Soleil's First Ride ... and baby photos

NurturalHorse 49 videos
2,948
views
2,948
views
NurturalHorse | August 12, 2008

Hi Folks, A special thank you to my subscribers. I appreciate your support! ...

NurturalHorse | August 12, 2008

Hi Folks, A special thank you to my subscribers. I appreciate your support!

This is a home movie showing very early round-pen training and first rider in the saddle. It's star is 'Soleil', an exceptionally tall and friendly 2½ year old Canadian gelding. Soleil was the first pure Canadian foal born at Guy's Acres, March 13, 2006. His size and personality made him special from the day he was born.

(Canadian Horses are the National horse of Canada. King Louis XIV of France sent horses that were big enough to work and small enough to ride to the New Canada in the 1600's. A strict breeding registry maintained these 'little iron horses" and relatively recent efforts kept them off the endangered species list.)

This video shows our personal adaptation of natural horsemanship. We make sure a horse has a high "ERA" rating (Eager to please, Respectful, and Attentive) before we bring him to the round pen. We often 'team train' for the ground work and join up. On Saturday our dear friend Kathleen Howard dropped by. My husband Gerry usually the first ride. Every step happens only when the horse is ready; there is no pressure or stress. Every small effort is rewarded with lots of praise and cuddles. This recipe typically has us riding on the third trip to the round, sometimes earlier as you saw with our young stallion. We use our Nurtural Bitless Bridles to train our yearlings to walk, for all the round pen training and for every ride after that.

I hope you enjoy this informal backyard fun! (By the way ... we have some beautiful and super-friendly Canadian yearlings for sale. And we do offer training for other horses.)

Loading...
   
 
 
Sign In or Sign Up now!
Alert icon
Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!

Uploader Comments (NurturalHorse)

  • Thanks for your comments. He is a Canadian, and they call that colour 'burnt brown'; most often he is pure black, but he can bleach out to a browner tone.

    About getting off, Gerry like to take small steps until the horse realizes it won't hurt to let him stay there. If we forced the issue and stayed on at the first try, it would be less pleasant for both!

    But we don't claim to be 'right', just that this works for us as amateurs. Zoe

  • Good question.

    We usually ride them a few times at this age, then send them back to grow up for another year. I have read that same approach from some big name guy, (can't remember which one). As long as their knees are closed, light work at this age is OK. We have started several horses gently this way, and they all did just fine.

    It seems that what they learn at this age stays with them. But we are not experts! Zoe

see all

All Comments (8)

  • Great Video! You see Im seeing how mulitiple people train their horses to let someone rde them and I agree with your techniques their nice to the horse and rider. It makes me feel sad when people just get on a green horse and make them buck out until they cant anymore.

  • good thing you start with gentle horses.

  • if you are trying to accomplish getting the horse to except weight, but the horse isnt standing when being mounted then Iwouldnt skip that step. I would work on one thing at a time. Like getting the horse to stand and except your foot in the stirrup. Baby steps.

  • I think that you should work on getting him to stand while you are getting your foot in the stirrup. Let him get use to that. SOmetimes we need to take baby steps. I wouldnt get down if they move off. You are rewarding him for doing that. When you were on his back and he was standing nice then I would get down before he moved off.

  • wow what a awsome video i have a foal and it awsome to watch to see how and what i will be dealing with! :D

  • hes a very pretty horse. is he a dark bay or a black, its hard to tell from the video. one thing though and i dont mean to start an argument, but i notice that in the begginning of putting weight on him you would jump down when he moved, now from my opinion and other professionals opinion you arent supposed to do that and your supposed to stay on or else the horse will think as soon as he walks you will get off. i am just pointing this out for future knowlegde.

  • For god sakes... Get on the dang horse already

  • Hello,

    Isn`t it a bit young to start a horse at 2 1/2 years of age?? Because their still not full grown at that age..

    Just asking..

    Greetings, Aline

Loading...

Suggestions

Autoplay:
Loading...