Training Tip: Dealing With a Stiff and Heavy Draft Horse

Question: I have a 6-year-old half draft mare who was broke by being used to pack and never learned the basics. I have been working with her, but she constantly fights me on flexing and getting soft. Do you have any small pointers that may help me loosen her up and get her to respond better to me?

Answer: You can definitely improve your mare’s softness. However, it’s important to keep in mind that each horse is an individual and breeds of horses are bred to excel at specific disciplines or activities. For example, draft horses are bred to pull heavy loads. They’re not meant to be light and agile. So it’s unlikely that a draft horse or a draft cross is going to be as soft and supple as one of the Quarter Horses you often see me working with that are bred to be soft and quick-footed. That’s OK, because my Quarter Horses wouldn’t be good at pulling heavy loads. It’s important to keep a horse’s breeding and individual limits in mind when training them. It’s not fair to set expectations that they can never reach.

If you’re not already, I recommend you start your mare’s training by following the Fundamentals Series. It’s important to follow the exercises in order and make sure your horse is proficient at each one before moving on because each exercise acts as a building block for the next exercise.

Even though you won’t directly be working on flexing your mare, the exercises leading up to that lesson lay the foundation for teaching her to respond to pressure from the halter and lead rope and getting her soft and supple.

When you reach the Flexing the Head and Neck exercise, you’ll notice that it has four stages: Steady Pressure, Bumping on the Halter, Poke and Flex, and Flexing From the Opposite Side. We start by teaching our horses how to flex with steady pressure. We pick up on the lead rope and wait for them to soften and give to the pressure.

Once a horse understands the concept, we move on to the additional stages, which will be helpful for your mare. Bumping on the Halter and Poke and Flex are great exercises for horses that are heavy and stiff because you use driving pressure to get them to come off the halter and soften to it.

In Bumping on the Halter, you do just that—rhythmically bump on the halter until the horse gives to the pressure. Using Poke and Flex, you’ll use driving pressure on the horse’s ribcage to teach her to bend. In both cases, you’ll always ask with steady pressure—picking up on the lead rope—and then tell with driving pressure.

If you follow the exercises in order and stay consistent with your mare, you’ll notice a big improvement in her.

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