Leading the Way For Foals Learn how to teach your foal advanced level leading exercises By Ken McNabb After you have covered teaching your foals to lead, longe, put their head down on cue, and accept your handling calmly, you will take leading to the next level. You will learn how to teach your foal advanced level leading exercises to get him leading off your body cues and position. You need a halter, lead rope, and a dressage whip for these exercises. Until your foal understands these exercises well, practice in a small arena or round pen where you can catch him easily if he gets away from you. One thing to keep in mind when working with your foal, or with any horse, is to start each session with a clear goal in mind. If you don’t have a clear goal to start, how are you going to accomplish it? With a goal in your mind, your cues and direction to your horse will be much more specific and you will progress much faster. When I begin, my goal is to have my horse’s mind on me all the time and his feet following me off cues from my body position. This exercise is in five steps. The first step I call “backing forward.” Teach this before you begin teaching your foal the forward movement parts of the exercise. This will give you cues to stop your foal and slow him down, which will be handy once you begin asking him to move forward. Throughout this exercise, you don’t want your horse’s head to get in front of your shoulder. If at any point he does, back him until he is where you want him. Begin each exercise as if your horse already knows what you want. I don’t mean that you demand that he understand you right away or that you get frustrated if he does not understand. Begin with everything set up as if he is going to react correctly, with yourself and the horse in the correct position. To begin, take the lead rope and loop it over your foal’s neck and tie it so it will be out of your way and he will not be able to step on the loop of slack. Square up to your horse, both of you facing forward, with his nose at your shoulder and the dressage whip in your left hand. Take one big step backwards. Now your foal’s head is probably in front of your shoulder. Tap the ground in front of his feet with the whip to ask him to back up. If he does, stop tapping and pet him. If not, begin tapping the cannon bone in rhythms of three until he moves his foot back. Reward him for any tiny step, and then ask again, moving him back until he is again in position at your shoulder. I recommend that you use protective boots so that you are not tapping directly on the foal’s canon bone. Continue this process, building to more and more steps in a row until you can walk backwards and your foal will back with you, always keeping his head at your shoulder with little or no cue from the whip or lead rope. Remember, your goal is to have your horse backing off only with your body position. If your horse is backing crooked, you can practice with him between you and a wall to help him lean to back straight. Now you are ready to teach step two of this exercise, in which you foal will learn to move forward with you off your body position. Begin in the same position you used for the first part of the exercise, with your foal square at your shoulder. Put your right hand lightly on the lead rope and take one step, learning forward with your upper body as you do so. If your horse steps forward with you, reward him. If not, use the “go forward” cue by reaching back to tap him on the hip with the whip. As soon as he moves forward, stop tapping and reward him. It is important that you not pull on the lead rope as you ask your horse to move forward, since your goal in this exercise is to teach him to lead off your body position. It is fine to use the lead rope and whip, but only as reinforcement after you have given your foal a chance to respond to your body cues. Build this exercise from one step until you can get as many steps as you want at a time. Both these exercises should be practiced on both sides of the horse. You don’t want to lose what you taught in step one as you move onto step two. If your horse moves forward but goes past you, stop him and back him until he is again in the correct position at your shoulder. If he keeps going past you repeatedly, back him at least a full body length to explain that he really needs to stay back a bit more. If he does try to move past you, it’s important that you let him make the mistake and then correct it, rather than hanging on him trying to stop him from getting by you in the first place. Practice this in a small, enclosed arena or round pen where you can catch your foal easily if he decides to leave you. Pay enough attention that you can get the lead rope and stop him before he actually gets away; but if he does, don’t worry about it too much. Just catch him, bring him back, and resume what you were doing. Now put the two exercises together. Make up a dance with your horse: one step back, stop, one step forward, stop, one step back, etc. You will find your foal focusing on you and staying award of where you are at all times. The next step in the exercise is to teach your foal to turn away from you off your body cue. To teach your foal the cue to step away from you, put your right hand on his neck behind the ear and your left hand by his nose. Step in towards him. If he does not move, reinforce your body cue with a light shove with your hands. If your foal moves forward rather than away from you, stop and back him, then resume the exercise. Remember that your hands should stay off him if at all possible. You want him moving ahead of your hands, just responding to the body cue. Contact with your hands should only be used as a way to reinforce your body cue when he does not respond. You want your foal definitely stepping his front end over as he moves away from you. He doesn’t have to plant a back foot and do a true spin, but you do want to be sure he is not just walking forward with you chasing along by his shoulder trying to get him to move over. Once you have mastered this part of the exercise, untie the lead rope from around his neck and hold it in your hand. Now you will teach your foal to follow you when you turn away from him. Walk forward and then turn one hundred eighty degrees so you are moving in the opposite direction. You want your foal’s hip to move away from you, which will bring his nose towards you. If his hip does not move away fast enough, i.e., if his head does not keep up with you, tap him on the hip with the whip. He should know that this means to move his hips away since you taught this cue in an earlier lesson. Make sure your foal does not run past your shoulder and get in front of you when you tap his hip to move it over. If he does, back him to the correct position and resume what you were practicing. Before you move onto the final step of this exercise, be sure that you have practiced each of the prior steps for at least as long as it took you to teach it in the first place. If it takes 20 minutes to teach something, expect to practice it for at least that long so that your foal really understands what you are asking. Since you are working with a young horse, you will probably have to break your teaching and practicing into multiple sessions to stay within your foal’s attention span, which is about 20 minutes. If your foal is just beginning to understand something but you think you are losing his attention, find a good note to end on and quit for the day. Since he was just starting to understand the exercise when you put him away, don’t be surprised or frustrated if you have to spend some time the next day teaching the exercise again to get back to the point where you left off the day before. The last step in this series of exercises is to trust your horse enough that you allow him the opportunity to get away from you. Take your hands off the lead rope, and ask him to do these exercises without holding onto him. Be sure to give the cues exactly the same way you did when you were holding the lead rope. Although you know that something has changed because you are no longer holding the lead rope, your foal should have been responding to your body cues and not the lead rope all along. If you change how you are asking for his responses, even slightly, you will only confuse him. If you can trust him completely, you will be pleasantly surprised at how your foal justifies your trust. Enjoy your foals and, until the next time, may God bless the trails you ride.