Dustee Pintos

BASIC HORSE INFORMATION
This information is provided as a guide only. There are many methods that can be used to acheive the same result, these are some of ours. All information placed on this page is written by Dustee Pintos - J Thornton and is subject to copyright protection laws of Australia.

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TRICKS FOR TEACHING YOUR HORSE TO FLOAT LOAD
Written by J Thornton.

Ideally before attempting to load your horse on a float it should have basic handling such as lead, pick up hooves and touch all over...

Here are a few things you can try to get that horse on your float, ranging from easy cheats for one off "get out of trouble" times to establishing a solid education in float loading.

INTRODUCE YOUR HORSE TO THE FLOAT - If you own a float and have sufficient access park your float in the paddock with your horse for a few days to weeks. When your horse can be comfortably walked past or tied to your float its time to move up a step.

FOOD - Restrict your horses grazing and withhold feed for one day, the next day with the float secured to a suitable vehicle drop the door and place your horses feed container inside the float and if you feel necessary make a small trail of feed from ramp to feed bin for encouragement purposes. When you horse confidently enters the float for its feed move onto approaching the horse in the float to fit a lead to its halter and ask someone to gently close the tailgate. Reassure your horse by talking calmly to him/her and rubbing the neck or ears. Allow your horse to finish its feed and let it out of the float. Repeat procedure the following day but upon secure the tailgate remove the feed (maybe keep a handful for reward purposes) and ask that your helper take you on a small journey around the paddock or block again using verbal and physical cues to reassure your horse and allowing a treat for good behaviour.

FOOD #2 - Food may also be helpful as a followup to the above method by offering a handful just out of reach of your horse encouraging it to take a step forward and up onto the ramp.

CREATE A SENSE OF "SPACE" - Where possible when only floating one horse create a sense of space by removing dividers, canvas covers on windows and leaving the front people door open for light. More sucess in floating a horse can often be gained by floating in a open top float or stock crate through which a horse can clearly see.

MAKING USE OF OTHER FIXTURES - In aid of float loading for the first time or difficult loaders you can position your float in a gate way or against a solid fence (panel or wooden NOT wire) to provide the horse with more direction and reduce the occurence of your horse stepping around or off the side of the float. Portable panels are very helpful in this regard.

COACHING - Coaching is especiall helpful for teaching foals, weanlings and long term paddock mates where one horse is known to be a good floater. This can be carried out with or without dividers in place, dividers may keep your coach well over their own side of the float but the lack of dividers with foals may allow them to press against mum and gain reassurance from her body.

Firstly halter both horses and load the "coach" into the float, encouraging the second horse to walk up either at the same time or after loading the coach. A key to this method is to be patient and to rely on the bond between the horses to do a lot of the work for you. This can be combined with a lot of other methods also mentioned on this page.

STEPPING/LEG ROPE - Get a long length of thick cotton rope (or alternatively thick marine rope with fleece sleeves) with an eye in one or both ends and by pulling the body of rope back through the eye to form a slip loop place the horses front hoof through this and settle the rope around its pastern. Pressure on this rope  can be used to get the horse to "step" up onto the ramp. Fitted to a front hoof/leg each end it can then be used with pressure one side then the other to "walk" the horse up or accross something. Practice along a flat open area before attempting to use this for float loading is always a good idea.

BUM ROPE - A bum rope can be made out of a length of soft cotton or marine rope with an eye on one end. Run the plain end through the eye to from a large loop similar to that of a lasso, now standing at the horses shoulder with lead and excess bum rope in your left hand grasp the loop and place it over the horses back and around its bum underneath the tail, it should sit loosely about as far down the horses butt as the dock extends and the point where the rope length passes through the eye sit upon the horses spine. Run the long end of the rope through the lead rope attachment on your halter and coil both ropes in your hands. By applying pressure to both the lead and bum rope you will acheive a greater forward motion than can be achieved by just a halter and lead. As with any new thing it is advisable to try this in a area free of obstructions before using it to aid float loading.

CRADLING - For this excercise a minimum of two handlers is required, three is preferable. To cradle a horse two handlers should stand at opposite sides of the horse level with the horses hip and each extend one arm out and behind the horses rump about the point of where dock ends in the tail and grasp the others hand or preferably upper arm, this is your "cradle", by standing more to the side of the horse and having cradle firmly against the horse the risk and possibility of being kicked is minimal. With two handlers it is benificial for each to have a lead attached to the horses halter in their free hand to provide direction for the front of the horse, with three handlers the third can control a single lead and provide some forward pressure whilst the cradlers can use their free hands to help guide the progress.

LUNGE - If your horse knows how to lunge on a lead in an open paddock you can use this method to get him/her to self load on a float. Start behind the float lunging in a small circle moving it gradually closer to the float until the ramp falls within your horses path at which point you should encourage his motion in a forward tangent off the lunge circle. Remember nobody is perfect but practice helps.

