One of the hardest lessons a horse must learn is to accept a human in their personal space, and allow themselves to be handled. This journey of trust starts when the foal is just days or weeks old, and acts as the foundation for future training. The experiences they have early on in life will impact their personality, career, and ability to find a loving family of their own. Here are some of our programs’ preferred training practices when working with youngstock.
Many horse trainers and breeders like to start working with a foal from the moment it is born – this practice is called imprinting (click here to read more about imprinting). With our Rescue and Revocation work we typically work with older youngstock, and although we do have the occasional pregnant rescue mare, imprinting is not a practice that we endorse.
When working with a mare that has just foaled, our practice is to perform a simple health check, monitor that the foal is successfully eating, ensure that they are having regular bowel movements, and to ultimately leave them in peace to bond and recover from the birthing process.
This hands-off approach with monitoring continues for the better part of the first week of the foal’s life. During this time, when we do enter the stall or field to perform checks or replenish food and water, we will not attempt to touch or approach the foal. Instead we rely on their natural curiosity and allow them to approach, sniff, and touch us as they please.
After this initial week of monitoring we begin our initial training sessions. Our early sessions start off simple by increasing the time spent with the mare and foal. Typically these first sessions will consist of sitting or working in their field or stall more often, and when our curious foal approaches we begin to offer them our hand to inspect. By repeating and building on these sessions, increasing our interactions with the foal each time, we are able to eventually reach out and touch the foal. We will continue to repeat the steps necessary to get our second, third, fourth touch, and eventually build the trust to begin touching them across their body.
It is at this point we begin to introduce our first action of positive reinforcement – the first scratch, a sensation that is often enjoyable for the foal. Most foals quickly associate touch with the benefit of being scratched, and will begin to approach you more frequently for this reward.
Now you have begun to achieve the foals’ trust, and they associate you with a positive experience, you can begin to build on these training sessions by adding equipment like a halter, asking to hold a foot, and introducing the idea of leading. The time required to complete these training goals will greatly vary, and are dependent on your building good rapport with your horse. For the best results it is important to keep your sessions fun, short, rewarding, and always try to end on a good note.