How To Saddle Break A Horse?

While this will not enable you to start a green horse, it will give you some education and ideas. Purchase Clinton Anderson's Colt Starting video to help you get started. No one on YA can give you any proper answer to your question. It is too broad and the information required is volumes. Starting a horse is challenging. If you have a good temperament, that will bode well for you, but you should put a good basic foundation on your horse from the ground before you even think of introducing a saddle. I have been starting horses and re-starting problem horses for years, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done with a halter and a lead rope before you even think of anything else. Not to be unkind, but when I hear comments like yours, it is an obvious indication that you do not have any idea what you are about to attempt to do. Again, if you have a kind horse, that is great, but when you begin proper training, if you begin proper training - and many never do - that attitude can change. When you begin to gain respect, it is a different matter. I see people riding horses and even competing with horses all the time and they are just not broke, have no foundation at all. When you don't have a proper foundation on your horse, you will never be able to achieve the optimum performance level with your horse. The blind, obviously, never see that point of view. If you do not know that you need basic foundation training on your horse, I guess you would never know that you are missing it. Get some education. If you have the video, you can watch it over and over, and you will need to do so. No one can get it just once. And it will take a lot of time, patience and practice in an effort to get your timing right. You have to always stay calm, no matter what. Never express anger or frustration with your horse. Beginning to train your horse is really not so much about the horse as it is about YOU. The human has to be trained before the horse can be. Be kind and be safe.

We put the saddle on to start out with and led a rider around. We did this for the first few rides mounting and dismounting from both sides. We then had a rider be led around bareback, mounting and dismounting from both sides. I think this was important so she can get as much experience in different areas as she can. We have also mounted from the ground and off of something else. This way when she is finished she will not expect things to always be the same and freak out if something is different. For the most part though all the work has been done with a saddle on. However, she is comfortable with both. The main thing to remember is that if you are nervous or uncomfortable your horse can and will feel it and that may set her back a bit as she will think there is something wrong with whatever you are doing and that is why you are nervous. Hope this helps, good luck.

Hm, warmbloods are hard horses to ride. But as long as you're confident and really do have experience you should be fine.

My trainer always says that she devotes the first 90 days (or more, depending on the horse) to ground work like leading, lunging, ground driving, saccing out, free lunging, putting a surcingle on, lunging with it, putting a bridle on, lunging with it, then saddling and bridling and lunging with it.

Once the horse is solid on the ground, (you'll need help with this part, just someone to hold her) she saddles and bridles the horse, gets a mounting block, doesnt get ON the horse but puts some of her weight on the horse. If the horse doesnt mind, she puts more weight on. Once the horse is comfortable with your weight on it (you'll be practically lying down on the horse) you can attempt to get on. This can take weeks, days, hours or minutes depending on the horse. Just don't rush it.

Once you're on the horse, just sit on it for a little while. talk to it, pet it, reassure it. Later on you can have the person holding her ask her to move forward. This way she's doing something she knows (leading) while having something unfamiliar happening (you on her back) so it's not completely uncomfortable.

I cant help you after this- I honestly have no idea. Best thing to do is get books and dvds on it. Dont be afraid to ask the trainer you brought with you for advice- that doesnt mean you'll ask for hands-on help, just advice.

I suggest getting some natural horsemanship DVD's. Learn all different techniques to it and then you'll have methods to use once you figure out how she learns.

We usually round pen the horse until they do it all on cues. Then we take a rope and rub it all over their body, then we tack them up. If they let us put the saddle on, we take it off. Then the next session we add the girth, if they girth up fine, we walk them around with it. If they're still fine - we round pen them with the saddle on. We continue round penning/lunging them with the saddle & girth up for a few lunge sessions. Then we start working with the bit and bridle. Let them get used to it just being in their mouth, then start lunging with it. Then we add all of the tack and start ground driving or lunging with side reins on (of course, we also train them to USE side reins) so they get used to a light constant pressure on their mouth. Once they do all of that, we get on. Usually they're already so into the groove of things they're much calmer and more responsive. Then we teach them all the cues.

We take the longer process, doing things in sessions. We usually can break a horse within a week doing this, and depending on the horse it's usually the better method. They're always much more relaxed about all the tack and what's going on.

Since it's your first time, I highly suggest you have a trainer tag along with you. Just so they can watch you and guide you, but you can still do it yourself. It's also really good to watch a few horses be put under saddle, so you can see other people do it.

I appreciate the fact that you want to do this yourself and I say go for it. My only suggestion would be to see if there is a trainer available to oversee your progress, as you do the training; someone who could be on-site to give you real-time, hands-on advice in case you need it. Although the horse may be gentle, it's still an animal and therefore not 100% predictable. Good luck and have fun training.

For someone to give you indepth, step by step advice on this they would have to write a book......there's a LOT involved with training a completely green horse.