SUCCESS— SAFETY
• When working with a horse who has leg-handling issues, I use a large arena that has good footing. This way if the horse needs to move, I can move him. Don’t attempt to do these training sessions in a barn aisle or tie stall.
• Before each session, exercise your horse for at least 20 minutes to release any pent-up energy and emotion. He’ll probably be in the best frame of mind after a long ride.
• Stay out of the kick zones as much as you can during the process of desensitization and trust building. Stand as close to the horse’s shoulder as possible, to avoid a cow-style kick from the horse.
• If you have a handler on the horse’s head, make sure that person knows how to help you stay safe. I tend to want to control the nose myself so I can direct the trajectory of the hindquarters. I want to be able to pull the nose toward me, which causes the hindquarters to swing away from me.
• Divide the process into steps and allow as much time as it takes to master each element before moving on to the next step. Remember that even if you do everything right, you are still holding a hind leg on a horse that can kick and hurt you. You may move through all the steps and still have a horse who is dangerous to handle. It is the horseman’s feel and timing that gets through these issues to a positive resolution. If you are in over your head, call in someone experienced to help your horse over this.
• If you pick up a hoof and the horse begins to struggle too much, let it go, move him around and take a fresh start. Make sure the first step you ask of him is to move the hindquarters away from you.
• When holding up a hoof, never put your fingers over the end—this will prevent your fingers from getting caught and injured if the horse slams the foot to the ground.
• Ease back into contact after a break. If you are touching the leg and then let it go, start over by touching his body somewhere else first and then rub your way back to the leg. Sometimes when you break contact and then try to touch a horse again on the same spot on his leg, he will react as if you’ve just come from nowhere. I have seen horses instantly kick out, even though the handler was just touching them a few moments ago.
• Make repetition work for you. When it comes to horses, many things can be overdone, but these techniques require lots of repetition. I like to repeat many of these steps in sessions of 15 minutes each. Then do three of these short sessions a day for several days. Continue for at least 14 days and maybe many more. It depends on the horse and how comfortable he becomes.