My friends an idiot? She thinks you kick horses?

Please remove that question mark from the first sentence in the headline here. Replace it with an exclamation mark.

Your friend is an idiot!

"Kick to go, pull to stop." is what we tell tiny tots whose legs don't come even half way down the sides of our good horses who understand that this insect on their back is pure and innocent. The kid can understand that they're telling the horse to go and the horse is tolerant of it because s/he has a generous equine heart.

By the time you're old enough to type on a keyboard and spell words and string together sentences, you should have a better understanding of communicating with other creatures, whether through the internet or through subtle shifts of weight, a touch of calves, a vibration of a rein on a riding halter.

Kicking is to riding as crying and wailing is to talking - it's baby talk! There's no sense in abusing the tolerance of that generous equine by kicking it, when a light touch or squeeze of calves is all that is required in the way of a physical cue, and if you taught voice cues, they are sufficient.

I bought a colt at age 18 months. He wasn't fully trained to lead at that time. The most significant bit of handling he'd had prior to me buying him, was being roped and thrown on his side and hog-tied, to have his hooves trimmed. I worked with him daily, and as an ignorant teenager I longed him a fair bit, not realizing that it's not good for a young horse's legs to do a lot of circling. I don't think I hurt him much, because he was never lame up until I lost him to the Coggins test when he was 13 yr old.

Coming back to the topic at hand, he learned voice cues so well that when he was 2.5 yr old, I got on his back out in the pasture with nothing on him but me. Tackless. We headed back to the barn at a dead run, with me whooping in his ears. Half way there, I sat upright instead of the forward seat I'd had. I said his name, and his ears came back to me. I said the word 'now' and he gathered himself for the actual command word. When I said 'whoa', he sat down and slid an impressive number 11 in the dirt! I had never worked him on a sliding stop, but he did one that would win at most county fairs. He knew the word 'whoa', I set him up for success by giving the preparatory cues, and when I said it, he did it!

A creature that is able and willing to stop like that, on his way to the barn and dinner, with no physical pressure or force, does NOT need to be kicked!

No, do not kick a horse if you're older than 4 or 5 at the most. That includes your mental age.

BTW, I don't use a thigh squeeze to say go. I use that to say whoa - squeeze my thighs and knees forward, and sit my weight back and down. Calves squeezing on or behind the girth (or where it would be if I had a saddle on) say forward to my horses.

Goodness, Alice, you sure have a burr up your a** about something, don't you? But you do have a point. I'm as sick as you are of seeing questions from 12 year olds on here about how to "convince their mom or dad that they're ready for a horse". The only thing that's worse are the questions from the trolls, and there unfortunately are plenty of them around on here too. I don't have to "qualify" to have a horse, as you put it- I've been an owner off and on since I was 16. There were times when I couldn't own horses because of where I was working or living, but that didn't mean I stopped riding or learning. I've been a horse professional ( meaning employed and working in the business) for 25 years, and have seen a lot in that time. I've watched mares foal, handled stallions for breeding, and have been present and held the lead rope while the vet put down an old, tired ( and often seriously ill or injured) friend. I've seen accidents in which horses have committed the equivalent of human suicide. Until the kids who come on here asking about how to beg their parents for a horse have seen these types of things, THEY AREN'T QUALIFIED for horse ownership. It's agony to watch a horse you love die- in many respects it's worse than losing a person you love. But most of these kids don't "get" that, because they've never faced a situation like it. That's my take on this. It's one thing to love horses and want to be around them- we are all attracted by their beauty and strength. But it's quite another to actually be in a situation where you must care for them as you would yourself. Most children and teens are neither old enough nor mature enough to understand this.\ And for Shadow: "Kids will be kids" is an attitude that has gotten enormous numbers of people HURT AND KILLED, both inside and outside the horse business. Just take a look at the number of teen suicides in American's schools, and you'll get an idea what I am talking about. And the phrase "mental retardation" is NOT USED any more- it has been removed from medical nomenclature. The correct term is "intellectual disability." ( I currently work for a state agency that serves developmentally and intellectually disabled people, so I know what I am talking about. I do this in addition to being a horse professional- horses are my hobby now, but I made a living in the business for over 20 years before changing careers.)

in horse shows it takes points away if you give your horse verbal cues. To make a horse go you dont squeeze your thighs, you squeeze your lower legs. You squeeze your thighs to hold onto the horse and to keep your seat. if you dont believe me, try riding bareback, i do it all the time.

Many horses on not trained well enough to just go by a squeeze and even for some well trained horses you have to kick, but i dont mean hard but I have been on a horse who refused to move on while riding in the river and I have had to kick him hard to get him going because it wasnt safe with little kids around me. There is a reason why people use spurs because if you use them properly it will almost simulate just off of leg pressure. Have you ever ridden a mule??? UGH

No you should not slap her

Well, NUDGING a horse with your foot is a reinforcement for a lazy or stubborn horse. it is not kicking, friend who is leaning over the askers shoulder. A cluck is an easy way to make your horse go, but some horses rebel, then they need a nudge, and the horse usually does the action. It doesn't hurt the horse in any way ,shape,or form, unless used incorrectly, which any respectable Equestrian would never do. Kicking a horse TOO hard will make it angry, and then it might break out into a fight, which is what you DO NOT want. :]

Well, it depends on what your horse responds to I guess. Some only need a cluck, while others only respond to whip or kicks. Normally, you're supposed to squeeze with you're lower leg, not your thighs.

If the horse is responsive to clucking and squeezing, kicking is not necessary. Some horses need a kick start. Better horses don't. You are lucky to have such a responsive horse and she should not ruin it for you.

I say ASK (a quiet squeeze with the legs) TELL (a kick) DEMAND (a tap with a crop or a harder kick).

Kicking a horse will not hurt them, as long as she doesn't kick her horse the first time she asks for an acceleration.

I have used the ask, tell, demand system on my horse and other horses for as long as time can tell and VERY rarely do I have to use the DEMAND.

Some horses need more pressure than others, that's how it is. Usually by faulty training though, if they had enough groundwork under their shoulders their should respond to verbal cues. But there are always lazy exceptions that need a little more pressure to get them up and moving.

Maybe you're the idiot if you think you should slap your friend just for having a very common misconception about horses!

Friends are supposed to be nice to each other. Did you miss that message on Sesame Street?

one place I took lessons at one horse they put me on was so lazy that I had to kick with all my might.. the instructor thought I wasnt doing it right, so they had me get off and she got on.. and she had to kick him hard to make him move, so they put spurs on me ( which I thought was a bad idea) but it made him move and I finished the lesson.. ended up not going back there as I didnt really like the way things went at that barn and the spurs on someone that had only ridden 2-3 times before made me nervous