Preparing Your Horses For Their First Trail Ride

Almost invariably, a trail ride comes as a nice change from the boredom of dull hours spent in the closed up environment of an arena. A trial isn’t just straightforward, relaxing fun; it also offers opportunities for both rider and horse to learn new things. Trail rides should be made an imperative part of any training programme involving horse riding.

However , you need to work on a few things prior to going out on a trail ride. There are steps you need to take to make sure that both your horse and you are prepared. Poor preparation can turn an otherwise enjoyable experience into an unpleasant nightmare. You would be making a major mistake in taking a raw pony out on a trail ride where he is going to be exposed to dozens of new objects he will not have been desensitized for.

If you used the principles of natural horsemanship to train your horse, your pony will often have had exposure to various sorts of circumstances. He shouldn’t be worried by bizarre stimuli and will hopefully have previous experience with rides through pastures having brush and trees. The ‘sacking out’ exercises you conducted on him should have made him inured to the more common ‘boogeymen’ like pieces of rubbish, flying plastic bags and the movement of unseen birds or animals in the brush.

The reality is that nothing can entirely prepare a young raw horse for everything he’s bound to encounter on a trail ride. This is the major reason that you should always send out a raw pony in the company of an old been-there-seen-that-done-it equine chum. His herd mindset will make the greenhorn depend on the veteran for direction, and the vet can give the rookie constant inputs on whether the tree up ahead is safe or whether the noise coming from that bit of brush to the side signifies anything threatening. There are good chances the greenhorn will follow the lead of the vet, and if the vet is not worried by anything, the newbie will stay cool, too.

The point is this: never take a green horse trail riding alone. If you’ve ever faced a riderless and clearly frightened pony hitting the trail at a quick clip, or standing at the trail side grazing with no human in sight, you may know what I mean. Don’t put yourself and your horse in such a position.

I recall the case of a beginner coach who went off on his first trail ride with his mare of 3 years. Right at the beginning of the ride, they had to ride next to a narrow country road with a regular flow of vehicular traffic. The rider had prepped his mare well for meetings with cars and other heavier vehicles. He blundered in ignoring motorcycles. As fate would have it, the 1st vehicle the rider and his mare ran into was a motorbike, and that too as they were crossing the road. The mare reared and dumped her rider bang in the middle of the road, right in the way of approaching automobiles. Out of judgment or more likely luck, the rider had clung on to the reins, and got his mare to pull him to the road side with his body intact but bruised and his ego severely dented.

Take all of the time in the world prepping your young horse for his inaugural trail ride. You must ensure your horse is sensitized to even apparently harmless stuff like your donning or taking off a slicker or rain coat, whether on the ground or astride your horse. Your horse must stand silently when tied. It’d be even better if he is also familiar with a ground-tie and hobbles.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers www.horsehorses.net/