whip breaking a horse

[missourihick]

It sounds alot worse than it is. I live around the Amish in northeast Missouri and some of them use a whip during breaking a horse,they start out by whistling and when the horse does'nt come to him,they pull it in and whack it. They do this over and over till the horse knows if someone whistles they have to come a running. They also use the whip throughout the whole breaking process.There are as many different ways of breaking a horse as there are horses. I asked this same question over at yesterdays tractor site and **** near got my head tore off. I just want to know more about this and if there is a book out there about it. Thank you all.

Personally I'd like to rip someones head off that trained a horse like that as well. There are much better methods to accomplish the same task and still keep the horses trust intact. Personally I'd rather have a horse that comes to me because he likes me and trusts me not because he's afraid he's going to get a whip across his hide. There may be different ways to train a horse but it doesn't mean they're right or humane.

[Slyder]

Missourihick, I have to agree with cowboyc on this, but also to add...when training a horse, it is always good to gain more knowledge, but if it doesn't sound right...it isn't. If you really want to train your horse to come to you out of respect...it is going to take a lot more than a few days with a whip and a friend...it is going to take hours and hours and hours. I do know that John Lyons has a good video on catching in the pasture and so does Pat Parelli. Visit their websites at www.johnlyons.com or www.parelli.com.

[lmassom]

This is an old technique I've seen used, It has a name and if I remember right it may be Berry's Method. It usually involves a "bull whip" and a buggy whip. When I've seen it used, it wasn't very "abusive". the "crack" of the whip being used more than actural contact. No welts were raised on the hores. However, this being said, I don't like it and didn't respect the trainer. (I was attending farrier school in central Wyoming at the time (1971)and they had a "trainer" teaching training and packing that I disagreed with on almost everything.)

This method dates back to the horse and buggy days when people who weren't horse people had to deal with horses daily. It did seem to be effective and it was quick, but there are much better ways to train a horse using time and patience.

Larry

[chrisjbell]

I'm not a horse expert, but my daughter takes riding lessons from a guy who is. He doesn't "break" horses - he trains them, which does involve a lot of time and care. But you wind up with a horse that *wants* to please you and do the right thing, rather than one that does what it must because it is scared of being beaten. He tells me that the "breaking" techniques are used by folks that don't really care about establishing a relationship with a horse but are more interested in simply having a work beast. Kind of the difference between having a slave and having a trusted employee...

I'm kind of a softie and just hate to see cruel training techniques used... [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[RichZ]

That method is just plain cruel. Horses are intelligent animals and generally want to please you if they consider you the head of the herd. You have to gain their trust with kindness, not whips.

I've never trained a horse before, and I got a belgian filly at five months old. I'm no expert, but she's lead trained, comes when her name is called, backs up, moves to either side, lifts her feet, goes into her stall, drops something she's got in her mouth, (and several other things I can't think of) all on verbal commands as well as by touch commands. I never hit her once. When she's bad, or doesn't listen, believe it or not, I talk to her sternly and ignore her, and play with my other horses (who were trained before I got them). She gets so upset that she's being left out of the herd, when I go over the command again, she obeys.

I admit there are probably many flaws to how I trained her, but it worked, and she's now ready to be trained to ride and drive. I'll have a professional trainer help me with that part, because it's much more complicated, but our trainer will not use any negative reinforcements.

[missourihick]

Thanks for all the replies. I got some good opinions on the subject. I didn't say I wanted to use this method,I just wanted to know more about it. I can't say I have trained any horses,but I have broke a few to ride(green broke) I have a 6 month old pony I am working with right now,for my kids. After I get the hard part done I plan to send it off for finishing.
thanks again.

[lmassom]

Starting with a six month old is great. I bought by filly when she was 9 months. She hadn't been handled and wasn't halter broke. I worked with her slow and started light riding this summer when she was 2 yrs 5 months. Over the summer I got her use to being saddle, lounged her with saddle, and then ground drove her with saddle.

The first time I rode her, I had my girl friend lead her on a long rope. After a few minutes she let the rope out (over 10 ft) and then after a few more minutes, we took the rope off. I walked her around for about 5 10 minutes and then my girl friend saddled her horse and we went for a short trail ride in the woods. The woods in in the pasture and the filly knew it well and had always followed us when we went riding anyway. She did great.

After a few more rides at home, we went to a large park that has large areas where you can ride horses. Again she did great.

We had a two week camping and trail riding vacation coming up and my old mare (28 yrs old) wasn't acting up to any long rides (she doing much better now). So I took the filly instead. At this point I had riden her a grand total of 7 times. She did great.

I haven't always had this easy of a time starting horses, Jessie by far has been the easiest.


Larry

[missourihick]

I sold a nice looking american saddle bred mare last year. I think she had something wrong in her head,I never saw such a crazy horse in my whole life. She would pull and choke heself out 20 times a day if you would let her,she'd kick ,bite and push me all around,I worked with her for several months before I completly gave up on her. She was one of those horses that I wish they still had a horse meat market for because she is going to hurt someone. I had to shoot my riding horse this winter ,he was only 20 years old ,but he was inbred to start with and has had a sort of hard life. When he was 3 he got shot by some spotlighters hunting deer and when he was about 10,while we were gone on vacation and he was out to pasture he was scratching his hips on a forked tree and got his butt stuck in there he stood there in the 90 degree heat for over a week and almost died then. He was a good horse,I could let him go for 6 months or a year and go out and put small kids on him and not have to give it a second thought, I have seen at least 4 kids on him at a time,he was 1200# and 16.5 hands. I'll miss him. Grandpa said a man only gets one really good horse in his lifetime,all the rest are just horses. Well ,Clyde was that real good one.

[lmassom]

Right out of college, I worked as a groom on Hanover Shoe farms in eastern PA for a few months. They are a huge standard bred farm. Every fall there's a standardbred yearling sale in harrisburg. At Hanover, the each groom was assign 6 yearlings to prepare for the sale. That year (1972), one of the fillys started acting crazy. She got so that no one could get into the stall with her. She would stand for hours striking the side of the stall with her front hoofs. The vets finally put her down and did a post mortum. They found a huge brain tumor.

Larry