While many training books have explained ways to progressively "desensitize" horses to frigtening situations and objects in the arena or round pen, this new book from Vanessa Bee - Founder of the International Horse Agility Club and 3-Minute Horsemanship - takes the concept of teaching horses to accept what they think is terrifying out into the world around us.
When considering common obstacles that might scare a horse, you usually find they require the horse go over something (like a bridge, threshold or log), under something (such as a tunnel, low branch, or flags), or through it (as in a gateway, ditch, or heavy brush). Sometimes there can be a combination of all three elements!
To deal with such challenges, Bee has provided Six Blueprint Exercises to lay the foundation of skills you need to teach a horse to go over, under, and through just about anything.
Then, she takes us through 50 common scenarios - such as riding over white lines or dark shadows, going under doorways, or passing through fields full of farm animals or "marshmallow" hay bales. Using small, easy-to-do, building-block steps and hundreds of colour photographs, Bee shows us what is needed to change the horse's instinctual reactions and behaviour, assuring a smoother, safer ride down the road.
With lessons explained in Bee's trademark "keep it simple" style, Over, Under, Through: Obstacle Training for Horses is one book from which every horse and horse owner will benefit.
Paperback.