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Another spring is
upon us and thus, the all-too-magical foaling season has arrived as
well. Once again our barns and ranches play nursery to arguably the
cutest of all creatures, the baby horse. What is it about the foal,
which arouses such powerful feelings in us? To see one is to
yearn for one. It’s not simply that they are so very cute, but
rather those tiny, leggy bodies are so packed with personality!
Sweet and cuddly one moment -- zooming around and bucking and
playing like crazy the next. Like mischievous fairies they can and
will enchant you. There truly is a magical spirit in the baby horse.
Part of the lure
certainly is also the thought of raising your own horse and getting
“everything right.” Having a horse that is your very own from the
start. A horse that will love you more than anyone else, a horse
that will not buck, bolt, rear or kick, a horse that you can raise
properly so that it will not have any major issues…. Finally, your
own perfect dream horse, and because you raised it yourself… Sigh….
It was about this
time last year that this particular brand of spring fever swept over
myself, and several of my horse-obsessed friends. Now thirty-eight
years old, I got back into horses four years ago after nearly twenty
years away. I had owned a horse and ridden extensively for pleasure
as a child, and then taken a long hiatus. Nearly all of the riders I
know now either took up horsemanship as an adult, or like myself,
got back into horses after a long time away. Most of us are
competent riders and handlers – some are quite talented, but none of
us had ever raised a foal before.
But last year the
fever set upon us. The PMU foal networks started their yearly
adoption drives. Emailed pictures and stories of precious babies
needing homes and saving were arriving weekly on our computers. To
make temptations worse, friends of friends who were breeders invited
us all to see their newest collection of babies. Sales
advertisements of gorgeous weanlings began appearing on all the
horse-classified websites. Surrounded by images of foals, it was all
we could talk about. Unfortunately, as we all know far too well,
horses are addictive, and poverty loves company! So of course we
egged each other on. The all-too-familiar, “Hey, I’ll get one if you
get one.” After all, how hard could it be? Most of us had purchased
horses with fairly significant issues that we had been working
through with them. Raising a baby surely had to be easier that
getting a grown horse to stop bucking or spooking? Yes – it would be
a long time before we could ride them, but there would be a lot of
fun things we could do with them. We imagined trailering the babies
out to take them on group hikes together, taking them to shows for
halter classes, summer time bathing of the foals…. We were utterly
enchanted with the idea of how much fun we would have with our
babies, and what a great job we would do in getting them started
properly.
So between August
and November of 2002, ten people I knew, plus myself, got foals. Six
were PMU foals, two were AQHA foals, one was a thoroughbred foal
from a rescued OTTB, one was a morgan filly, and then I brought
home my little guy, Stetson, a four month old Belgian mule.
Eleven bright,
capable and loving-horse people got foals last year. We all had the
best intentions and hearts of gold to match. Yet as of April 2003,
only four of us still have our foals, and two of us, of which I am
one, struggle daily with frustration and feelings of failure. The
other seven all sold or gave the babies away, within two month to
seven months of ownership.
As I hear some
other friends start talking this year about getting a foal, and how
much fun it would be (hearing all the same justifications that we
had used on each other last year), I began asking the group that had
gotten the foals to candidly share their experiences with me, both
good and bad. It could not be a coincidence that so many people got
rid of their babies and I wondered if their experiences, and mine,
could help other people prepare (or resist) for getting a foal.
The general
consensus from everyone was this: It is HARD work and frankly, much
of it is very boring! Most of us had believed that seemingly simple
things like leading, tying, picking up feet, bathing, would be
relatively easy to teach babies. Wrong! In most cases, the most
fundamental lessons were the hardest to teach. And until they
learned these basic skills, there was little “fun” activity that
could be done with the foals. None of us had truly understood the
reality of having to teach them everything. It was hard to
know in advance how short each lesson must be (zero attention span),
and how microscopic the focus of each lesson must be. Baby steps
took on a whole new depressing meaning. There were no group hikes,
most of us had a terrible time getting the babies to safely lead,
much less to trailer. And that let out halter class schooling shows,
which we could not bathe them many of them for anyway. Hoof
trimming and vaccines became a nightmare as well.
Yes, they are
adorable! And yes, when they are in the “right” mood and start
loving on you, your heart melts and you fall in love with them all
over again. Then there is the rest of the time… when you are asking
them to do something they do not want to do, and then they
are charging, biting kicking, or most commonly, plain refusing.
Those times are awful, and your foal just keeps getting bigger and
sometimes more dangerous.
All in all – we
were a severely frustrated group with a long wait before these
horses could be trained to for riding. So most of us just gave up.
Some felt the foals would have a better chance with other owners,
that they were not “doing right” by the babies. Of these seven that
gave up, I don’t know know where any of those foals are today. Two
of my other girl friends have gone through periods of almost giving
up their fillies, but then they worked through their frustrations
and continue to progress. My other friend Debbie, had skills and
patience that the rest of us did not possess. Her colt is doing
fantastically well and she is putting an incredible foundation on
him already. What she has accomplished is what the rest of us all
assumed we would be able to do ourselves. Then there is little old
me, who at least twice a week is practically in tears, wondering if
I should give my little guy away because we are making virtually no
progress after 5 months.
I didn’t want to
give up though! Not just because I love my baby, but because I
realized this was an incredible opportunity to take my own abilities
to the next level. However – I did need to face a major reality
check. I simply did not have the skills to train this foal. I needed
help. And with Stetson already weighing over seven hundred pounds at
nine months, I needed help quickly!
