Respect Your Capabilities

June 7, 2021

Respect what you and your horse are capable of

Let’s say you’ve schooled your horse only in an arena, and feel confident he’ll stop, turn, and obey leg aids.  You’re ready to tackle the great outdoors!

Make it a positive experience by being in complete control of the environment on these first rides outside. Keep it as distraction-free as possible. Realize on the first outdoor trips, you won’t be riding off into the sunset, climbing mountains and fording rivers. Setting too high of expectations will almost certainly set you back on the training. Start simple and gain confidence in each other.

Like humans, horses need to go through grade school first. Be content with with baby steps, because you’ll accomplish more in bonding and trust with your horse. This is how you teach horses to believe in you, and why they’ll try any obstacle – just for you. It will be because you taught them to trust you. It means a huge responsibility on you, which comes back to my original statement: respect what you and your horse are capable of. Trying to do much too soon backfires.

Here’s my best example of training the slow, but sure way. We encountered an intimidating  obstacle at a trail competition. My horse, JD, had certainly never been through a deep, fog-filled ditch. Not the usual sort of thing you practice for! But because of  establishing trust and being patient on his training, he did not refuse. JD carefully felt his way through that scary ditch without any urging.

I was beyond proud!

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Perrydale Trails opens for its 10th season in May, 2022! Bring your horse to the real country and practice all kinds of obstacles.
Better yet, enjoy it all with your friends!

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Give your favorite horse person a special present of an all day ride at Perrydale Trails, and this is what you’ll hear …

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Confidence

There’s many a time we ask our horse to tackle an intimidating obstacle, one that he’s never seen before. Preparing well provides the confidence to accomplish it!

Head back to our “Trail Tips” page…

Schedule

Schedule a ride, a lesson, or a camp outing! Find out all the options we have available for you to experience the joy of Perrydale Trails!

Know someone who would love to have a ride date here? Gift certificates to the rescue! 

Located At

15900 W. Perrydale Rd.

Sheridan, OR

Call Us

(503) 843-2930

Email Us

ride@perrydaletrails.com