Horse Information - Aussie Horsemen

We’ve done quite a bit with race-horses over the years, either with re-training older horses through our ‘Performance Horse’ checklist, handling youngsters orstarting them under saddle. One particular time a few years back, one of our trainerneighbours had a dozen or so youngsters he wanted prepared and started to saddle ready tobegin their racing careers.

Being young, they hadn’t had a lot of handling and had never been transported and only being2kms from home, the decision was made to simply lead them home. Frankly, we really wanted todo most of the handling of these little ones ourselves, rather than have someone elseworking with them trying to get them onto the truck and to our place. The short journeydidn’t warrant the possible stress caused, when we knew that once we got these horses to thecenter for training, we’d soon have them loading and handling nicely in all manner of ways,so we opted for just getting them home as stress free as possible.

We had a pretty good apprentice with us at the time and Shane and I decided that it’d begood experience for her to give me a hand in bringing the young horses home. We had eight tobring home, so my idea was to make two trips and each bring two horses in hand per trip. Youcan probably already guess that we had a bit of a surprise in store and that things wouldnot necessarily go to plan!

The first surprise was that when we arrived, the youngsters hadn’t been caught yet ... so wehad to go get them. We found them in a yard about ½ acre in size with 30 or so otheryoungsters for company. The trainer pointed out which were our 8 and then left! He and Shane had some other horses to look at for re-training so left us to our own devices. Shanegave me a look and off they went.

It soon became clear to Ronnie (the apprentice) and I that catching these horses was notgoing to be easy. Any attempt at approaching them sent them running in the other direction.My thought was, had they even been caught before at all? And if so, had they been haltertrained? My other thought was that this was a traditional racing stable where the idea ofswinging ropes or sticks anywhere near the horses would not be appreciated or understood. Ifany horse tried to run through our space, endangering us and we blocked it to defendourselves, it wouldn’t go down very well. We knew there had been several bad injuriesincurred on this property, one resulting in a man being trampled and badly hurt, so we werevery conscious of what we may be up against. Having said all that, these were nice peoplethat we wanted to help ... they, like many other horse owners, just didn’t know any otherway to handle the horses and in consequence the horses were by our standards, pushy, nervousand dangerous. So ... I knew we had to do a good job, get the job done, not offend theirsensibilities too much as we truly wanted to help and that at all cost, get the horses homeas soon as possible so we could do what needed to be done to help both horse and human. So... with all this in mind, Ronnie and I laid out a plan that we put into action.

Catching the horses would be tricky ... I just hoped against hope that once we did, we’dfind they were halter trained. Now ... catching these unwilling youngsters out of such a bigherd was no easy task. The trainer had left a biscuit of hay, I think with the idea thatthat would help. I didn’t bother with the hay as either the colts would be caught or theywouldn’t. Ronnie and I went into the yard, one of us at one end and one at the other. Iwanted to try to approach the herd and see where things were at. Of course, as I did so theyall moved off, but I just got Ronnie to try to keep them down my end and we kept things asquiet as possible. Gradually, using approach and retreat I was able to have some of themaccept me and allow me close to them. Before long I was able to rub a few of them and justhang in their space. I picked out the quietest of our colts first as the easiest to catchand bit by bit managed to get close enough to her to rub her all over and then put on thehalter. I made no assumptions about whether she was halter trained ... it was pretty clearby now that they weren’t. They’d obviously had a halter on before, which many people thinkis halter trained, but I knew that trying to lead her any where or get her yielding topressure was going to be another story.

Without putting any pressure on the halter so as not to cause a reaction, I drove her overto Ronnie ... one down, seven to go.

Some of the colts (young horses) were obviously going to be easier than others, so Ronniealso just picked one of the easier ones. We hoped to show all the colts that we were okayand allowing us to catch them was going to be a good experience for them. After a bit ofmanoeuvring, during which she learnt heaps about body position and working a herd, Ronniegot her horse caught and over to where I was with my horse. We decided for practise thatshe’d try another one, however these babies were really very, very attuned to body languageand energy and catching the 3rd was proving tricky for Ronnie. I didn’t want to unsettle theherd too much so in the end we swapped and I caught the next one. All up, catching 3 horsesin a ½ acre paddock had taken 45 mins! And these were the easy ones!