So I decided to ask
Ride! magazine’s own columnist, Charles Wilhelm, for assistance. I
really wanted to work with someone whose training style and
philosophy I trusted, and most importantly, that would show me
how to do the baby foundation training work. As we have begun
working together with Stetson over the last month, I asked Charles
to share his perspectives on owning and starting foals.
Charles Wilhelm is
quite familiar with the story of people getting foals that do not
understand what they are getting into. “They see these cute little
babies and want one. But they do not realize how much work they are
and how slow the training goes. ” But while it would easy to focus
on how many of us should not get foals, he instead offers this
advice….
“First off, never,
ever get a foal on a whim! Getting a baby is a huge responsibility
and should always be well planned, from where you are going to keep
it, to how you will train it. Always plan getting a foal well in
advance and be as prepared as possible. Some of the ways to be
prepared include:
-
Books - There are
a lot of good books on raising babies, such as Bringing Up Baby,
by John Lyons. Read them and don’t be afraid to look to different
trainers for ideas. Take away concepts that feel right to you
-
Videos - Watch
groundwork and handling videos over and over again. Again, whether
it’s one of my Ground Manners and Leading videos, or
another trainer’s video about halter breaking, watch as many as
possible to see how training lessons are broken down into tiny
patterns of pressure and release responses, and think about how
you could break that step down even more for a baby.
-
Hands On Work –
Find an apprenticeship program or some type of work or lessons
with a trainer/breeder that handles foals regularly. Get lots of
supervised hands on practice before you get your own foal.
-
Hire Your Own
Trainer – Nothing wrong with asking for help. If you are going to
get a baby, be willing to set aside your ego if needed to ensure
you are doing the right thing by your foal."
Now once you have a
foal, what should you do with it for the first couple years of its
life before it’s ready to saddle? According to Wilhelm, as much as
possible actually. While this does not mean your foal needs to be
“in training” for the first twenty-four months of its life, it does
mean that you can and should absolutely start foundation training
with your foal. You do need to remember to be sensitive to growing
bones (and short attention spans!) so none of these lessons should
be long or intense, but there is no reason you cannot teach these
fundamental training lessons below to any foal. If done right, you
will end up with a sound and focused horse that should be an easy
transition to saddle when ready!
Top Ten Lessons
Every Foal Should Be Taught
1)
Respect, Respect and More
Respect!
2)
Halter Broke (Giving to
Pressure)
3)
Leading
4)
Line work
5)
Round Pen
6)
Tying
7)
Picking (and Holding) Up
Feet
8)
De-spooking & Crossing
Objects
9)
Loading
10)
Bodywork (Grooming &
Bathing)
To help demonstrate
how some of these lessons can easily be taught (if you know what you
are doing anyway), my friends Wendy and Shane brought their darling
PMU filly, Foxy, to Charles Wilhelm to work with for the afternoon
last week. Wendy has actually been doing a real nice job with Foxy,
but she likes watching Charles work with Foxy so she can watch the
techniques and then take them home to practice herself.
Charles began the
lesson with basic change of direction line work. He wanted Foxy to
be paying attention and to be focused on him, and as the regular
directional changes force her to pay attention, and her emotional
level also began to drop. You can see in an early picture, her head
is high, ears are back, knees are high… she is excited and tense.
Within a short time however, her head was lowering, she began
licking and chewing, gait slowing down, all signs that she was
relaxing and “getting it.” Her focus was soon on Charles and with a
very short time she allowed him to pet her (after being very
skittish of him initially). We could also see that Foxy became quite
light on the lead-line. Within about 20 minutes, she was rarely
pulling the line taut, staying quite soft for him.
Later in the
lesson, Charles also took the opportunity to introduce Foxy to the
tarp, which is an excellent de-spooking mechanism, and also provides
a great object to teach them to cross. Again, by employing true baby
steps, within a short time, Foxy went from very leery of the tarp,
to sniffing it and then standing on it.
Another great aid
to work on the emotional level is a plastic bag on a stick. Once
more, she went from very nervous, to accepting it quite well. The
afternoon training session was composed of short bits of what I will
call “foundation training 101 exercises.” And when it was over, Foxy
was relaxed and compliant. And most importantly – the training time
was fun for everyone!
So how does a
trainer like Charles Wilhelm teach these lessons to a foal so
quickly, where I have not managed success in five months? By truly
understanding pressure and release, and by ALWAYS releasing at the
right time! Timing and feel, timing and feel and consistency. As
important as it is with any horse training, it is doubly so with
foals who really do not a clue about anything. I realized after
watching Charles that I am not releasing at the right time (so I am
actually rewarding Stetson for the unwanted behavior), and to say
that my timing and feel is inconsistent would be putting it mildly.
Until I master those basics myself – I will not be able to teach
Stetson the lessons he needs to learn. Fortunately, I have found a
very patient and knowledgeable horseman to help me learn the
skills I need to have a successful relationship with my own foal. It
has become very clear, the issue is not about training Stetson, this
is about training me.
So if you are
thinking about getting a foal for the first time, start preparing
now! Learn everything you can, get hands-on experience, and most
important, stay flexible and open minded about what you will
experience with the baby, and what you may need to do to be
successful as a foal owner. Your goal should always be to learn and
have fun. If you have never owned a foal and do not want to do the
extra work of preparing, then please resist the urge! And if it’s
already too late, you didn’t resist and you find yourself in the
same boat as myself and some of my friends…. It really is okay to
ask for help. You owe it to your foal.
* For readers who
would like to more about some of the training issues Charles
mentions above, they can be found in the November through March
issues of Ride! Magazine, in which Charles discusses the fundamental
building blocks exercises of Foundation Training. All are applicable
to foal training as well. |
