About the only thing most horse people will agree on is that horse people don’t agree. There are as many opinions on any given subject as there are people who “horse”, especially about training. Many of these differing opinions are derived from what disciplines are behind them. Beyond that, different breeds also tend to have “personalities” and physical tendencies that must be dealt with. Even the climate you live in and the set up of your barn and riding areas can play a role. In short, there are different forms for different functions.

So how do you sort through all the information and opinions to figure out what you really need to work on? I almost always find that when I’m stuck, I need to come back to basics to find the solution. Since I commonly teach multi-discipline lessons, I have had to target exactly which training basics will benefit everyone in the same lesson, regardless of riding style, age and horse. In this article I will outline a curriculum to help you puzzle through your own horsey conundrums. Though the details will vary some based on the horse’s “job”, the absolute basics are pretty much universal.  These are the skills that can make any serviceable/sound horse, into a working citizen for someone:

1. Stand Tied
2. Ground Manners
3. To Lunge
4. Ride the Walk, Trot and Canter
5. To Stop
6. Backing-up
7. Ground Poles/Obstacles/Job Intro
8. Pivot
9. Leg Yield/Side-pass

Lesson 1 – Standing Tied

When fully trained, a horse should stay put wherever they are tied for indefinite periods. Of course, you may need to build this skill with a horse. And like any other skill, some horses will require extra effort and trouble shooting. Once a horse understands tying, it will be well positioned to stand nicely for grooming, saddling or for the farrier. It’s not magic – each set of circumstances will need to be trained separately but standing tied is a solid starting point.

Lesson 2 – Ground Manners

A well-mannered horse should walk calmly at a person’s side, neither pushing past its handler, nor dragging behind. Ideally it should follow you so well that you hardly notice there is a horse at the end of your rope. This shows a horse’s respect for your leadership and also that it understands your body language. This simply makes your horse safer and more pleasant to handle.

As mentioned before, horses should also stand to be groomed, have feet handled and tacked. Each of these will need to be taught to the horse at some point in its life. Being catchable in the field can also be lumped into this lesson, though there are many reasons a horse may avoid being caught, (a subject for another article). A horse who has poor manners on the ground will often have related riding issues as well. Correcting this at the root may help resolve some other, seemingly unrelated issues.

Lesson 3 – To Lunge

Lunging is another great anchor point in a horse’s training. When done properly lunging can be used to work down a fresh horse, gain attentiveness, introduce a new task, etc. Ground driving is also started from one side at a time, much like lunging. As with all training tools and techniques, it’s important to understand what you are trying to accomplish. Groundwork is an extremely useful tool, but it is not a replacement for good riding. In fact, lunging excessively or without focus and purpose can be detrimental. (I would assert that ANY tool used incorrectly can have negative results).

Lesson 4 – Basic Riding

This one is really loaded – riding at the walk, trot, and canter; or generally how to move forward under saddle. To start a horse riding is a full-blown project and far too complicated to detail out in a brief article. But this article is simply stating what a horse should be taught, not how to teach it. It is a fair statement that every horse should have the most basic of riding skills to safely walk, trot and canter with a rider.

In this I also include teaching the horse to bend as it is foundational in how a horse carries a rider’s weight and moves most freely. The possible exceptions being horses with a completely different job, such as driving. In which case, it would be learning to accept being hitched and putting its weight into the harness to pull rather than accepting a rider and carrying weight on its back.

Lesson 5 – To Stop

I’m not talking about a horse gently moseying to an eventual stop when it feels like it or pausing and then dancing. I’m referring to “Whoa” as a command to freeze, on the spot, no questions asked. This will not be accomplished by yanking on the reins. As with all training, the objective is to show our horse by increments what we want. Then gradually expect the response to get more complete with repetition. Though it sounds like one simple command, it is its own “lesson” and one that is far too often glazed over in pursuit of more exciting activities.

Lesson 6 – Backing-up

Backing is not a natural thing for horses to do. How often do you see a horse just backing up in a field? Never! That is why I have placed backing a horse so far down the list. I find it beneficial to make sure a horse thoroughly understands going forward before introducing much backing. You will commonly see horses try to back up to avoid going forward when asked. This can be partially attributed to being backed too much before they understood going forward. It’s also very important to frequently send your horse forward after asking him to back when training so he still gets rewarded for forward motion.

Lesson 7 – Ground Poles/Obstacles/Job Intro

Once basic riding is established a horse should be introduced to obstacles, at least the most every-day variety, such as ground poles, hills and trails. It is very important for a horse to learn where their feet are and how to carry a rider on different terrain. Like wise is training him to cope with the real world. A horse’s specific job should begin here as well. For example, cow horses or barrel horses should have sufficient skills to apply to their occupations. Jumpers should be prepared to start over fences and trail horses are ready for some mileage.

Lesson 8 – Pivots

There are two primary kinds of pivot. (A) Turn on the forehand, when the horse’s front feet remain basically stationary and they step only their hind feet to one side or the other. (B) Turn on the haunches (also known as a “spin”), when the horse rotates his front end around his hind feet.

Lesson 9 – The Leg Yield and Side pass

If a horse can learn to move his shoulders and hips separately such as when pivoting, then leg yielding is simply learning to move both ends over together. By extension, the sidepass is basically a leg yield at an extreme angle. It will still take some practice to gain coordination but when the foundation has been laid ahead, puzzling it out will be much easier for your horse.

Final Thoughts

With the completion of these lessons, you will have control of your horse in every direction and a foundation that will set your horse up for success throughout his life. Even for the more experienced horse, going back to basics can fill holes in his education and may yield some surprising results.

Please bear in mind that this is only a suggested guideline based on my own experiences and observations. There are many factors that can affect the pace and order of training, including the rider’s skill level, the horse’s temperament, age, athletic ability and intended discipline.

Ideally a training guideline like this would be used in coordination with a pair of educated eyes on your situation to help avoid pitfalls along the way. There is much to be said for building a relationship with your horse by doing the work yourself. But there is no replacement for working with a trainer whose discipline and style matches your purpose. It can be easy to blame the horse for all the problems when we don’t have someone keeping us on track. Usually we have to go back and forth between fixing ourselves and asking our horse for that next thing on the list. If you need a cross reference of skills rider’s should be working on you can check out my post “Basics Every Rider Should Learn“.

At some point each of the subjects mentioned above will likely become their own articles. There are many people and written resources out there. Sponge up as much information as you can and begin applying the pieces that make sense and feel safe. Every journey is travelled one foot in front of the other.

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Testament Farm – Training and Lessons