Stable training week 1

It is mid November and I have been working to get 'Mr F' accustomed to his stable for just over a week now.

Both 'Rookie' and 'Zac' are used to it by now so it will be safe to introduce a third party to the stable building.

'Mr F' is a very strong willed horse. There is no other non-human being that tells him what to do and I truly had to get my act together to gain the position of his trust and acceptance. To become something else rather than just the food servant.

Unless 'Mr F' wants something, there is no way you can just make him do something until he realises  that it might be good to follow you. You can try force him but you will be at the receiving end eventually, I have learnt that myself. The way to deal with him is to 'explain' things to him. To convince him that whatever it is you want him to do needs to be done. If he trusts the human he is quite willing to have these discussions, of which there are many between myself and him.

'Mr F' had never been good at being in the stable, at least not since I have known him. And certainly not alone, it usually ends in pacing about and shouting. Pacing about in a dangerous manner, dangerous because he can injure himself. At the old place he was fine entering the open cowsheds at free will to get access to the haylage. But he could always leave if he wanted to. And of course his field mates where always with him, quite often all together in the shed eating. The only way to have him in there was with a stable mate. Also, those sheds where much smaller.

Considering he is an ex-racehorse one would have thought he would be used to being in a stable.

His new stable is huge. 15ft x 15ft approximately, enough room for him to move around especially when staying in for longer periods of time when the weather is bad. 

In addition, here at 'Hill Farm', the stables are part of the main building groups and away from their grazing fields. This means leaving his field and field mate to go into the stable. There are other horses in the other stables so it's not that he is on his own.

My job now is to make him realise that being in the stable  will be secure and comfortable and even entertaining. It appears that most people's method is to just 'put them in and let them 'ride' it out. It is not a method that suits 'Mr F'. He would go absolutely bonkers. And I have seen what he is like when that happens, at the very start when he arrived at 'Buttercup Farm', now nearly 5 years ago. From my viewpoint, it is not a kind thing to do and probably will not help the trust level between horse and owner. 

Everything new that  'Mr F' has to get accustomed to, I introduce slowly. This is partly how I earned his trust over the years. He realised that he can communicate to me if he is anxious, or in pain, or needs an scratch ... anything. The result of this is that I nowadays quite often can ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, without much discussion. He mostly follows willingly. 

As start of our stable training I have been leading 'Mr F' past his new stable and the new barn so he could view it from the outside and get used to the changes from old barn to new building. I have done this several times, casually on they way back from a stroll (there are two different routes out of the yard). I deliberately timed it so that the youngsters weren't in. I didn't want him to expect them to be there every time. 

I continue with this until he walks past the building and stands still next to it with a relaxed head position, no longer being bothered by the new surroundings. That is when I know I can proceed to the next step.  This sometimes can be a very quick progression, sometimes it takes a long time. 

'Mr F's 5* accommodation - newly built. His is the one to the far left.

The smaller wooden stables can just be seen in the background to the left.

The next step is for him to get used to the inside of his stable.