USING PRESSURE - With a horse that is used to leg aids and moving off of pressure it is possible to load a horse on these signals alone, by applying appropriate pressure to the front or rear of the horse he/she can be aligned straight up the ramp and a gentle prod slightly back from the girth should encourage forward motion.

SECURING YOUR HORSE IN THE FLOAT - We secure our horses in the float by looping around the chest bar and then tying solid onto the D most floats have for the purpose, this way they are in less danger if you use good strong ropes and halters (check out the ones we make!) of going up and over and can still be far enough back to get a sense of security and solidness from the tail gate.We feel it is better overall for them to gain a few scratches from them fighting that to breaking twine they have been tied to and possibly turning around to jump out the back of the float.

FLOATING ACCESSORIES - Such as float boots or rugs should only be used on horses that are accustomed to them well before the day. They should be well fitted and secured without being tight. A haynet may be fitted in the front of the float to keep your horse happy and amused while in transit.

REST STOPS/WATER & FEEDING - Remember that travelling in a float can be tiring to your horse and that regular rest stops are essential, preferably find a enclosed area away from traffic with a good supply of water to unload your horse and allow it to stretch its legs, have a drink of water and where the trip is greater than one day a feed.

Although unloading is recommended IF you beleive your horse will be difficult to reload it is better to leave the horse on the float for a break and provide water/feed there.

Time your trip so that you are travelling during times of less traffic or when the outside temperature is neither excessively hot or cold.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS - pay some one else to do it! 

GETTING YOUR HORSE TRANSPORTED
Written by J. Thornton.

HORSES ARRIVING WITH OBVIOUS LACK OF CONDITION - This one never fails to amaze me, that people who have a horse transported over several hundred kms and days expect it to arrive in the exact same condition it was put on the truck and when it doesn't they blame the transporter. So heres just a few reasons you horse might not arrive quite like it left the last place;

* Did you buy your horse sight unseen?

Many people do this, did you buy sight unseen beleiving the horse was in "generally good condition" or from photos? Look carefully at your photos and your horse, can you see a difference such as the horses bridle path is freshly clipped in photos but when it gets to you its 2 inches long? Was the horses hooves freshly trimmed and now resemble elf boots? Was the photo taken at an event, research when this event actually took place. Look carefully at the background of the photos, what season is it in the photo and what season should it be?

If your horse is an accomplished traveller it may well arrive in the exact same condition it left the previous place in, but on the other hand if your horse has never been transported or fidgets for the whole journey it is reasonable to expect a small loss of condition due to stress and/or the rigours or steadying itself during transportation (in transport your horse must use its muscles to stay upright and balance its weight against the sway of the truck/float).

HOW TO LUNGE A HORSE
Written by J Thornton.

We usually start with the horse loose in the roundyard, have a whip or waddy (long peice of poly pipe with flag/rag/bag atached to end, NOTE it is a visual not physical aid!!) to encourage them to move forward you step more in line with the hip and wave your waddy. Once they get going you return to level with their body (middle of roundyard) and when you require them to stop step more in line with the head and place you waddy out in front of them.

Hope the following little picture I drew up in paint helps. Black is start position the little triangle on diagonal line is the waddy with flag, the other line is your lead if you are using one. The green represents your body, lead and waddy positions when wanting the horse to go or speed up the red when you want to stop, slow or turn the horse.



We do it all off lead and a horse must turn in to the centre of the circle when changing direction, if the horse turns the wrong way it is roused on and made work hard, if it does it right you tell it so and reward with simply continueing the gentle work. While teaching when a horse does it right allow them some time to just stand and think about it all.

When you want the horse to stop, firstly position yourself towards the horses head and signal with flag out front of horse for a stop (start of turn) (and in learning some pressure on the lead) it should turn to face you, if you are wanting a stop as the horse moves into this position lower the flag waddy to your side and take a step back, the horse should take on step towards you (in teaching ask for this with pressure on the lead whilst stepping back), you may then chose to place your flag waddy or hand out in front of you and say "whoa" which is asking the horse to stay where it is or let it walk up to you. Either way it should receive a pat, kind words and/or treat.

When getting the horse to change direction it should do so in two steps, firstly give the stop/turn signal with flag out front of horse (and in learning some pressure on the lead) it should turn to face you, as it does so take a step to the side you wish to see when its lunging and wiggle your flag which should still be out to your side and now the horses.

We use voice commands also when asking for these things;

Whoa - stop
Steady - slow down, (trot to walk etc)
Giddyup or clicking sound - start in motion, speed up (walk to trot etc)
Face up - used in conjunction with whoa to make the horse understand you require it to face towards you.

We actually teach our horses to be caught and haltered this way. Once they have learnt to do this in the roundyard with lead on you should then progress to a bigger yard and ask for them to lunge on the lead rather than the shape of the yard (by shortening and lengthening the lead at various times) and once they can do that progress on lead to open paddock.