My barn manager has a registered chestnut AQHA yearling (Mocha Fella) with great bloodlines, however she is too old to show him in 4H Production this year so she asked me too.
I have never trained a horse for halter before, any tips on what to work on? What all will I be aksed to do? What do I need to know?!
Hah, I’m lost with all this.
Help?
You should not be showing a horse in 4H for a professional. This is against the 4H rules, and not very fair to those kids who are bringing along their own horses. If you want to show this horse you should do it at a open or breed level.
Are you showing Showmanship or Halter? For Halter, all you do when showing is you usually walk to the judge and when you get up to him/her, he/she will step to the side nd then you begin trotting, in AQHA, you have to trot around a cone that is placed several feet from where the judge is, this is just to check for soundness issues that aren’t easely seen from the straight-away. Then you will line up head to toe and square your horse up. Halter is judged on the confirmation of the horse. You will need to work on leading the colt at a walk and a trot and also squaring them up. You are allowed to touch your horse in halter to square them up, so you can actually pick their feet up and place them where you want them. With babies, I usually just work with them about 10-15 minutes a day on standing square and moving their feet when I tell them. The easiest way to start this is to walk them forward a few steps and them back them a few steps, then just moving one foot at a time.
If you are showing Showmanship, there is way more involved. You will have to teach your horse to back, to turn on the haunches, and work on putting patterns together. Showmanship is judged on how well you handle the horse and how well the horse is groomed. You will be asked to perform a pattern. My advice for a beginner is to find someone who shows showmanship and have them help you or there are also videos available through AQHA or Western Horseman.
i really just started doing showmanship. these web are good to look at:
http://www.showhorsepromotions.com/showmanship.htm on this one there are some patterns for you to practice
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/pr_eyas/showmans.htm this website comes in handy alot
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&rlz=1T4RNWE_enUS306US212&q=showmanship&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#q=showmanship%20with%20horses&hl=en&emb=0 these videos are good to learn more and more and more
PRACTICE AND PRACTICE
welll i have actually trained meany yearling’s for showmanship its quite easy once you get the hang of it
you have to remeber not to get impatint the horse can feel it and that will make them lose there focus on what your working on
you muust practice regularly or the yearling will forget.they cant remeber much for a while untill they do it more often. have some famliy memebers help you get the horse used to comotion. have them clap, whoop and hollar around the yearling.
The main thing is exposure. Just haul to some open shows where you can allow them to just blow the show until they get used to the commotion.
Don’t ask for alot of them if they freak in the arena, bolt, dont hold still and dont pay attention at that age, they have short term memory lag.
Just practice at home. Stacking with all 4′s in a square is where you start. Pivots, backing, trotting beside you and stopping with you.
But again, seriously, your first show, all your training will go out the window until they see the commotion and accept it.