Next cane the fun of getting them home. I was already questioning my wisdom in taking 2horses at once, however I wasn’t going to turn one loose again and there was no way thesehorses would tie up and wait patiently ... so that was that. While we could drive the horsesforward without putting pressure on the halters, things were okay. I seriously doubted thatthey’d be able to handle any pressure on the poll or death-spot, so our plan was to get themmoving in the general direction and keep them moving all the way home. We spent a fewminutes establishing basic yields with a bit of contact and no contact to protect ourpersonal space, however as I knew we were being watched, there was no way we’d be able toactually use our hands to block the horses from running us over as it’d just be consideredhitting the horses. Too bad if we got run over in the process!

The first trick was negotiating the yards and lane ways to get out of the property. Wherethe youngsters were, was at the back of a very long row of large yards, with an alleywayperhaps 3 metres wide, leading to the front of the property. As I couldn’t get in front ofthe horses for fear of getting run over (remember these horses didn’t lead or yield topressure in any way), the only option was getting them trotting beside me, with me behindthe drive-line, driving them forward. Easier said than done in a narrow alley with otherhorse in the surrounding yards rushing the fences at us and running along the fence-linesscreaming as we went past. However, we did manage it and eventually burst out into the houseyard. Then we had to negotiate the obstacles in the house yard, get an electric gate openand 3 horses safely through! ... and then we were out onto the road.

Here we re-grouped and I reiterated to Ronnie that we’d just get the one easier horse going(one of mine), use her energy to get the others going forward and just keep going. We werein for a 2 km jog along the road, all the way home. I must say that the open road is a veryquiet, dead end road, so we knew traffic would be scarce and the verge is very wide andgrassed.

Before we got to the open road though which was a nice, long, easy stretch, we had to getpast several houses, through a ditch, over a creek (which ran under the road) and pastseveral very excited horses, one of which was a very excitable stallion.

It’s amazing how a fairly safe looking piece of road can suddenly becomehighlighted with death traps, when you have a couple of scared, adrenalin filledthoroughbreds on the end of the line. The tricky bit was getting the horses going in theright direction, which was hard for them with so many distractions. We’d just get going anda dog would run out, causing one or more of the horses to shy sideways, feel pressure on thehalter around its head and try to pull back. Or the stallion would rush us, or something inthe creek would give them a scare. Trying to hang onto the halter just wouldn’t cut it asthese babies were stronger than us and would just panic with more pressure, so we had to bereally good at working our angles, getting behind that driveline and pushing them forwardagain without letting them scare themselves too much. Then we’d get one going, but it’d bethe wrong one and the others would still be going in the other direction.

Those youngsters found every obstacle, tree and ditch in a 100 meter radius. It’s amazinghow narrow that usually wide piece of road became.

We kept our focus though and managed to get them heading for home, got some flow in theirmovement once more and we were off. It was just the best feeling to get those babies runningalong side of us lightly and smoothly ... clipping up the road in the sunshine. They werestill flighty but headed in the right direction and eventually they began to settle andenjoy the trip.

We ran all the way home ... we must have been quite a sight coming up the road ... Shane waswatching from the home yards by now ... wondering where we had got to.

A couple of cars past us but we kept on going, not daring to stop now we had thingsflowing.

We reached the gate and without a pause, headed up the drive-way for the last leg ... only900 meters to go. Shane had the yard gates open for us and we just took them right on in.They glanced over their shoulders at our horses who just calmly watched them pass. Withoutthe fuss and carry on that the other horses we passed made, the youngsters just sailed oninto their new temporary homes. I’ve never been so pleased to get home!

All up it had taken us 2 hours to get 3 horses 2kms home! Ronnie and I were pretty spent ...we’d sure had to use all of our skills to get the horses home and these were the easy ones!

It was too late in the day to head back for the rest, so we left that for the next day.Shane came with us and gave us a hand catching them which again took an amount of time andskill but our attempts the previous day had set a good standard as they were all a bithappier about us being amongst them. Two more similar trips and we had them all home safeand sound. Now we could get to work and help these youngsters be the nice, calm, quiet, safehorses they deserved to be.

Over the next 2 weeks Shane started all of them under saddle with Ronnie and I helping. Itwas so nice to see them all at the end of their time with us, being so very easy to catch,tie up, trailer load and ride ... even out on the trail moving cattle around ... and ofcourse taking them home was a piece of cake.

The final picture, that journey home, was so beautiful and one I’ll always remember ...Ronnie riding quietly down the road, ponying another of the young horses along side. Justambling along as if they’d done it all their lives. She took them all home this way and itwas the nicest picture you can imagine.

What a difference 2 weeks can make ... the journey home such a far cry from the first one toour door.

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