a lowered whip pointed down or at the ground.

Yearling Glendale responds to Em’s body language and voice by trotting, cantering, and changing directions. Her voice cues help prepare him for driving training, as do voice cues used when we pony him.

With her body slightly behind Glendale and aimed towards his haunches Emmie encourages his active forward movement. She slows him down by being more passive, or blocks his forward movement by approaching his shoulder. Blocking him and changing her whip hands tells him to change his direction of travel. If he resists turning, she moves actively towards his head. If he tries to evade her cues, she insists more actively to correct him.

At end he gets distracted and whinnies to his mom and brother over in their paddock.