Soleil's First Ride ... and baby photos

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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.)

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• NurturalHorse
• natural
• horsemanship
• training
• bitless
• horse
• Canadian
• no-bit
• bridle
• coach
• naturat

[CaseyHorses]

Great job, but i dont mean to sound like a know it all- i certainly do not know all, but even teaching for them to bear weight you should use a mounting block or stool to get up because its not good for them so young to shift their spine like that,

other wise amazing job, go check out my boy hes 3parts canadian and one part QH <3 i trained him myself too ! :P mad love for the canadian horses <3

[NurturalHorse]

@CaseyHorses

Thanks for the comment. I of course would never climb up that high without a mounting block, but Gerry prefers to have the whole arena to work in to begin. I am raising Soleil's "little brother" for myself, and he is not much shorter.

Canadians are wonderful horses, aren't they! We have too many and are trying to sell them. The price keeps dropping in this crazy horse 'market' of so many giveaways.

[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

[NurturalHorse]

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

[The2crazybirds]

@NurturalHorse you bet, you guys did just fine and we do the same

[CaseyHorses]

@NurturalHorse Good luck with his little brother !

i think these horses are worth much more than people think- they are just so hard working ! <3

[suzannelove1]

amazing how to see hwo your horse accepts you on his back, took me a long time to let my horse turs me on her back she has a past so it was dif you give her the confidence that she needed, tho she is a great horse now and i love tho horsebackride with her.

[snowleperdsrule]

Why did you want him to buck? Just curious.

[RobertRyanRanch]

great video, but 2 things I didn't really agree with. first, too much pressure on the horses face. And second, too much weight on one side.

[Hoofbeats123]

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.

[jebcloney]

good thing you start with gentle horses.

[lazyhorse73]

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.