today i'd like to share with you the three pieces of equipment that you need to get started with
training your horse and by the end of this video you'll know what they are and you have some basic
ideas of why you need them and how to actually use them they don't need to be fancy you just need
to be practical with them and get started they will help you do so many things with your horse
you will be amazed in 20 years of training horses these are my three go-to pieces of equipment
when i'm working any horse be it starting a young horse under saddle working with a problem horse or
just working with my own horses so the first piece of equipment that you need to train your horse is
a halter now i'm going to say here that a webbing halter is not going to cut it if you really truly
want to train your horse i'm not into buying gadgets and things like that i don't believe
really in them there's a few that i would use for specific reasons but a rope halter is not a gadget
okay webbing halters are very wide they spread pressure they don't give the feel and finesse of
a rope halter okay so i personally would recommend that you go out and you get yourself
a good rope halter you need to make sure it fits your horse correctly or they can actually be
dangerous and completely useless so i will link up here to my video on how to make sure that it fits
correctly and how to tie the knot on it don't go and watch it yet but come back at the end of this
video because i'd like you to watch the rest of this come back at the end and click on it and go
and have a look and make sure your rope halter fits correctly rope halter works by being quite
good at putting the pressure on a horse but then the real beauty of them is they release that press
pressure instantly the moment the horse gives to the pressure okay so webbing halters just
don't do that so rope halters come in different sizes different rope thicknesses you can see here
i have a thin rope and a thick rope the thin rope will probably be a little more harsh on the
horse than the thick rope so put your money into getting yourself a decent fitting halter they're
not hard to get someone to custom make them for you just do a google search and find someone that
custom makes them if you get someone that does a good job of it they will show you how to take
measurements of your horse to actually get the halter to fit your horse so i talked about the
rope halter and the fact that you get thick ones and thin ones and so i just want to reiterate
where they work mostly so the knots here obviously work with a bit of pressure on the side of the
face here and the top of the halter it goes across a very soft spot on the horse called the poll
so there's some safety considerations when it comes to that okay so you never firstly
never leave these on a horse when it's in the paddock or somewhere where it might get
caught rope halters won't break so make sure they're never left on a horse unattended okay
horses can absolutely do themselves some injury particularly up at the poll there when they pull
back against these so that's the other thing other safety consideration do not tie your horse
up hard tied with a rope halter unless you have trained it correctly to be tied up
i train all of mine to be hard tied and it's done with actually a thick strap to spread the pressure
if they pull back and before you ever do that you teach the horse it should give to pressure
like that slight pressure so that basically when he goes back hits the end of the rope he should
give it if he sits back and gives an almighty pull and he's got a rope halter on you're going to
injure your horse the next thing i'd like to talk about is ropes it is another thing that i would
actually spend the money and get a decent rope there are things in horse training that you can
cut corners on but your rope halter and your rope are two things that i don't think you should you
need to get the best that you can and there is a reason for that training ropes come in a couple of
lengths 12 foot 14 foot and usually 22 24 foot this one's a 12 foot one this is spiders i
like mine to have a little popper on the bottom of them mine all come with a clip
a lot of people like to have the ones that actually stay on the halter and don't come
off and there's there's a good reason for that you start shaking your rope around your horse and
this is under his chin it's pretty heavy and it's gonna clunk i don't actually use that technique
with my horses i use my body pressure rather than wriggling this but i will wriggle if i have to but
i'm just aware that i'm going to hit the horse in the face if i'm too vigorous okay so the reason
you need to spend some money and get yourself a decent rope is a proper training rope has feel i
wish i could give it to you and let you see it but it actually has feel and life in it it's not limp
i've got just a normal um no this one has a little bit of feel i guess but there's not the weight in
it that this one has you can see this one here this is just a normal like a pony club type one
has no life has no feel has no weight you need a bit of weight to get your rope to do
what you'd like it to do when you're working with the horse this is a little bit of a rogue rope if
you're trying to throw it around and trying to do something because it doesn't have any weight
behind it whereas this has actually some weight there are safety considerations with your rope
as well never ever ever have your rope tied around your arm when it's attached to a horse no matter
how much you trust that horse i'm sorry horses are flight animals and they can just take off
i know of a young girl who had wrapped her rope around her arm her horse spooked it took off and
it took her arm off at the elbow she literally lost her arm the other thing you need to be
careful of if you have a longer lead is if it's cool coiled up on the ground and you step in it
and the horse gets a fright and take off you can be gone so we talked about a rope and getting a
spending the money to get a rope a decent rope with a bit of feel that's because you'd like to
when they've got feel they sort of hang and they move a little bit like a snake
and you should be able to you might just want to throw them over your horse to desensitise him
of things moving around him i also use it in the round yard to desensitize horses with their
leg your rope is a tool it's not a weapon please don't use it as one yes if my horse won't do as
he's told i might increase the ante but it's never done with um aggression you can also use your rope
as a noise desensitization he's noise sensitive he may do something he's been in the paddock for
12 months with an injury he's just coming back into work but this is another thing you can do so
you can hear the noise it makes awesome thing to desensitize your horse to noise the thing to
remember is that the horse learns from the release of the pressure not from the pressure so if i'd
been swinging that making noise and he'd started to move i would not have stopped making that noise
until his feet were at a standstill and sometimes you have to have split second timing because the
horse is so hot it's moving you just need to stop the minute all four feet are on the ground
another safety consideration when you're working with a long lead is to try to get
your horse used to it being on the ground around him you don't know how many horses i've seen
which take off from people with long ropes and then all of a sudden the horse notices this thing
chasing it and off it goes and they actually will panic my horses are all taught in the round yard
to follow to allow the rope to move around them sorry and the other thing is to step on the rope
so if they look you teach them to give to pressure first then you leave them somewhere safe please
very safe small area so they can't get a run up and you allow them to step on it see what he does
if he steps on it and i tell you the amount of times i've dropped my reins and my horse has
gone and stepped on them and everybody's gone because they all think he's gonna
because you see them they go horses hit that rein they snap and then they take off spider just gives
and i go in and pick the reins up i don't have any broken reins a couple of little training
tips there i'd love to know if you've actually felt the difference between a rope with some
feel and a rope that has none let me know in the comments and i'll also let other people know that
perhaps sitting there thinking oh there's no difference that there actually is a huge
difference i'd love it if you could leave me a comment whip is the next thing i want to
talk about i use a variety of whips depending on what i'm doing with the horse at the time
so i have a lunge whip i don't use my dressage when i'm doing basic groundwork with my horses
it doesn't have the finesse that you need either you've got this little thing at the end here that
could be touching the horse inadvertently and doing things that you don't want to but i have
a tip for you here when mine die and they're ready to go to heaven i actually cut them off
here somewhere just up with a little tassel at the end melt that and then this is the most amazing
long whip to work with horses that might kick out you don't want to get too close to but you need
to touch them because it's a good whip and it's my go-to whip when i'm teaching difficult horses
to load onto the float or trailer this one here is just a driving whip okay it wasn't very expensive
i can't quite remember what it was but i think it was about $15 but it's a driving whip it too is um
a longer whip and it's stiffer okay so sometimes you'll want to whip with a bit of give in the end
and sometimes you want something a little bit stiffer all right and as you work your horse
you'll work out what you want stiff whips for and what you want flexible whips for
lucky last and my absolute favorite to use is just my dressage whip i use this one all the
time mine has a little bit of flexibility in the end not to it's not too flexible it's not
too stiff you don't want it too flexible because just with timing timing of your aid if if it's
too flexible sometimes i can put the aid on before you actually want it on but this can get basically
all around my horse whips whips are a tool not a weapon if you feel yourself about to use it as a
weapon it's time to stop and put your horse away for the day that is just frustration and your ego
telling you that you've run out of options to train that horse on that particular day
and there's no shame in putting the horse away i don't think anyone's perfect the difference is
the good trainers realize that they've got to that point and they put the horse away because actually
acknowledging that is the first step to moving through it where you actually then don't feel that
frustration because you you start to get to that point and you go oh just means that i'm a little
bit stuck here so let me rethink think about where i'm going so whips whips are so very handy okay
i use them for many things we've talked about that i will use them to desensitize my horse so
he should be able to be touched everywhere the horse should not be frightened of the whip
the amount of horses i've got on with a dressage whip and then it's accidentally touched them
and they've just gone i'm i'm gobsmacked i'm like gosh who who broke this horse in and who
didn't start desensitizing it things like geldings getting a bean out and touching
their nether regions some people are frightened about that you can use a whip to start that
the trick again is the horse learns off the release of the pressure so if you start touching him and
he walks away you got to do your damnedest to keep your whip where you want to touch him
until the minute his feet stop and then you take the whip away my boys are all good with that we
we do that as a regular thing you can actually set your bubble distance i have a bubble around me i
think of it like that so the horses aren't allowed into my bubble and i can if i'm walking somewhere
with a horse that's a bit pushy i will actually walk with my whip doing this so that they stay
back behind where i want them to be when i'm doing ground work exercises with the horse and i'm all
about accuracy i will actually use my whip to draw in the sand something perhaps you didn't think
if i'm doing a clock face exercise i will draw my clock face that way i know exactly where my
horse's feet are and he can't cheat you can also use your whip to move the shoulders of your horse
to move his hindquarter
to back him up
and to send him forward
so whips very important piece of equipment a very important tool don't forget to look under
this video in the description for my free guide of the three training principles that
i keep in mind whenever i'm training a horse and spider and i are loving doing these videos
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