by Elizabeth Reeves

Created on: June 27, 2008   Last Updated: June 25, 2009

Teaching a horse to stand still requires, first, teaching the horse that, if they don't stand still when requested, they are going to have to work. As horses are naturally lazy, this is key to teaching them just about anything.

When my horse, Sameer, at the ripe old age of four, decided that he was going to move away every time I mounted I knew it was time to head to the round pen with him. For one thing, he was over sixteen hands, and I am a petite five foot two inches. Most of his height was in the legs, so I really needed him to stay still while I was getting on him, or it wasn't going to happen.

The exercise was fairly simple, and worked like a charm. I led Sameer to the center of the round pen, then proceeded to start getting on him. When he moved away, instead of trying to get him to stand still, I chased him away, and made him work, hard. He had to do turns in both directions, and he had to keep moving until I told him to come back to me.

When he came back to the center I stuck my foot in the stirrup and he immediately started moving off again. I repeated what I had done before, but this time I made him work harder. He started looking at me and licking and chewing, very willing to take a break from all this hard work.

I called him back to the center of the ring and tried it again. That was enough for him. He was done with all of this. It was much easier to stand still and let me mount, than to have to gallop around doing spins and turns in the round pen. In a very short period of time he had gone from walking away when I was mounting him, to me being able to mount him without even having a hand on the reins.

The same principle works under saddle. When a horse won't hold still, under any circumstance, then they have to work. It can be practicing backing up and turning around and around when they are being jittery on the trail, or it can, essentially, be any hard work, that makes them have to use their mind and their bodies. Very quickly they will be begging to be given a chance to stand still again.

I worked with a stallion who loved to 'jig' on the trail, he was always bouncing up and down, never settling to a walk, no matter how long the trail ride was. For him, I practiced shoulder-ins and lateral movements, even in small spaces. Soon he was done with the jigging, and was very adept at listening to my leg cues.

When handling a horse, it can be very useful to keep in mind that they are basically lazy creatures. When given the opportunity, they would rather stand quietly than work hard, so utilizing this can be a great way to train them to do what we want them to do.

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