Trail Walk to Improve Your HORSEMANSHIP By Glenn Stewart
B It seems like not too many people have heard of trail walks with their horse, but we like to do it here at the Horse Ranch often throughout the camps in the summer. It is a very enjoyable way to develop a horse. It gives the horse and the person a chance to get out of the corral and test some of the stuff they have been working on in the corral.
asically, a trail walk is taking your horse online out on the trails and asking them to do some of the things you might want them to be able to do if you were riding them. It is a great way to see what their behaviour is going to be like without being on their backs. We have had people and horses here that compete in horse shows of different sorts but can’t actually leave the confinement of the corral. They don’t have enough control or depth in their horse to ride in a field or down a trail. Yes, believe it or not.
Sometimes it’s only the person that is worried and the horse would be fine if their owner would relax. So, one way of bridging the gap, whether it is a horse or human problem, is to do a trail walk. I’m fortunate here because I have miles of trails; wide ones, narrow ones, ravines, and gentle and steep hills to go play on. When we are out on the trails, we ask them to walk up and down hills at the speed of the person, stop on the hill if needed, and even back up and down the hills. We will also back them down crooked trails even when there are up and down hills. In the corral we practice sending them over poles and logs, so out on the trail we send them jumping over windfall. The goal is to really check them out and to expose them to the bush and trails so they can become relaxed and thinking. The person gets to see that their horse is very capable of being led quietly up a steep hill and doesn’t need to run or lunge and that they can stop or walk slowly going down. We also have water holes that we send them through and a few man-
8 • JULY 2022
SADDLEUP.CA
