PrintOur columnist explores the incredible journey from youngster to 5-year-old.
Raising and training a foal, yearling or 2-year-old to become a horse ready to enter the competitive arena will be one of the most satisfying and educational experiences a rider or trainer can ever have. Knowing that the horse you’re riding is also the horse that you made from scratch validates you as a horseman in a way that riding someone else’s project never can.
The “little foal who becomes a champion” is such a childhood dream as to have reached the status of cliché, but that in no way dims its allure.
The dream can actually come true for those who go about it in the right way, but, ironically, not as dreamers, but as realists. The dreamer, who has probably watched too many Walt Disney movies, will imagine that the adorable little foal frolicking in green meadows with its dam yearns to become a soul mate in a magical bonding process. The realist knows that the foal generally prefers to be left alone in those meadows with other horses.
The most reality-based advice that I have to offer is this: Only do what you can safely do, and don’t feel that you are “shirking your duty” if you farm out certain parts of the training process to others.
Remember that there’s one thing above all else that young horse has to feel for you, and it’s not true love. Aretha Franklin knows what it is—it’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
That youngster has to respect you and the limits that you set for him. If you aren’t able to make him respect you, find someone who can. If you haven’t had enough experience training young horses to feel fully confident in your expertise, try to be guided along the way by someone who has.
For example, if you’re small and you’re trying to deal with a big yearling who slams you around, get someone bigger and stronger than you to teach the colt to mind his manners.
If the foal is too quick and strong for you to lead, find somebody who can’t be dragged around to establish that baby’s boundaries.
Certainly one of the easiest ways to get hurt is to be bucked off in those early rides before the colt or filly is used to coping with a rider on its back. If you’re young and agile, have at it. If you’re like me, impeded by various old injuries, get someone else to do that part. Be smart and be safe.
If you do decide to take on the process of bringing on the youngster, here are some of the stages that you’ll go through, starting with the suckling at its dam’s side and probably concluding as the foal becomes a 5-year-old.
Usually, I’ve found age 5 is the pivot point. It’s either the last baby year or the first adult year, depending mainly upon the response patterns of the individual horse. But certainly the years starting with newborn through age 4 are key developmental years. And, if you get it right early on, you’re likely to create a horse that’s useful for life.
The Perfect Tag Line
“Some Assembly Required” is the three-word phrase that strikes terror into the hearts of the mechanically challenged. That tag line should be branded onto the hip of every newborn foal.
The cute little foal probably won’t let you halter him, or lead him, or let you pick up his hooves, or let you deworm him, or let you give him shots. But these are some of the things you’ll need to teach him in the first year, unless you just let him grow up wild on the range.
