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Ahh Fall, cooler weather and shorter days. It’s the perfect time to watch the leaves change from the back of your horse on trails in areas in lower elevations as we say goodbye to summer and welcome its rusty cousin.
To catch everyone up, this summer I finally found my trainer. He wants nothing more than for Pistol and me to love our job together. He says everything else will come easy if we enjoy what we are doing. We ride every week, and it’s my weekly dose of happy. The goal is to get Pistol (the bay mare in my bio picture) ready for Reined Cow Horse and Ranch Pleasure classes by next summer. It’s going amazingly well, and I’m learning tricks of the trade I’ve been searching for my whole life. But as the days grow shorter, I’m finding I don’t have as much time to work on my horsemanship and ride out on the trails I love so much.
It’s so hard to choose between two loves! Thankfully, I didn’t have to. I just took my practice back out on the trail with me! We might work on coming into the bridle as we walk along, or we might two track across the trail, maybe back up in a half circle, and if we’re really lucky, find a cow just a little too close to the fence that we can play with. And by play with, I mean approach and observe. You all might have guessed, these are “urban trails.” With the daylight waning, they’re all I’ve currently got. I used to train on the trail all the time, but my timing was off and all I was doing was annoying whatever horse I was riding. Now, it’s adding a whole new dimension to our rides. It is so exciting to grow as a team and have the confidence to do it without fences. It’s a secure feeling knowing that my mare will be confident and flexible when I’m on a trail if a situation arises where I’ll need to use those tools.
She’s paying more attention to me
re: Training on the Trail
The only ‘training’ I would do on a trail would be if we encountered something that resulted in a spook or a balk. Tobey is always quite the trouper when we are out & about – which isn’t near often enough. He occasionally balks at the bridges
re: Training on the Trail
Absolutely! I find training on the trail invaluable. I put on an extensive foundation of groundwork and then pony my young horses on my property and then the mountains. After lightly starting the horse under saddle, I train both indoors and outdoors fr
re: Training on the Trail
Since trail riding is the only discipline for my horses (I don’t compete in shows), every ride on the trail either reinforces training or undermines it. The impetus for this rider is to best her yesterday’s self in order to improve the performance of t
re: Training on the Trail
I’m with Kathy in having gone bitless with both my Missouri Foxtrotter and my Standardbred. They are both happier and easier to tack up since I made the change. I like a nice light hand on the rein and prefer they listen to my leg and seat. Still
re: Training on the Trail
Hi, I would like to get some input on whether most folks think that a scared "coward" type of horse could be trained to overcome that and learn to be a bold confident lead trail horse?
re: Training on the Trail
Hi Teresa,
In my experience, a nervous horse can definitely become a confident leader on the trail through training – even those horses that have a particularly sensitive nature/strong flight response.