Jet’s first saddling

06 Oct Jet’s first saddling

After four days of groundwork with Jet it was time to put a saddle on him for the first time. Any horse I get for training either breaking in, retraining or just bringing back to work I always treat them the same. This means that the first time I put the saddle on them I go through the process like they have never had a saddle on before.

I need to make sure they know enough groundwork and that I can move them around easily before putting a saddle on.

Why do I do that?
Because when I get the new horse and haven’t personally seen the horse being saddled or ridden I never take a chance and always assume the worst, even though it’s definitely not always the case. I’m all about safety! I want to be safe and I want my horse to be safe.

Jet has been ridden before but he has been out of work for quite a while. I don’t know how he is going to react!

We did a bit of groundwork just to warm him up and get him thinking.

I had the saddle on the mounting block in the arena with me. He kept eyeing in from the distance all the time. So I started sending him between me and the saddle while moving closer to the saddle all the time. He was definitely not sure about it and worried. Why would I want to put it on his back if he is even frightened about going near it? That was the first thing we worked on before saddling him. Once he was more relaxed about going between me and the saddle I could ask him to go up to it and sniff it to make sure he knows it’s safe.

Next thing was to make sure he is not scared of the saddle cloth. You have no idea how many horses are actually worried about the saddle cloth if you don’t sneak it on their back.
When I saddle them the first time I always do it from the right side of the horse. That way I only have to let go of the saddle once to change sides.

Keep their head bent towards you! Jet already knows how to flex so that’s not a problem with him. If you keep their head bent towards you then that hind end will move away from you rather than towards you if anything happens to go wrong. Also he knows that when I ask him to flex he needs to stand still.

Once I have done that girth up nice and tight you want to get away from the horse asap. Do the girth up tight enough so that the saddle is not going to come off them if they are going to have a bronking fit.

Remember to keep the horse away from you because once you have done that girth up and they move and feel that tightness they may buck and you don’t want to be that close to them that they can accidentally hurt you. Sometimes they will start bronking towards you. Not that they want to hurt you but because they want you to help them and get this thing off their back!

Some horses get really sticky with the saddle at first and that’s what Jet did! They don’t want to move forward. It’s very important to get them to move, especially cantering. All that resistance will usually come out when you ask them to canter. Jet was a very good example of that. Keep them moving, lots of changing directions till they are happy moving forwards!

The next exercise we did is one of my favourites and it teaches them a lot. He only learnt it the day before so he’s definitely not great at it yet but he is getting the idea of what I want from him.
I want him to circle around me and keep a certain distance which is the length of the stick. He should be nice and round, slightly bent around me and definitely not pulling on the halter. When I change direction I want it all to flow and he needs to come forwards from the halter pressure which they all struggle at first and just want to run backwards.

Before finishing for the day I desensitised him to the stirrups to make sure he won’t panic about the stirrups flapping around. Next time we will do it when he is moving because those are going to be my legs there soon and I need to make sure he is safe to ride before getting on him.

We finished the session with some flexing. That feels a bit different to him now with a saddle on.

Overall I’m very pleased with him. He is learning quickly and I can’t wait to start riding him 🙂