From John Lyons Trainer Keith Hosman

Round Pen First Steps
A Downloadable Book

A sample from Day 4:

"The next step is to take your lunge whip, lasso, lead line or what-have-you and begin twirling it about. Get a little "rise" out of the horse, twirling it until his eyes grow wider or he raises his head, etc., then drop it and pet. You got it, it's the same process we've been following. Twirl the rope around, build to slapping the ground on either side of your horse, tapping him on all sides of his body – and finally bring it in (onto the horse) from totally unexpected directions, "out of the blue." Throw it up and over so that it's momentum carries it across his back and up onto his belly on the opposite side, up under his tail, around his hind legs, that sort of thing. Be careful to not stand in front of the horse if you're doing something that might cause him to lurch unexpectedly forward and of course stay away from the kick zone. Have fun with this and stay with it, ferreting out "don’t touch me there" spots until you couldn't find another if your life depended on it. (Hey, it sorta does)."

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- 5 Days, 5 chapters
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Available Downloads:
"Stop Bucking"
"Rein/Speed" (for Nervous Horse Owners)
"Round Pen First Steps"
"Trailer Training"

Sample Our Newsletter
"Good Now Bad Later," from my FREE monthly newsletter

From the How to Train a Horse Series:

"Every time you teach an exercise, your horse will go through the same learning cycle. He'll go from "Bad" to "Good" to "Worse" to "Not So Bad" to "Learned." That's the typical cycle: Bad. Good. Worse. Not so bad. Learned.

You know "Good." "Good" is where we get excited. It's the part where we want to show off to our friends. We want to show somebody how soft our horse has become, so we walk over to brag to somebody, pick up our reins and the horse sticks his nose straight out, stiff as a board. We're embarrassed and our friends snicker. We've just entered the "worse" stage. It's the part where "he was getting but now he's not."

It's during the "worse" part where we typically second-guess our training. "The horse was good but now he's worse. I must be doing something wrong." You begin to think you need to change what you're doing. "Maybe my hand's in the wrong position" or "I'm using too little pressure." You begin to think you're doing something that's not correct. That's when we're most likely to change what we're doing. But that's the most important time for us to not change, to keep on doing what we're doing. You've got to get through this stage by being consistent. Keep doing the same thing over and over so that the horse realizes all the movements that are "mistakes" and which single movement is correct. It's consistency and time that teach your horse."

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Pat Parelli
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Richard Shrake
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