Link Image Marv Walker Index Page

Never Send Your Horse
To A Trainer Or To Me

He writes...

Marv

I have a just turning 3yrs old filly. I sent her to man to have her saddle broken while she was there she was mis treated after 4days I stop it and brought her back home with many cuts an eye very swollen legs very sore with rope burns who know s what ever happened to her.

well she is finenally ready to break but the right way .I love this horse very much and she is very gental by pushy a times .

what is the bonder? I have been reading your web site...

I get a lot of calls and emails from people seeking my advice about sending horses to trainers. They are surprised when I tell them, "Don't ever send your horse to a trainer."

They are so surprised to hear that that they hardly ever hear my second statement, "Send yourself to the trainer and take your horse along."

More horse money is wasted on trainers than anything else. Even without crunching the numbers it is easy to see that by the time you factor in the daily care and feeding of your horse there is little money left for actual training in most cases. Factor in the expenses they have to meet just to keep the doors open and you get an idea of just how many horses they have to divide into their time just to survive. A vast majority of horses trained by trainers are trained by the help.

In order to keep prices down and remain competitive they have get the horse going as quickly as possible. There is a lot of pressure to rush over crucial points and use short cuts. Not unlike the ones your "trainer" apparently employed.

I tell people to send themselves to the trainer and take their horse with them so they can see exactly what goes on while they are being taught how to get their horse to do what it is they want their horse to do.

If you send the horse to the trainer you'll get back a horse trained to the trainer. In order to get the same results the trainer got you'll have to do the things the trainer did. If you don't know what those things are, you are out of luck.

But don't all trainers train to a standard someone may ask?

I laugh.

The ONLY time you want to send a horse to a trainer is when the horse will be shown BY THE TRAINER. And even then you may want to stay away from the trainer's because time is money and he won't have time to do a lot of polishing or explaining.

If you proceed slowly and in a well planned sequence you can train your horse yourself and actually have a faster better result than having someone else train it. You are no less likely to be injured by the horse you train than by a third party trained horse if you go about it properly.

What is "properly?"

Well properly is making sure you can do whatever you want to do with the horse under saddle from the ground before you ever get on it. You step by step it until you are stepping on the horse itself.

It is my firm belief that your horse is too young for under saddle work. There are a number of areas in the horse that have not closed yet. Traditionally folks have only focused on the knees but there are other growth plates that should fuse. I personally would wait until the horse is at least a good four. With care you'll have the horse around a long time. No sense in opening yourself up for chronic conditions that could pop up in the first half of its life that will affect the last half - ringbone, lordosis, etc.

It is not too young for ground work.

The first step in ground work is establishing a mental connection with the horse and learning how to use herd dynamics (leader / follower actions) to produce and keep a compliant horse.

You can click here to email my autoresponder for a free copy of the procedure I use that has come to be known around the world as Marv Walker's Bonder. In a few moments you should get an automated response telling you the current internet location of the procedure.

Once you are proficient in bringing the horse into compliance at will then you can go onto the other basics that will lead you into the saddle with less risk than sending your horse to a trainer.

The sense of accomplishment you'll feel from training your horse yourself will be well worth your time and effort.

Best to you...

Click here to check out my very reasonably priced DVD inventory covering many of the subjects featured on my site's pages in greater depth.

Back To Top

For Further Information Contact Marv Walker 706 816-7190 Evenings 9 to 12 PM
Questions, comments or suggestions
Back to Marv Walker's Index Page

vBulletin statistics