How to Correctly Lead Your Horse
Saddle training is the ultimate goal for riding, but the groundwork must be laid first. Your horse will need to be led from his stall or pasture to the tack area before you can tack-up and ride. Not much point in teaching your horse point B, the saddle riding part, if there’s no way to get there from point A is there?. The two of you can only act as a team if your horse cooperates with you. This cooperation begins with your ability to approach, catch, and halter him first. After that you can use a halter and rope to lead your horse.
The primary objective in teaching a horse acceptable behaviour is safety for both of you. Although it is natural for him to pull against the lead rope, for example, he must be taught not to do so. Your horse should also know that he must not invade the personal space of the human leader on the other end of the rope. You put yourself at risk by not taking time to teach your horse basic safety manners before moving on to more advanced training. Whilst a good equine insurance policy may cover you for accidents that happen in training, it’s obviously far more preferable not to have to find this out!
Patience, persistence, and positive reinforcement, the essential three P’s of horse training, come into play when leading your horse. Having already accomplished haltering, it is likely that you have already discovered the effectiveness of the three Ps.
The best plan is to begin lead training with your horse when he is still a foal. Although you won’t need to cover saddles and riding with a very young horse, it’s important to get an early start when teaching basic ground manners. The young horse will need to cooperate for farrier and vet visits, as well as for the various people moving about the yard, stables or paddock.
If you’re lucky enough to have the dam on site, the foal will copy the behaviours of the dam. In fact this works with any horse that the foal spends time with. The young learn naturally from the elder. For example, you don’t need to teach a horse in the pasture how to graze or go to the water and drink. They watch the other horses to learn these things. If your student is older, you can still use another horse’s example by haltering and leading the other horse first. Your student will be observing this as horses like to know what is going on around them, especially when it involves one of their own herd.
Begin by leading a more experienced horse or dam along with your young student horse, walking side by side with you in the middle leading both at once. Stay to the left of your student’s shoulder area as it is the safest spot for you, with the older horse to the left of you. Never wrap the lead rope around your hand or anywhere else, just in case your student bolts or otherwise kicks up a fuss. The last thing you need at this stage is complicating the process with an injury for which you may need to claim on your horse insurance.
You could also use the pony method if you have a calm horse which the foal will be comfortable following. Hold a longer lead rope and literally tow the student horse behind the experienced one. It makes sense in fact to teach the lead in this way, as it’s natural for a young horse to follow an elders lead.
If there are no other horses around to help your student out here, you will need to rely only on patience, persistence and positive reinforcement. You will get there in the end but it will probably take a bit longer for the horse to understand what is required.
After satisfactory progress, it’s time to try it alone. Again, standing to the left of your young horse’s shoulder and with both of you looking straight ahead, gently walk forward and as you step out, tug very gently forward, then release any pressure on the rope as soon as the horse makes any motion to go forward. Understanding that release is a reward to your horse is a valuable tip used by professional trainers. It tells him that he’s doing things right.
Once he has mastered walking with you in a straight line you can then attempt a small turn to the left while still maintaining the space between you. If he crowds you, use your right hand to push him out away from you and hold your arm out to the appropriate distance. Then try turning to the right with the same safety distance between the two of you, still using your right hand to guide him into the correct zone. Remember to release the lead rope pressure by way of reward each time he steps in the right direction.
Lead training can really try your patience. Big improvements will soon be made if you can just stick with it. You’ll need work little and often; if you can manage every day this will give you great results and in no time at all you’ll be ready to saddle up and begin riding.