Where to Begin When Leading Your Horse

Saddle training is the ultimate goal for riding, but the groundwork must be laid first. You will first need to lead your horse from the trailer, for example, to the tack area in order to tack-up and then ride. Not much point in teaching your horse point B, the saddle riding part, if there’s no way to get there from point A is there?. When your horse learns to cooperate with you, you can act as a team. This cooperation begins with your ability to approach, catch, and halter him first. Then you’ll need to lead your horse about with a halter and a lead rope.

The primary objective in teaching a horse acceptable behaviour is safety for both of you. He will need to be taught that his natural tendency to pull against the lead rope, for example, is not allowed. Your horse should also know that he must not invade the personal space of the human leader on the other end of the rope. Accidents can easily occur if proper consideration to teaching basic safety manners to your horse is not given before moving on to more advanced training. Whilst a good equine insurance policy may cover you for accidents that happen in training, it’s obviously far more preferable not to have to find this out!

Leading your horse requires that you use the three Ps of horse training: patience, persistence and positive reinforcement. Having already accomplished haltering, it is likely that you have already discovered the effectiveness of the three Ps.

Beginning lead training when the horse is still a foal is the easiest plan. Although you won’t need to cover saddles and riding with a very young horse, it’s important to get an early start when teaching basic ground manners. The young horse will need to cooperate for farrier and vet visits, as well as for the various people moving about the yard, stables or paddock.

If you’re lucky enough to have the dam on site, the foal will copy the behaviours of the dam. Don’t worry if the dam is not present, as it works as well with any horse which the foal spends time with. A young horse will naturally learn from his elders. For example, you don’t need to teach a horse in the pasture how to graze or go to the water and drink. They learn by watching the others. If your student is older, you can still use another horse’s example by haltering and leading the other horse first. Horses notice everything that goes on around them – particularly if it involves other horses within the herd – so you can be sure that your student will be paying attention.

Begin by leading a more experienced horse or dam along with your young student horse, walking side by side with you in the middle leading both at once. The safest place for you to stand is to the left of your student’s shoulder, with the older horse to your left. A young horse could suddenly decide to bolt or to kick his heels, so make sure that you don’t wrap the lead rope around your hand or anywhere else that makes you vunerable. The last thing you need at this stage is complicating the process with an injury for which you may need to claim on your horse insurance.

If you have a calm horse which you think the foal will follow you could also use the pony method. Using a longer lead rope and simply tow the young trainee behind the more experienced horse. Since it’s natural for the young to follow the elders behaviours, this is actually a quite natural method for teaching the lead.

If you don’t have the luxury of having other horses close by from which your student can learn, you will need to rely heavily on your skills of patience, persistence and positive reinforcement. You will get there in the end but it will probably take a bit longer for the horse to understand what is required.

After satisfactory progress, it’s time to try it alone. Again, standing to the left of your young horse’s shoulder and with both of you looking straight ahead, gently walk forward and as you step out, tug very gently forward, then release any pressure on the rope as soon as the horse makes any motion to go forward. Understanding that release is a reward to your horse is a valuable tip used by professional trainers. It tells your horse he’s doing something right.

After you have him walking with you in straight lines with success, try turning slightly to the left, maintaining the space bubble between you. If he crowds you, use your right hand to push him out away from you and hold your arm out to the appropriate distance. Then try turning to the right with the same safety distance between the two of you, still using your right hand to guide him into the correct zone. Reward him each time he takes a step in the right direction by releasing the pressure on the lead rope.

Lead training can be a testing time. Stay with it and you will see great improvement. To get yourself closer to the day you can saddle up for a ride, you’ll need to put in the work; little and often (every day if possible) works best and will soon give you great results.

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