Natural Horsemanship Horse Training Techniques
While natural horsemanship training is based on one fundamental principle – using your horse’s own language and natural instincts to understand it and communicate with it – there are several different methods you can use. Because of the popularity of natural horsemanship, for its gentleness and effectiveness, many trainers have developed new and creative approaches based on this principle. Other trainers are still experimenting, and new ideas appear every day. This is one of the real virtues of natural horsemanship – once you understand and can use your ‘horse language’ you can be as innovative as you like in how you apply it.
Round pen training is one of the most established natural horsemanship techniques. The round pen is used because the horse cannot turn away from you, or get ‘stuck’ in the corner of an arena. That means you can keep your horse moving forward, without the restrictions of a lunge line, and you can maintain eye contact with your horse. Having a round pen, or a similar structure, and knowing how to use it is essential to natural horsemanship training – if you invest in one tool for training, it should be a round pen.
Training foals with imprinting is another popular and well-established technique. With imprinting, you take advantage of the heightened senses of a newborn foal to expose it touch and other sensations it needs to accept throughout its life. You desensitize it to certain sounds, smells, and feelings according to the level of imprinting you think you’ll need to train your foal. It is a very effective approach, and many top competition and race horses have been imprinted, but it only works if you can get to your horse as a foal, in those first hours.
Another popular technique is single-rein riding, most associated with Pat Parelli and his system of ‘Natural Horse-Man-Ship’. With this technique, you ride in the round pen, or an oval arena, with a halter and one lead rope instead of a bridle and reins. Working on the principle that a horse moves away from pressure, you press the lead rope against the horse’s neck to control its direction. When you want to change sides, you lean forward and swing the rope in front of the horse’s nose so it ends up on the other side. You slow your horse using the degree of turn and your body weight, rather than pulling back on the rope. Most horses trained with natural horsemanship accept this method very willingly – they are not at all spooked by the rope in front of their face as you would be a traditionally trained horse!
Many other trainers have products, equipment, and instructional materials to support all kinds of natural horsemanship techniques. Some are designed for general training, others for training for specific disciplines (like barrel racing or jumping), and still others are developed to help with particular problem behaviors. It’s worth experimenting with different concepts and approaches, and trying out new equipment. You can even make your own training tools to use with your own ideas. As you learn more, and work with more horses, you will start to develop your own methods. You may even be promoting your own equipment or books and DVDs one day!
