08/11/2026
Duster has been with us for 17 days. When this horse arrived, he was as sweet as honey. He lead, he tied for the most part, he got along with my horses, and he unloaded off the trailer with no fuss over a new place.
And I’d like to preface this next part with this statement: An aggressive horse does NOT always come from a traumatic background or a bad situation. This gelding has been living the life of a king for the past 6 months. He’s on pasture with other horses, he gets grained every night, and when he got hauled, all he had to do was stand and be pretty. That’s the life every horse dreams of! The problem came when he was told he had to work to earn his living. For the first 3 years of his life, he was in control of what he did and where he went. The problem came when his role as herd boss was challenged.
Within the first two days the sweet and innocent gelding became abrasive, he ran into my space, he wouldn’t move his feet in any direction but over mine, and if he didn’t like the pressure you were applying and he couldn’t get you out of his way, he left - any means necessary - including but not limited to setting back on my trailer, crushing my panels, and ripping lead lines out of my hands if he didn’t like the selected direction.
I shortened training sessions, I changed locations, I tried different techniques. Nothing got through to this guy because he didn’t HAVE TO before. If he fought long enough, he had learned that he would win in the end and get to go back to living in luxury. The solution to our problems was laying him down. 3 times over the course of 3 days. He was loved on and shown that giving to pressure earns you a break and that we aren’t here to hurt him, we’re here to LEAD him to the right answer.
The horse that stood up that third day had a brain firing on all cylinders. He began to soften to pressure, flexing, moving his feet, asking instead of pushing.
The horse that walked off that trailer 17 days ago couldn’t back out of a trailer, couldn’t stand tied alone, wouldn’t accept direction from anyone on or off of him, and he took your authority and threw it out the window.
The horse that stands in my lot today hobbles, stands, rides, and is a willingly guided partner that wants to please and wants to learn.
This isn’t about strong arming one into submission. This is about communicating with the least amount of pressure and seeing the result. The goal is to build a horse that wants to follow because he can trust my guidance through his fear and through his learning.
Each horse is different. Each horse takes a different approach. Each horse responds to movement and cues differently. These methods shown don’t work for every horse and these methods are not applied to every horse in my program.
