First, I admire and respect a lot of people who train horses.  Training horses can take a lot of bravery, knowledge and skill.  Trainers are IMPORTANT, good ones can clear up the confusion of the horse, show the horse how to move better, and train the horse to be obedient to the rider.  Good trainers can also humanely train a horse for many of the specialized games that people like to do.  Good trainers can take a ruined horse and find out what the horse objects to, make the horse more comfortable with its tack and rider, and make a horse that would have been dog food or an expensive  pasture ornament into a pretty reliable riding mount.  While many people successfully green break their own horses those of us who are elderly, handicapped, or just not quite up to par are dependent on a professional trainer to introduce the horse to saddle.  A GOOD trainer is worth his/her weight in gold encrusted with big fat diamonds.  They can be rare, but usually, with enough searching, you can find one.  Avoid bad trainers like the plague, a lot of the not-so-good ones can have a prosperous business continually retraining any horse that falls into their hands.  This essay is not about specialized show training, it is about the training of the normal riding horse.

I really hope you can find a good trainer for your horse, one who will train your horse how to carry a rider of YOUR abilities cheerfully.  I also hope you can find a trainer who is also a good riding teacher who can teach you how to ride your horse better.  If you are so fortunate to find this combination of good trainer/good riding teacher TAKE AS MANY LESSONS FROM THE TRAINER AS YOU CAN (or can afford) while he/she is training your horse.  If you do this you may avoid a lot of problems down the road.  (Note, all these lessons may not be on your horse, especially the first ones.)  Accept that you may have to ride slightly differently, a good trainer tries to match the training of the horse to the knowledge and ability of the rider and sometimes, like when the owner/rider has caused the horse problems, the owner/rider has to change bad habits that can irritate or even hurt the horse.

BUT, even if your trainer is good, knowledgeable, humane and skilled, eventually your horse comes back home to you.  Consider your horse‘s viewpoint.  If you find a good trainer and send him/her a horse that you have been riding to be trained further, your horse will have had to adjust to the new stable, new feed, new tack, new riding/training methods, and a new rider/s, and if he has been turned out to pasture he probably had to adjust to dealing with new horses.  If you let the trainer have a decent amount of time to train your horse, he will get used to all of this, and when you bring him home he has to adjust all over again.  Give him a few days to reorient himself!  Be sure to change his feed over several days, you do NOT want your improved horse to colic.  It is also a good idea to practice quarantine, isolating the horse from the rest of your herd for a few weeks (but make sure he can see them if it is possible.)

Sending a horse out for training does not automatically erase his brain, your horse remembers you, and his home, and he remembers your tack and how you used to handle and ride him.  Now your horse has all this new knowledge about how to move properly and has built up the proper muscles for being ridden.  He should be fitter, more willing to go forward, and much more sensitive to the aids.  If his saddle used to fit it may not fit any more because his back muscles have grown thicker because your horse learned how to use his back properly.  The trainer may have had to experiment with bits to find one that the horse will face eagerly.  LISTEN TO YOUR TRAINER ABOUT YOUR HORSE’S TACK!!!!!  (and I hope your trainer knows what he/she is talking about, some don’t.)  Many easily correctable training problems are caused by badly fitting saddles, and if you do not fit the horse adequately all these problems will come back.  Other frequent tack problems are too tight brow bands and bits that are unsuitable for the horse’s mouth, training level and the rider’s hands and riding abilities.  I know it can hurt financially to both send your horse out for training and come up with the dollars for new tack, but when the horse is disobeying you mostly because the saddle hurts it is futile to expect any level of training to help until you change your saddle, or for saddles that almost fit, change the saddle pad you use.  Luckily brow bands are not too expensive, but the saddle pads that can make up for fitting issues are pricey, like $300 USD and up, and some of the bits get pretty expensive too, and it can be a PITA to find a saddle that fits, though often used saddles or synthetic saddles can do quite well.  Horse ownership is NEVER CHEAP or very convenient.

Then there is your riding.  Hopefully you got lessons with your trainer and he/she worked on your riding issues some.  Even so, the odds are that the trainer is a much better rider than you are.  Ideally your horse has been trained by someone who knows exactly what to do and when to do it, and if you are a normal rider this means that your horse has become somewhat spoiled by good riding, just things like not getting pounded on the back, the trainer having steady legs, or having good hands at the other end of the reins.  You and your horse will have to build new agreements, ones that suit both his new level of training and your riding abilities.  This can get rocky for both horse and rider.  Be patient with your horse, he most likely will not perform as well under you as he did for the trainer.  You must realize that it is not your horse’s fault that you cannot ride as well as the trainer.  Often the horse and rider come to a mutual agreement several levels below the horse’s recent training, and this is fine, if your horse is happy you know you are not abusing him and you have a chance to improve your riding on a horse that knows more than you do.  If you insist that your horse do the advanced things that the trainer can do with him you will probably not be very happy, and your horse will be even less happy.  The best thing for the owner/rider to do is to back off, find out what you and the horse can do together comfortably, and to work on your riding until you become better, THEN the horse will perform better (so long as you make sure the tack is comfortable too!)

No humane horse trainer can instantly “fix” your horse, especially if you are not a very good rider (and the “guaranteed” instant fixes of the less good trainers can lead to BIG problems down the road for both the horse and its rider.)  No trainer can change a beginning rider’s mount into a National Championship contender in a month, several months, or even years unless the rider works very, very, very hard on their riding for a looong time.  No humane trainer can make a daisy cutter into a high stepper, or a fiery dispositioned horse into an quiet and reliable mount for a person who refuses to work on their riding.  Trainers have to work with the horses which they are presented, and if the horse is not physically or mentally capable of doing what their owner/riders want all the trainer can do is make the horse a little better.  Sometimes riders have to learn that their hopes and dreams are not achievable, either by the rider or by the horse.  Even good trainers are not miracle workers, though sometimes they do seem to work absolute wonders.

Find a good, humane trainer, make sure your tack fits, work continuously at improving your riding, be patient with your horse.  Do all of this and you can benefit from having your horse trained.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran