Adventures With Horsemanship: The Search: Evaluation Process Of Candidates

The Evaluation Process: Everyone is different. Every evaluation process is different depending on what the goal of the program is. For us we are looking for a marketable age, a good frame, a good mind and a willingness of spirit. You can train skills but you can’t train attitude. Trainability is everything. Since our goal is to help get a solid foundation on the horse and find the horse’s “happy place” in life our evaluation process reflects those goals.

This is what our evaluation process looks like:

When we arrive at the horse’s home, we chat with the humans. They usually tell us all the “good” about the horse and we have to ask drill down questions to find out more about the challenges. We try to get as much history on the horse as we can just so we have a clear picture of what we are dealing with. Questions like “How easy is the horse caught/haltered? And

How well does the horse load in the trailer?” and other behavior questions. Of course we are going to test this out (trust but verify is the key here, dear Readers) and establish a starting point.

We look at conformation, hoof care levels, softness in the eye, overall condition and overall mannerisms.

We like to catch the horse ourselves if possible. We always bring our own rope halter/lead rope and stick-n-string.

We would like to see the horse move out off of the lead line if there is a way to do that at the horse’s home. Walk, trot, lope. We apply pressure to see how responsive/reactive the horse is. This can tell us a great deal about the horse on many levels.

We put the halter on and then rub on the horse. Looking for “oh no” spots that will have to be addressed. This is also a way to say “hello” and begin to establish a connection of sorts.

We like to see the horse work on the lead line. Again we walk, trot, lope. We apply pressure to see how responsive/reactive the horse is. We want to determine what kind of ground work has been done with the horse and what it understands. We lead, we test lateral flexion, we yield the hindquarters, we yield the forequarters and we back up. We then ask for more line work on the circle with impulsion and direction changes. Again we are testing the levels of pressure the horse needs to perform and how they react when the pressure is increased and decreased. If a horse stays wound up then we need to know that going in. If the horse is adaptable we need to know that too.

Once work on the ground is done we have the current human saddle up the horse and show us how it performs with a rider. This is a must for us. If they can’t/won’t ride (or have someone they know ride) then it is a red flag for us. If the human doesn’t trust the horse to behave or feel comfortable putting a friend on the horse then we may have a real problem on our hands. We just want to see some walk, trot and lope along with some basic turns and if the horse knows it, lateral movement.

If that goes well then we usually ride. We want to “feel” what we “see” and so on. If the horse deals well with different riders then usually they are fairly adaptable or at least kind in the mind and spirit. It should be able to carry Laurie and I and remain fairly well mannered. This does not mean perfect but it does mean accepting. Not always easy to find in a “project horse” because of poor training/handling but they are out there.

Here are two examples:

“Alex” is a 9 to 10 year old Mustang gelding. He was given to a private rescue group in Foresthill, CA. Alex had had decent health care and was getting a restart in life. He was broke to saddle but not real confident and trailer loading….forget about it…he did not want to deal with the box! So we do what we do. It is pretty amazing how quick a connection can be made and communication established. After we watched the ranch foreman work with Alex, we stepped in and put him through some paces, escalating pressure and testing the boundaries of what the horse knew. Always a learning experience! Alex showed some sins of stiffness on his left rear leg so we would have to pay special attention to this after some rounds of joint therapy. And supplements. We wrapped up the session watching the ranch foreman attempt to load Alex into the trailer. Not a pretty site. We have to give the foreman big proper because we was really trying to be kind to the horse and not be too aggressive. Still the horse chose not to get in the trailer. He reared up and pulled back quite a bit. Laurie stepped in and tried a different energy level. She almost got the horse to walk on the trailer but at a crucial moment Alex acted up. So Michael stepped in. Alex got reminded of how to move off of halter pressure on all three sides of the trailer. He got to rest near the door. When if though about pulling back he got to back up QUICKLY and with ENERGY and then worked on all three sides again. Rest just happened near the entry. When we wrapped up was when Alex followed Michael into the trailer without any pressure on the halter. In short we educated the foreman and helped Alex see that there is a gentle way that gets his mind and respect at the same time.

He is a possible candidate for the program BUT the ranch owner want more money than we feel he is worth at his current level of training. We call that the “don’t want to sell” price. We will see if our counter offer is going to be accepted.

“Lady” is a 10-13 year old Mustang mare with one bad eye, possible metabolism issue, overweight and poorly care for feet. She had not been ridden in TWO YEARS and has not had much handling in that time. She appeared to be broke to saddle but with her feet in such a bad way we chose not to ride. In short, she was not in the best of health and was uncomfortable. Her owner seemed a bit clueless so we simply asked them to remove the saddle (wow- we NEVER show a horse already saddled as we want the potential family to see everything – sigh) and we used our tools. We asked her to give us her best and she did try. The heart was willing! Still with her current condition and training level she will be very hard to rehome. Laurie and Michael worked with her and saddled her up. She has issues with being tied up and supposedly does not trailer all that well. By the time we wrapped up we had Lady backing up with rhythmic and steady pressure, yielding her hindquarters, laterally flexing and doing some nice lunge line work.

Sadly, we are going to pass on Lady but will network with people to see if someone can take on a long term project.