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Breaking a horse to the shot
Let me start out by saying that I have 21 years experience riding horses and personal not professional skills in training them.
My methods are based on hands on experience as well as knowledge derived from sources such as Amish farmers and Horseback Field Trial professionals who make their living off the back of a horse.
GETTING STARTED: The first thing I do when I prepare to break a horse to the shot is to wear him down by any means necessary. In other words wear his ass out. Whether it be finding a plowed field that's good and muddy to tire them down or making them go through their paces in a round pen it doesn't matter either way just make sure he is good and tired before attempting this.
FIRST TIME: The first time you fire a gun around your horse will be the decider on whether hes going to be an easy break or a hard one. What I do is find the strongest rope I can with a heavy duty bull snap on the end. Next I find a good quality tire inner-tube. I wrap the inner-tube around my hitching post then tie my rope to the inner-tube.
Bring out your exhausted horse and make sure his halter strap is on snug and hook him to the bull snap. Get on the other side of the hitching post and fire your gun of choice (what you would be using on horseback). What did he do? If he panicked and pulled back he didn't get very far before the inner-tube pulled him back. Continue firing your weapon until he simply stands there shaking from exhaustion. Offer him some food and take him back to his stall hes done for today.
DAY 2: Bring him back out to the hitching post without wearing him out first. Hitch him up like you did the day before and move around to the front of the post and fire. What did he do? If he stood there stoic and brave your ready for the next step. If he struggled and fought continue doing this every day until he stands for the shot or a week has passed. I'll go into more detail later on what to do if the inner-tube method doesn't work.
Now then if you got a real "War Pony" and he stood for the shot without struggling its time to move to the next step.
CLIMB ABOARD: Now its time to climb aboard! Saddle your mount and find an area free of hazards and mount up. It would be best if you loaded your pistol one bullet at a time for safeties sake. Take a firm grip on the reigns and lock your feet in the toes up heels down position and fire. Give him his head if he tries to rear up and take him in a circle if tries to run. Re-load and repeat again and again. Let him know you're going to fire before you fire with a "hip, hip" or a "hep, hep". That lets him know ahead of time its coming.
Once he becomes used to the fact that a massive boom is going to go off while you're on top of him load that pistol up and get him used to it. Ride your old familiar trails and pick things like dirt clods or tree limbs to shoot at and get used to the motion of your mount. Your going to miss targets that would have been easy on foot until you get used to it. A single-action revolver would be your best choice at first as well as being your safest choice.
'FRAIDY HORSE: Now getting back to the mount who still struggles no matter how much you shoot around him. My favorite mount was one of those horses so don't get discouraged. This was the one ***** in his armor and if I was going to hunt off of him I had to fix it. I went to see my Amish friends to see what they thought about the situation. They don't break their horses to the shot but to not be afraid of combines, semis, loud mufflers and barking dogs.
They showed me something that works even better than the inner-tube.
They take their horse and put them on a long lead on one side and a short one on the other. With a man on the long line and a teen on the short one. While they are putting them through their paces they introduce what the horse is afraid of. When he begins to struggle and fight the Amish teen runs in and the man gives the horse some slack. When he rears up the teen pulls him off balance and when the horse hits the ground quickly jumps on his head.
Nothing takes a horse off his game like taking away his greatest defense his legs. While he is down fire as many rounds as you can in ten minutes time. Don't ask me what this does to a horses psyche I have no idea all I know is when he gets up hes broke. I've yet to see a horse get up from this with the same fear of what he was originally afraid of. The trainers I learned this from do the same thing when training horses to become handsome cab horses. Those are the horses you see in many cities that have no fear of all the cars, buses and pedestrians around them.
CONCLUSION: This is for EXPERIENCED riders only. This is something I have been fascinated with since I saw my first western and first tried to accomplish when I was twenty and had only been riding a year. Once I picked myself up and dusted myself off after many failures at this did I start to talk to experienced riders and begin to listen to reason. Not many people around home had ever attempted this and many who claimed to have done it never showed me how or proved that they could.
It would be two years latter when I started running dogs in horseback field trials (think fox hunting but with bird dogs pointing game birds instead of foxhounds chasing a fox) that I would get the answers I needed from men who knew what they were talking about and could talk the talk and walk the walk.
My methods are based on hands on experience as well as knowledge derived from sources such as Amish farmers and Horseback Field Trial professionals who make their living off the back of a horse.
GETTING STARTED: The first thing I do when I prepare to break a horse to the shot is to wear him down by any means necessary. In other words wear his ass out. Whether it be finding a plowed field that's good and muddy to tire them down or making them go through their paces in a round pen it doesn't matter either way just make sure he is good and tired before attempting this.
