Taking the Fear Out of Trail Rides
Article by Bernd Hackl
There are few things more pleasurable in life than a laid-back trail ride with your equine friend, surrounded by nature. But for some horses and their riders, this pleasure is spoilt by heart-stopping moments that keep on happening and are seemingly impossible to get under control – whether the cause of the trouble is a tractor, a big bin that seems to emerge out of nowhere, or even a woodpile covered with a tarpaulin. You can actually see the fear etched on the faces of many riders when they catch sight of an object in the distance that is likely to scare their horse.
Many riders underestimate the importance of using the indoor or outdoor arena to get their horses used to the seemingly frightening objects that can pop up on trail rides.
At the 7P-Ranch, we have a short checklist that we quickly run through before going out on trail rides with our young horses and the horses that are at the ranch for backing.
Checklist for trail rides:
Groundwork requirements:
During groundwork, my horse stays behind me without any problems.
I can control my horse’s forequarters and hindquarters from the ground.
I can send my horse over a tarpaulin or over poles.
Mounted requirements:
The three basic gaits – walk, jog and lope – can all be ridden without any issues.
The horse can be steered well in all three gaits – it goes the way I want it to.
I can stop my horse at any time, without needing a huge stopping distance.
Backing up is no problem
To make trail rides chilled experiences, we think it’s very useful to get together at your yard and form working groups. Many yards now host “play days”, where lots of horse owners get together and build obstacles in the indoor or outdoor arena. However, in our case, these obstacles aren’t designed for jumping over and instead take the form of tarpaulins, fluttering curtains, umbrellas, large exercise balls, empty bins, flapping bags, etc. This has two benefits – it strengthens the team spirit at the yard and, much more importantly, the group dynamic has a positive influence on the horses’ behaviour. After all, it often doesn’t matter how much practice each horse-and-rider pair puts in – if just one horse in a group of four gets spooked on a trail ride, this panic can quickly spread to the others. We therefore find play days that involve lots of horses and riders a really good idea.
Good manners between horse and owner should be just as firmly in place on the ground as we expect when we’re in the saddle.
Those who really enjoy groundwork can then move onto the next stage – working on the obstacle course with the horse on a long line. Here, too, it’s important to work in small steps. Long lining also complements trail-ride work perfectly because some problems that crop up are very difficult to sort out from the saddle.
At the 7P-Ranch, for example, we initially do all our work with rearing horses from the ground, using a long line, until we are able to bring dangerous situations under control. Only then do we move on to the next steps from a mounted position.
When training our trail horses, we attach a lot of importance to improving steering, stopping and rideability. Exercises such as the one-rein stop help us maintain control over our horse, as do classic exercises such as shoulder-in, travers, renvers, etc. In our view, these things are largely ignored on a trail ride, since many riders are apparently content simply to keep riding in a straight line. Provided that all the right foundations have been laid during groundwork, negotiating the obstacle course from the saddle and taking the mounted exercises up a level by introducing elements such as pushing over barrels, dragging things behind you, carrying slickers, etc., should not pose any major problems.
A final – and, in our view, extremely important – point is the ability to control a horse when it is part of a group. Even if a horse behaves impeccably when being ridden alone in the arena, it can be a very different story when three, five or even more riders are all loping in the same direction at the same time.
Riders very often expect their horses to remain fully under control in a group – but this group dynamic is seldom properly practised.
In our Calm & Relaxed out on the trail series, we’ll give you various ideas about exercises you can do to help turn your horse into a safe and reliable trail horse – and have fun along the way!
About the Author
Bernd Hackl is one of the most well-known horsemen in Germany and the surrounding German-speaking countries. Over the past 30 years, he has trained and worked with thousands of horses.
After starting to ride at age 14, he quickly moved on to riding western. He soon started working with Wolfgang Winkler and Brian Turnbull (USA) before further honing his skills working with young or so-called problem horses during subsequent stays in the US with Roy Sharpe, Steve Holloway and Bill Horn. Influenced by horsemen like Buck Brannaman, Ray Hunt and Jean-Claude Dysli, Bernd soon forged his own path.