Prepping the young horse 🐴

This year one of my horses turns three and will experience a rider(me) on his back for the first time in May or June. He was born 1st of May and I do not hop on by my own principle before any of my horses had their 3rd birthday and as a minimum evaluating each horse individually readiness. Before I even get to that point, I take it very seriously that the young horse is prepared and feel comfortable with everything we expose him for. We already did a lot of ground work. And he is accustomed to a bridle too, but before we start lunging and train in long reins, I like to do “elevated” training. And with that I mean letting the horse getting used to that the rider/handler/trainer works and reacts with the horse in a higher position than the ground level. Many young horses freak out radically if they never have seen that a human actually can be “taller” than them and the worst coming at them from behind as a rider positioned on top on the horse. We always work in pairs or by three, to let the horse come closer and closer, while I stand on a fours step safety stair. Then I spend a lot of time touching, scratching and hanging over the back of the horse. With this horse I could easily put my weight on the back as well, but we do this in small portions to make sure that everything is a positive experience for the horse and trainer. For the coming weeks I will continue with the exercise adding on more pressure such as bring objects with like umbrellas, towels, flags and more. In my experience, this make the young horse very confident and trusting the handler so moving to the next step will be a breeze ❤️