FIRST TIME: The first time you fire a gun around your horse will be the decider on whether hes going to be an easy break or a hard one. What I do is find the strongest rope I can with a heavy duty bull snap on the end. Next I find a good quality tire inner-tube. I wrap the inner-tube around my hitching post then tie my rope to the inner-tube.
Bring out your exhausted horse and make sure his halter strap is on snug and hook him to the bull snap. Get on the other side of the hitching post and fire your gun of choice (what you would be using on horseback). What did he do? If he panicked and pulled back he didn't get very far before the inner-tube pulled him back. Continue firing your weapon until he simply stands there shaking from exhaustion. Offer him some food and take him back to his stall hes done for today.
DAY 2: Bring him back out to the hitching post without wearing him out first. Hitch him up like you did the day before and move around to the front of the post and fire. What did he do? If he stood there stoic and brave your ready for the next step. If he struggled and fought continue doing this every day until he stands for the shot or a week has passed. I'll go into more detail later on what to do if the inner-tube method doesn't work.
Now then if you got a real "War Pony" and he stood for the shot without struggling its time to move to the next step.
CLIMB ABOARD: Now its time to climb aboard! Saddle your mount and find an area free of hazards and mount up. It would be best if you loaded your pistol one bullet at a time for safeties sake. Take a firm grip on the reigns and lock your feet in the toes up heels down position and fire. Give him his head if he tries to rear up and take him in a circle if tries to run. Re-load and repeat again and again. Let him know you're going to fire before you fire with a "hip, hip" or a "hep, hep". That lets him know ahead of time its coming.
Once he becomes used to the fact that a massive boom is going to go off while you're on top of him load that pistol up and get him used to it. Ride your old familiar trails and pick things like dirt clods or tree limbs to shoot at and get used to the motion of your mount. Your going to miss targets that would have been easy on foot until you get used to it. A single-action revolver would be your best choice at first as well as being your safest choice.
'FRAIDY HORSE: Now getting back to the mount who still struggles no matter how much you shoot around him. My favorite mount was one of those horses so don't get discouraged. This was the one ***** in his armor and if I was going to hunt off of him I had to fix it. I went to see my Amish friends to see what they thought about the situation. They don't break their horses to the shot but to not be afraid of combines, semis, loud mufflers and barking dogs.
They showed me something that works even better than the inner-tube.
They take their horse and put them on a long lead on one side and a short one on the other. With a man on the long line and a teen on the short one. While they are putting them through their paces they introduce what the horse is afraid of. When he begins to struggle and fight the Amish teen runs in and the man gives the horse some slack. When he rears up the teen pulls him off balance and when the horse hits the ground quickly jumps on his head.
Nothing takes a horse off his game like taking away his greatest defense his legs. While he is down fire as many rounds as you can in ten minutes time. Don't ask me what this does to a horses psyche I have no idea all I know is when he gets up hes broke. I've yet to see a horse get up from this with the same fear of what he was originally afraid of. The trainers I learned this from do the same thing when training horses to become handsome cab horses. Those are the horses you see in many cities that have no fear of all the cars, buses and pedestrians around them.
CONCLUSION: This is for EXPERIENCED riders only. This is something I have been fascinated with since I saw my first western and first tried to accomplish when I was twenty and had only been riding a year. Once I picked myself up and dusted myself off after many failures at this did I start to talk to experienced riders and begin to listen to reason. Not many people around home had ever attempted this and many who claimed to have done it never showed me how or proved that they could.
It would be two years latter when I started running dogs in horseback field trials (think fox hunting but with bird dogs pointing game birds instead of foxhounds chasing a fox) that I would get the answers I needed from men who knew what they were talking about and could talk the talk and walk the walk.
akjhurg |
Latest page update: made by akjhurg
, Mar 11 2010, 11:04 PM EST
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About This Update
Edited by akjhurg
3 words added 2 words deleted view changes - complete history) |
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Keyword tags:
mounted combat
More Info: links to this page
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| timberrattler | Horsemen let me know what you think... | 2 | Sep 22 2009, 3:31 PM EDT by timberrattler | ||
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Thread started: Sep 22 2009, 11:48 AM EDT
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I'd like to hear comments from any horsemen on the site. If there are any besides me and death that is.
If there isn't I'd still like to hear what others think. I've finally took the time to write a page. It just took me 6 months to get around to it. More of what I know (or think I know) to come. Who knows in another 6 months I might even set down and write up a plan. |
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