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Hey y'all so I bought a mustang I get to pick her up the second week of April, she will be my first full on training project my older gelding I bought green so he had training but got extra when I bought him. Anyways I am looking for any extra helpful pointers to make sure I don't do anything wrong, I am a huge Clinton Anderson fan so I will be using mainly his methods on her as I did with my gelding but I am open for any extra pointers. I'm going to turn her into a barrel horse when we get to that point. Thanks for reading |
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I'm very against the Clinton Anderson method. He's a trainer for butthole horses. You don't want to use his methods on a mustang. You want to gain the horse's trust, not chase them with a whip until they give in. What you should do is have a halter put on the horse before it gets in the trailer and put it in a pen that will either be where you work with her or somewhere that has a sort of alley to get her to the round pen. Lunging is important, but when you overdo it, they're just tired and going through whatever motions they need to in order to get things over with, not thinking and learning. A mustang does require a firm hand, but not one so harsh that they'll explode. Just be calm and quiet with her to begin with. If she goes out of her way to kick or bite at you, or does some other hostile thing, then go for the Clinton Anderson method. I've seen him do good work on lining out horses with bad attitude, but I've also seen gentle things have their brains fried. The goal with mustangs is to build trust and make a solid foundation, not scare them and run them until they can't fight. |
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I also would advise using a different training method. Clinton Anderson just wears horses out until they can't work anymore. He has videos on "how to break horses fast" which just isn't reality. You can't break a horse quickly and it can take years to get them to trust you. I'd suggest starting with getting the mustang used to the new environment and doing some training with items that may be scary such as bags other things they may spook at. Then I'd suggest getting the mustang used to lunging and doing light groundwork. With my mare, I did this for about 30 minutes a day (and I still do about 10-20 minutes before I ride) because it gets her energy out. That's what has helped me the most with bonding and building a connection with my horses. Go by the horse and what they're confortable with. You can tell when they don't want to do something by their body language. Don't push them too hard because you don't want a fearful or worn out horse especially if you're doing barrels. This is based on my experience training my own horses (one of them wasn't broke to ride until a month before I got her). These are just my pointers. I hope this helps :) |
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I can answer some questions as you have them if you would like, I have never gotten a mustang like that(I hope to very soon in the future), but like a year ago I got an untouched 2 year old QH mare and an untouched 3 year old QH stallion! I also suggest bonding with the horse first rather than just running it until it can't anymore. I got the two from a bad situation and so I had to really gain their trust before i could even put a halter on them, training a horse takes time, but once that horse is trained and you have that bond with them it is worth all of the time, sweat, and tears put in it! |
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Congratulations on your new girl, I hope you two have a long and happy career together! The best piece of advice I can give is one that helped me tremendously in training my green-broke Hancock mare: build a relationship with your horse. Spend time with her when you're not asking her to work. Do things that are enjoyable for her - hand graze her lots, groom her loose in the round pen while there's a bucket of hay or grain for her to snack on, sit in a lawn chair in her pasture and offer her a treat any time she comes over to investigate you. Do anything you can to help her have positive associations with you. It took me a couple years to really build a relationship with my golden girl, but once I did the difference it made was genuinely incredible. She went from being impossible to catch to meeting me at the gate, nickering. From being resistant to any kind of work to liking her job. From a jumpy, high strung mare to one who calmly looks to me to tell her if something dangerous is happening. I have never, not once, regretted the time I spent on the ground just hanging out with my mare instead of working/riding her. I would also suggest you not limit yourself to one clinician's training methods. No clinician is perfect, no matter how popular they are, but I've only ever heard bad things about Anderson's methods. (Though clearly you've used them successfully.) I've used methods/tips from Buck Brannaman, Parelli's seven games are an excellent warm-up routine my Golden Chonk really seems to like, and a couple nobodies on YouTube have given me suggestions that have helped with my girl. In my experience, if you limit yourself to religiously following one trainer's methods, you can miss out on tips/tricks that can really help you out. Hope something in this is helpful to you, best of luck with your new wild lady! |
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Trivia Team |
CA isn't a very revolutionarily good trainer, he's just good at marketing. Same for Parelli and a lot of the big-name clinicians. Mustangs are a whole type of different from domesticated horses. Not in a bad way, but it takes a different skillset to get them handled. I would look up different EMM trainers. Many do YouTube training videos, so that's a good resource. I would also find a trainer in your area. While online advice is nice, it's different from being in person and in the moment. Eventually I'm sure you could bring along a mustang, but since this is your first one I would really find someone that can help you. Not only for training, but from a safety standpoint. |
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To the people who don't like Clinton Anderson, I don't follow his methods to a T I do my own thing with it I do it my way but follow how he does it and I only use it with things I don't fully know how to do already to help me get it right and all that and that won't be for a while I was going to starting with her getting used to me and the place and work on getting her ready to halter broke and desensitized and all that before even thinking of trying some of his methods on her and I personally haven't had an issue with using his methods on any of my horses or any other horses I've worked with before they all stayed quiet and gentle without running them to the ground or any of that but thank you for the advice it's greatly appreciated. |
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Is this a Mustang straight from a holding facility? Or is she already tamed? If she's not already come tamed down I highly advise against the use CA methods. |
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I heavily recommend that you have a trainer work with you in person with this horse. While watching videos and reading books can be very helpful, they are no substitute for an experienced horse person's real-time advice. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I've seen a lot of amateurs try to bring along green horses without trainers and it almost never works out well for either the person or the horse. Its good that you've trained some more experienced horses in the past, but the initial training of a completely green horse is critical to get right. If this mustang is off the range, then the challenge you will be facing is even greater. I'm not saying you absolutely cannot do it alone, but I would highly recommend you don't do it alone. Good luck! |
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