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Question:
What do I do
to get my horse ready for the saddle the first time? I think she is
ready but I want to make sure I do everything right and don’t make a
mistake.
Answer:
When the big
day comes to saddle up for the first time, it is usually not a
really big deal when you have put the time in on ground work and you
have a solid foundation. You have worked with your horse to
desensitize her to the saddle blanket and now you need to get her
accustomed to the cinch. A horse’s belly is a very sensitive area.
Out in the wild, the legs and belly are really vulnerable areas.
It’s a tender zone and horses are naturally nervous about contact
around their stomachs. Horses have a natural inclination to be
“cinchy” or resistant to being cinched, so it is our job to help
them feel comfortable and confident when cinched up for riding.
Even if your horse is being ridden but shows signs of cinchiness,
such as ear pinning, this is a good exercise for you.
Signs that
your horse is uncomfortable with the cinch include pinning of the
ears, eyes getting bigger, the head going up, showing teeth and
turning the head toward you to bite. The rope exercise will help
desensitize your horse to the feeling of pressure caused by a cinch
around her belly. The exercise allows you to prepare your horse for
cinching without the added weight and pressure of a saddle.
For this
exercise you need a 25 to 30 foot line with a snap on the end to
create a rope cinch. Attach a 12-foot line to the horse’s halter.
With one hand, hold your horse and stand across and slightly in
front of your horse’s shoulder. With your other hand, place the
snap end of the 30-foot line over your horse’s back. Use a cane to
reach the snap and bring it under the belly. Thread the other end
of the rope through the snap to make a cinch but don’t pull the rope
tight. To begin, do a quick, rhythmic pull and release until the
horse starts to relax. Don’t pull, then wait for the horse to
relax, and then release. Just pull, release, pull, release, quickly
and with a minimum of pressure. Even though the horse may be
cranky, just keep doing the exercise. After a while your horse will
be less intimidated by the exercise and will start to relax. When
the horse is relaxed, you can fine-tune the type of reaction by
holding the rope firmly until you see a better response. As the
horse gets comfortable feeling the rope tighten and loosen, you can
increase the rope’s tightness, making the pressure a pound or so of
contact weight. Tighten . . . relax . . . release. Continue
increasing the contact and pressure until you are at the level of
tightness with the rope that you would be with your cinch. The
exercise may take 3, 5 or more sessions until you see your horse
staying relaxed when you tighten the rope.
It is very
important to do cinch exercises. Of all the horses I have started
or restarted, at least 50% have a buck in them when they are first
cinched and sent off in the round pen or on a line. I recently
worked on the rope cinching exercise with one horse and I put the
saddle on and off until the horse was comfortable. Then I put the
saddle on and cinched it as quickly and gently as I could. You want
to do this quickly to make sure that if the horse jumps, the saddle
will stay on and not slip around the horse’s belly. The horse I was
working with bucked violently. I had not seen a horse do this in a
long time but it just goes to show you that even with all the
preparation work I did — sacking out, cinching, the saddle exercise—
you just don’t really know. Even with a system like mine that
eliminates 99% of this behavior, there is always one horse that
needs more work.
You may have
cinching problems show up from time to time. If you do, go back to
the cinching exercise again. In general, “cinchy” behavior comes up
more with mares than with geldings, probably because of hormonal
issues. I also find that some cinching problems are due to the
saddle not fitting properly. If the saddle is putting pressure in
the wrong places and causing pain, a horse will react negatively to
cinching. Make sure you take the time to check that the saddle fits
properly.
Many riders
want to tighten the cinch in one step so they really bear down on
the strap. I teach that it is better to tighten a cinch in three
stages. First, at the cross ties or hitching post. Tighten just
enough so that if the horse shakes, the saddle won’t slip off.
Second, after you walk the horse away from the ties, tighten the
cinch again. Finally, when you are ready to mount, tighten it one
more time. As a general rule, it should be loose enough for you
to slip three to four figures between the cinch and the horse’s
belly.
Remember,
please don’t rush. Take your time and be safe.
Charles
Wilhelm
It’s Never Ever the Horse’s Fault
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