Trainer's gentling secrets
It’s horse breaking through mind control. And the horses love it.
Taupo¯ equine trainer Andrew Jamison won Equitana Auckland the IRT The Way of the Horse Challenge last week with Little Miss Attitude. In the ultimate challenge in horsemanship, competitors were given four days to turn an unhandled horse into a trusting horse that was happy to be ridden.
“We were allowed just one hour each day with the horse. All the competitors were very different, but we all worked through the mind,” says Andrew.
Beating out fellow Kiwi Amanda Wilson and Georgia Kolovos and Donal Hancock from Australia, initially Andrew was left speechless when the winner was announced.
Earlier this year Andrew had rodeo success winning the 2019 Team Roping Champion Heeler, and in addition his horse was voted Best Horse by the other competitors. He takes his partner
Stef and young daughter Lily all around New Zealand with team roping, and says it’s really good fun.
Growing up on north
Canterbury high country station Mt Mason, Andrew says he has always been around horses and has a natural feel for them. When he left school he worked with a
South Island trainer then headed to Canada to work with some of the top horse trainers in the world.
He would never tie a horse up, saying that’s the old school way. His way is to gain the horse’s mental trust.
“Get them mentally through feel. Use pressure and release. Ask with the slightest pressure then release, sometimes the release is just a thought.”
For the first three days the horse is in a halter, and Andrew teaches the horse to go forward, turn left and right, laterally, backwards and forwards. He introduces the bit and the reins, but makes no contact with the bit until after a few weeks. By the fourth day he takes the horse into the open paddock, and says they never bolt.
Home on his Oruanui Rd farm, he has seven horses to break before Christmas, “and a fair bit to do around the farm”, not to mention stock manager obligations for the farm across the road.
The seven horses all belong to other people, and the horses are intended for all disciplines - from equestrian to rodeo to hacking.
Andrew’s broken in a few Kaimanawa horses and lots of wild South Island ponies, but says the high country horses near his home town of Hawarden are wilder.
“At least the Kaimanawas have got some decent breeding in them.”
Safety is paramount and he says his customers know that when a horse leaves his farm, it’s a safe horse that anyone can ride.