Rodeo Time!
May 7th, 2003 by bill
We kept our horses in yesterday and they were not happy. Our horses get turned out almost everyday. Anything less is unacceptable to them. The youngest horses have the hardest time the next day. All of the horses want to run and buck but the older horses can control themselves until they reach the pasture. The young ones have more difficulty. Whimsy is my problem child. He is a colt who is comfortable being away from his mom. He left the stall yesterday when one of our girls was cleaning the stall. That caused a commotion. When I take out to his pasture with his mom, he has been trying to convince me that he knows what he is doing and that I should back off! That's a bad combination. Since he is acting like a smart-ass, I have had to accelerate his training. The most important lesson for a young horse to understand is that someone else is always in charge. When he is in the pasture, his mom or another mare is in charge. When he is being walked to or from the pasture, the human is in charge. His job is to walk at my shoulder. If he falls behind he can rear and strike me with his front hooves. If he gets in front he can strike me with his rear hooves. As they say, “been there, done that, not going to do it again!” Horses believe strongly in the chain of command. That is how the herd survives. This colt will understand soon enough why I am at the top of the chain of command. The other horses already understand I am at the top. The most facinating aspect of handling horses is that I will not have to be physical to make him understand where his position in the herd is. The dominant mare uses the same tactics.
