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The first time I saw Max, the exercise rider got on him bareback and he immediately bucked her off. It was a fairly violent episode and the rider was injured. Thus, it is important to me that Max be trained to accept a rider bareback. We spent most of the first day introducing voice commands to Max. He is still learning them, and is not completely reliable. Although the videos of the past few days make him look like a star pupil, I would still not trust him in a larger arena or on the open trail. However, reliability to voice commands will come with time. And while we are working on that, it is important to start getting a rider on his back.
We have spent the second and third day preparing him for the rider and if we did our job right, he should accept the rider calmly and without reservation. To make sure that all will be safe and uneventful, I draped my body across his back and had my assistant lead him around the round pen before sliding off. I repeated this exercise five times in a row without incident and that convinced me that he was ready to move on. The day culminated with him being fully mounted by a rider bareback and then ridden quietly at the walk around the arena using nothing more than the lead rope and halter.
Caution, the videos make it look like a simple process but please be reminded that I am showing the final product of each phase of the training and not the training itself.
This entry was posted
on June 17, 2009
at 6/17/2009
and is filed under
arena,
back,
bare,
bareback,
equestrian,
halter,
horse,
lead rope,
rider
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