Sunday 13 March 2011

Lazy horse? Give them carrots!



Anyone can ride Milo, so long as they don’t want to go anywhere. Milo is a genius at training his riders to give up. “Riding Milo is like kicking a brick down a road,” said one rider. Another explained that this young pony was “just too exhausting.”

By halting and refusing to move, or only walking when continually reminded that going forward is the answer, Milo has cunningly convinced people to move onto bigger, faster, more energetic horses, and to leave him alone.

That gig worked for a long while. But lucky for me, Parelli Natural Horsemanship has some good tips for ponies like Milo. Watch this video to see how to train your lazy, immobile horse to move forward with exuberance and surprising speed, without the use of whips or spurs.

And just in case you don't know already, Parelli Natural Horsemanship does not endorse this video or recommend most anything I am doing here, except to have fun with your horses. (Oh, and they do have a very effective point to point solution within their larger program to motivate "lazy" horses and YES, it does work!)

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