WHAT MATTERS MOST TO HORSES? This 13 Year Old Knows!

Juliana Newton became the proud new owner of five year old Neeko just a few weeks ago, but already they are on their way to becoming an outstanding team. To ensure they develop confidence and trust in each other, Juliana took it upon herself to spend time working with him on the ground... in hand, on the lunge line, and in bomb-proofing exercises.  Not bad for a thirteen year old!  I was so impressed I had to find out more.

Me: "Juliana, your riding instructor is also your trainer. Why are you doing this stuff with your horse rather than letting her do it?"

Juliana: "Because I'm the one who's going to be riding him. I want him to trust ME. Plus, I'll be taking him to horse shows so I want to make sure he's not going to be afraid of anything."

Me: "Did your instructor tell you to start doing this groundwork with Neeko?"
Juliana: "No, but she teaches us that we need to be good leaders to our horses, and she wants us to do stuff like this."

Me: "In doing this type of work with Neeko, have you run into anything yet that you felt you couldn't handle on your own? Anything that might have scared you?"

Juliana: "Not on the ground, but when I took him trail-riding for the first time he was afraid of the bridge."

Me: "How did you handle that?"

Juliana: "I let him sniff it, and then we walked away from it. We kept going back to it, and then he just went across it. He was nervous about it though. He circled around a few times after we got across, but then he was fine."

Juliana using a bag of empty soda cans to do some bomb-proofing with Neeko.

Me: "What advice would you give to other riders your age about doing groundwork and bomb-proofing with their horses?"
Juliana: "I would tell them to do it for their horses. All the riding is for us. But this kind of stuff is for our horses. It helps them be okay with us riding them.

Well said! Juliana knows that, to horses, nothing replaces good leadership. Thanks to an instructor who knows the same goes for riding students, Juliana is well on her way to becoming what every rider should strive to be... A Leader Prepared to Handle Anything! I think Neeko is one lucky boy!

Whether you are a riding instructor who wants to teach or a student who wants to learn the basics of providing good leadership to horses, The ALPHA Equestrian Challenge is for you! Order here or through Amazon.com.  Available in Kindle version too!