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About Rick Gore (www.freewebs.com/horseawareness)
Expertise
Visit Rick Gore's Horse Site: --- www.freewebs.com/horseawareness
--Rick is a student of the horse. He can answer questions about sacking out (Desensitizing vs. Sensitizing), dealing with spooky, abused or ex-race horses, rearing, bucking, horses that won’t tie or load into a trailer, working in a round pen/round corral, starting colts, dealing with aggressive or so called "mean" horses, herd behavior, biting, kicking, hard to catch, using a bosal or hackamore, soft hands and direct reining verses neck reining. If you expect him to tell you feel good advice, you will be disappointed. 95% of all his answers will include "the problem is you and not your horse." About 90% of most answers that I give out are on my web site, so if you read it you will probably answer your own question and may learn a few other things. If have some good information that you would like me to add to my site, please email me so it can be passed on to others.
Experience
Rick is an experienced horseman with many years of riding and handling horses. Rick grew up in Texas around horses and horse people. He has started colts, ridden many horses with behavior issues and worked with problem horses. (He believes that most horse problems are really people problems)
He believes in and practices natural horsemanship and continues to read and study books by great horsemen. He routinely attends clinics, talks with and discuss horse issues with other clinicians and trainers. He has never met a horse that could not be fixed. Rick believes it is never the horse's fault and with proper handling, all problems can be worked out.
Education/Credentials
Rick has many years experience in being around and working with horses. Over the years he has watched good horsemen do the right thing and seen the wrong things done with bad results. Rick has a Bachelor of Science degree in Education.
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You are here: Experts > Recreation/Outdoors > Horses > Horses - Behavior Issues, Breaking and Training > Bosal training: www.freewebs.com/horseawareness
Expert: Rick Gore (www.freewebs.com/horseawareness)
Date: 9/24/2008
Subject: Bosal training: www.freewebs.com/horseawareness
Question
Dear Rick:
I loved your posted answer regarding the use of snaffles vs bosals, so I am a fan.
I just bought a green 5 year old foundation gelding and am just starting lunging, sacking, walking over obstacles. I want to start and keep him in a bosal for all the reasons you mentioned.
My question is: I've had him for 10 days, and he'll wear a sheet on his head, walk on a tarp, lunge in both directions, knows "whoa" and has really good body space and ground manners, though he hasn't been handled much.
I don't want to bore him, but I don't want to push him too fast either. I wanted to start ground driving him today, but couldn't find my other lunge line! If I start driving him, and he gets it fairly fast, can I transition into the bosal and do this work before tacking him up and riding?
I bought a gorgeous bosal on eBay, but the mecate is tied all wrong, and I need some instruction on re-tying it. There was a YouTube video explaining it, but I cannot find it now.
Anyway, your help is greatly appreciated - especially when it comes to timing - when to do what, when to wait.
Thanks again, and keep up the great work!
Answer
It sounds like you are doing good and the horse is responding well. It won't get bored if you keep it busy and keep changing it up. Don't just train all the time, just spend time, hanging out, playing, grooming so it won't think every time he sees you he gets worked. If you are using a rope halter (see my rope halter page) then you can do most of your work in that and the transition to bosal will be easy. Spending time with him you can rub his legs, rub his belly and lay on the ground and see if he lets you rub him with your feet, sit on a fence and groom him from on top of fence, on top of a table, get him used to you being higher than him so he will not be scared when you are on his back. See if you can get him to walk up to you while you are on the fence and let you put your feet on his back and rub him. Try and find ways to raise his fear and nervous level and then back off and work on that, then find something else and work on that. The more you do the better he will be. Just remember pressure and release. Always stop and back off BEFORE a reaction not after or doing it.
You should be riding him a halter before a bosal, so his first few rides should be in a halter with ONE rein, not two. This will teach him to get only one cue from one rein and will teach you to learn how to work each rein independently so you don't get in a habit of using two reins and pulling and teaching him to brace. So hop on and lay on his back and get off and on lots of short times and then sit on him and just flex him with lead rope and rein. I explain this on my horseman tips page, this is really good for new and horse and really good for riders.
After you have done lots with a halter then put the bosal on and let him wear it but still ride him in halter and rope. Then you can start using bosal slowly and very light.
hope this helps,
Rick
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