Safety Tips for Riding Less Trained Horses

Series Summary

Untrained horses can buck, jump, rear, and generally be a danger to themselves and especially the rider. When you buy a new horse it is important to check and reinforce the horse's training. Horsemanship and horse training requires lessons, skill, and a lot of practice. Learn about beginner horsemanship with a less-trained horse in this free video series featuring Kathy Kentala. Kathy will teach beginner horsemanship techniques to use on a less-trained horse. She will teach you about reinforcing a horse's training such as how to jog, how to lope, how to back up, how to not break gait, and how to do a figure 8. She will give you tips for riding a less-trained horse and how to signal a horse.

Video Transcript

"So we've bought a horse. A lot of us go out and we find that horse, kind of fall in love with maybe that first impression. Sometimes we get it home and it works out okay for a little bit, and then that horse realizes maybe you're not the trainer that they once came from. Or, sad to say, there might be some deception in how much work this horse has done in its past. This is a young horse that I particularly like; I ride her quite a bit. But when I put a more green or novice rider on her, she's going to be very classic to present some of those, those challenges that everybody meets at least some point in their life. So we're going to take this horse and rider through a few of those where we say, let's try to fix some of the, some of the points that you may encounter after you've brought that horse home, and you go, "boy I bargained, I got a little more than I bargained for". We want to be certain that we stress the safety of it. There is no reason for any rider to continue on with a horse that presents a danger. Sometimes people come to me with a horse and we start working with it, and there are certain things that I won't even put myself at risk for. This little horse tends to kind of pop up a bit against the pressure to her mount. That's a lot different than rearing. Rearing is one of those things that no rider should tolerate. It takes a very, very experienced rider to be, to know how to put that back together. Once a horse learns to rear, it's very hard to fix a little buck here or there that may not be a problem. She may still have a little buck in her today, but I trust that Laura can handle that. However, if I saw a, I mean a downright bronc, we're not going to let any rider who isn't a downright professional come in and take over any project like that. But this horse is going to give us the opportunity to say, okay so we've come home and we've got a horse and we need to break it down and learn how we can fix and stay committed to some of the things that this horse presents."