Horse Information - Meurer Horsemanship

Over the past few months I have had a lot of fun interacting with some wildbrumbies that were adopted by some animal lovers in country New South Wales. Here is anoverview of some of the techniques I’ve been using to help them learn to trust and interactwith people.

It was back in August that I received an email from Skye. In 2008, after reading an articleabout Snowy Mountain brumbies needing homes, Skye made further enquiries through theVictorian Brumby Association website. Two horses caught her eye, Asha – a strong, small andpretty black mare – and Phoenix, her foal. Luckily, she had room for both of them on herfarm in Crookwell so Skye, and her daughter Georgie, eagerly awaited their arrival. Thetrip from Victoria to the farm was a long one and when the horses finally arrived, Skye letthem out into the cattle yards and gave them time to adjust to their new home.

At first the foal, Phoenix, was quite curious and approachable, as foals often are. He andGeorgie developed a good rapport. However, as Skye and Georgie live in Sydney and only getto the farm on weekends, the handling was quite sporadic. Over the following two yearsPhoenix has become more like his mother. Skye got in touch with me to start the process ofhandling and educating these beautiful wild horses.

When I got there they were in some yards, a large round yard and a small one. Wearrived, got out of the car and they were running around, snorting and clearly concerned. Myfirst job, relaxation! We needed them to relax and slow down if I was to be able to put ahand on them. We started in the large round yard, where I put them into flight and startedto have a conversation with them by controlling speed and direction of motion just like thedominant horse would have done in the herd they came from. As they started to give me thesigns that they were relaxing and understanding what I was saying I gave them theopportunity to draw in towards me. When I turned and took the pressure off, boom, they cameflying in! Although still stand-offish, they would keep facing me and even follow me around,at this stage at an arm’s length. It’s amazing how pure and untarnished their instinctswere, they are so responsive to their own language and had such a desire to rejoin a herd.I’m so glad I could give them that herd security they needed! Back in the herd we createdthese little horses could relax and opened their mind up for the next stage of learning.

After this I took each individually into the small round yard, I needed to beable to get a hand on them. Now that we had an understanding that they could trust andrespect me enough to face me, they pretty much keep looking at me most of the time, whenthey did move away I would add a little pressure with toward the hindquarter until theyfaced me again, then they would zoom on back in to me. I then used a long stick to be ableto touch them. Using approach and retreat I was able to get them comfortable with metouching them gently on the shoulder with the stick. Here at the shoulder I created a sweetspot, somewhere where I could go to them, touch them, then move around the rest of the bodyfrom. Again using approach and retreat I would move the stick rhythmically around the restof their body until they were comfortable with me touching them all over with the stick.

Now it was time to put my own hand on them. Back to the sweet spot I went by firstly rubbingthem on the shoulder. It went really well, so I got to work on putting my hand on them,giving them a rub then walking away. I repeated this several times, until they were happyenough for me to come in and out of their space and rubbing their shoulder on both sides.

From here I started to move my hand into other parts of the body. Like the stick I startedat the sweet spot and worked my way to other parts of the body. These great little horseswere fantastic, allowing me very quickly into other parts of their body. Soon enough I wasable to rub them over most of their body. I was also able to run my hands all over, walkaway then come back in and do it again. This showed how accepting they had become in such ashort time.

Once I could do all this in the small yard, I made sure they would allow me to do the samething in the big yard. It worked a treat as they followed me around and allowed me tofrequently stop, approach them and give them a rub.

This was a great start, in not a long time at all these little wild brumbiesbecame comfortable in the presence of people. Not only did I handle them but so did Georgie.She did a great job using approach and retreat to be able to handle them, soon enough theywere following her around, Georgie handled the situation very well and with greatsensitivity. This was just stage one, stay tuned for the next step, putting the halter on and leading.Visit James MeurerHorsemanship

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