How to Retrain a Horse With Bad Habits

Retraining a horse is generally more difficult than starting with an untrained horse; with an untrained horse you have a clean slate and no bad experiences. When retraining, you are asking the horse to forget or ignore what it has been learned, or been conditioned to do, in the past -- not an easy task. Unless there is some mental defect, a horse is not "born" bad; a human helped it get to the point that exhibiting undesirable behaviors is the only way it knows how to communicate and to act. You are now essentially asking the horse to learn a new "language."

Things You'll Need

  • Rope halter
  • Round pen
  • Lunge whip
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Instructions

    • 1
      Teeth pain can lead to bad habits or behavior problems in horses.

      Have the horse examined by a veterinarian. Some behaviors are caused by physical conditions, particularly if previous owners and trainers have not bothered to do routine care, such as with teeth or feet. If this is the case, your horse may always associate riding or other work with humans with pain. If the horse is not gelded, have your vet do it immediately. Only professionals should retrain stallions.

    • 2
      Use a rope halter with a long lead when retraining.

      Buy a rope halter. But use caution; if you have never used a rope halter, do not start now. Ask a trainer to show you how to use one correctly. A rope halter with a long lead is an essential training tool to teach your horse respect and to move away from pressure -- two very important starting points in training. The knots on a rope halter are designed to create pressure points and can be harmful in the wrong hands. Used correctly, it can help teach a horse to give to pressure, learn to lunge, change direction, back up, move forward, and move laterally. These are important safety and training steps.

    • 3

      Teach the horse to move away from you. If you need to buy a DVD for training young horses to see visually how to do this, do it; it does not matter if your horse is age 2, or age 10 -- you will be going back to the beginning. The horse with bad habits needs to not only respect you, but trust you, even though it presumably does not have enough respect for humans to behave in an acceptable manner. That starts from the very first step you take toward that horse. Holding the lead of the rope halter in your left hand, raise your hand toward the horse's face. With your right hand, hold a stick or dressage whip and tap the horse in the chest or leg until it moves back away from you. When it steps back, stop tapping, but keep walking toward the horse. With each step you take, the horse should take one step back. Also, take some time to learn about imprinting. While this is typically done in newborn foals, if you comprehend the underlying concepts it can help you understand your horse's instinctive behaviors.

    • 4
      A horse must demonstrate manners on the ground before you can ride it.

      Assert your authority calmly and patiently in a round pen. Ask the horse to respect your space by moving around you. Enforce this with a tap with a lunge whip if necessary. If the horse approaches before you ask it to do so, raise your hand and use the whip as a calm reinforcement. Hold your ground unless you are concerned for your safety. Once the horse no longer encroaches upon your space, use voice commands to teach the horse to halt, walk, trot and so on. Try to use the same voice commands until your horse learns them. Remember that your horse should always turn its head toward you, never its hindquarters -- this is a sign of disrespect or fear. Maneuver yourself to stand facing the horse's shoulder if this happens, or gently tap the horse's hindquarters (as long as you are out of kicking range) with the whip until the horse changes position.

    • 5
      Seek help from a professional trainer for anything beyond your abilities.

      Take the horse to a professional trainer with a reputation for correcting bad habits. Even if you make headway on some issues, there are likely additional bad habits that may need greater expertise. Better to take the horse to someone with experience in doing the correct retraining than to potentially do more harm.