What
We Offer
Starting Horses Under Saddle.
Over the years, Fred has started horses of every age and
breed under saddle. From untouched 10 year old brumby’s,
to nine year old Warmbloods and a few enormous, ‘out
of their box’ two and a half year olds! With the mouthing
system Fred uses, age is not an issue. All of Fred’s
methods apply to any horse, as every horse understands and
responds to them. We are able to take on any horse 14.2hh
and over for starting or training.
Re-mouthing
It is possible to successfully re-mouth
any horse using John O’Leary’s mouthing system,
as Fred does. Re-mouthing is fantastic for horses whose mouths
have deteriorated in lightness. It is also an essential part
in rehabilitating any ’problem’ horse that has
developed behavioural issues such as bucking. Having a very
good lateral mouth, or One Rein Stop, is the most powerful
tool for safety and control in riding any horse. It’s
also the only way to truly retain lightness in a horse’s
mouth, in our opinion.
Fred has re-mouthed many horses and it
is a highly successful technique in any breed or age of horse.
However, it is essential for the owner to understand how to
retain the horse’s mouth after re-mouthing, hence why
we ask for owners to be involved in the process.
Leg Restraint Training
Fred has leg restraint trained many of the
horses he has started or re-educated and we strongly feel
that it can be the best ‘insurance policy’ you
can buy for your horse. In our opinion it is a highly effective
and safe way to help a horse learn to give to pressure in
many situations.
Fred has saved so many horses’ lives
through being able to use leg restraints with sophistication
and would challenge anybody who claims they are a cruel training
method when used in a safe environment by a professional like
himself.
We often have horses arrive that have issues
with being handled, particularly with handling of their feet
and legs. This can be a fear response, an evasion technique,
a lack of balance or purely a lack of confident, correct handling.
With leg restraint training these issues can and will be resolved.
We have started many ’feral’
and untouched wild horses under saddle and have found leg
restraint training to be an essential part of their training,
especially as a method to reduce much trauma in these types
of horses.
Leg restraint training is also highly effective
in re-training horses that rush off floats or scramble in
the float. Please see our ‘Testimonials’
section for some thankyou letters from clients whose horses
who have come to us for leg restraint training. There are
also some individual stories about our training methods in
our 'Some Special Stories'
section.
Training Horses to Tie Up Solid
Training horses to tie up solid is usually
a non event if it’s something that’s taught to
the foal from around one week or less of age. We also find
that most young horses that haven’t been handled much
and haven’t been tied up solidly before coming to us,
don’t normally have an issue with learning to tie up
solid and will breeze through this part of their education.
However, we often have horses come to us
specifically because they don’t tie up solid and have
become unreliable and a danger to themselves and others. I
cannot stress enough how important good professional facilities
are in re-training these horses. We offer re-training in tying
up with excellent facilities, and so far have had a great
success rate in re-educating horses to tie up solid.
We also use re-educating in solid tying
to re-habilitate horses that are head shy or who have been
ear twitched, and have so far had a 100% success rate with
re-habilitating these problems in horses. Please see our 'Some
Special Stories' section for an example of this.
Float Training and Re-education
As part of our horse starting process, Fred
teaches all our clients’ horses to load onto the float
and self load where applicable. Fred also likes all owners
to be able to load their horses confidently before their horse
leaves our property.
Fred also has many years experience dealing
with ’problem’ floaters and helping re-educate
owners in floating their horses. Unfortunately, running a
fulltime business doesn’t allow time for Fred to make
house calls, however many clients are happy to use a horse
transport company to bring their horse to us. Then, once Fred
has worked with their horse, we ask owners to bring their
float up and be available for some lessons themselves. We
have found this to be a most successful system in achieving
long term floating success!
General Handling and Groundwork Training
We offer general handling for all horses.
General handling includes halter breaking, leading, leading
off another horse, tying up solid, lunging, leg restraint
training and float training.
Consistent handling of any horse is the
best way to prepare them for starting under saddle and will
reduce the stress in any horse being started.
Retraining Standardbred Horses.
Fred has retrained many Standardbred horses
over the years. Generally, owners contact us about their Standardbred
horses because their horses are having trouble with trotting
and cantering. Fred finds this is normally because of a lack
of balance under saddle, mostly due to always being hobbled
to produce pacing, an unnatural gait, and also a lack of correct
muscle development to support learning to trot and canter.
Fred re-mouths these horses and teaches
them to work in the correct frame, starting to engage their
hindquarters. He then teaches them leg yielding to assist
with the engagement of their hindquarters and to give them
more suppleness and control. Fred then establishes the correct
transitions and gives the horse confidence with trot and canter.
This is a long term process for the owner but Fred has had
much success beginning the re-training process with these
wonderful horses. |
