I was blessed with the experience last year to join in a class through Southern Nazarene University's Equestrian Program in which I got to train one of the most amazing horses I've ever ridden. The Basic Care and Training class (sometimes referred to as the "Yearling Class") is an amazing opportunity to learn to communicate with young horses and turn them into dependable, intelligent, and cooperative companions. Your instructor is amazing, and she'll be your saving grace 90 percent of the time with her sensitivity to body language and insight into the horse's mind.
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The first semester of the class begins with a choice. Which two-year-old horse will you choose to bond and learn with? It's a big decision--each one has a unique personality and not all have the same willingness to learn. Some are on the lazier side, some are goofy, some are extremely intelligent, and some are grumpy. If your horse doesn't fit well with your personality, things may not end up going as well as you'd hoped.
Once you and your yearling have been paired up, you learn the basics (and later, the advanced steps) to lunging your yearling. The process of lunging will help to develop respect from your yearling--something absolutely necessary before real teaching can begin. A horse that does not respect your space and boundaries is a dangerous one. Once the respect and bond have been established, you'll be allowed to train your yearling to understand what a halter and lead rope are, and how the pressure of the materials mean different things.
You'll then move on to desensitizing the horse to things like the twirling of ropes and the flapping of a plastic bag or tarp, and even the texture and weight of a saddle pad can be frightening or spark curiosity in a young horse. Along with getting them used to foreign objects, you'll be teaching them how to handle new and potentially scary situations. The more the horse is exposed to those interesting things and places, the less they react negatively to new things and places. So, if your horse is used to your jacket being tossed onto or around him, he will be much more likely to not care about something different, like a saddle pad, doing the same thing. Things that make "scary" noises, like wind blowing in a plastic bag, also need to be exposed to your horse on a regular basis, so that things like tarps and walking over plastic bags and such won't phase your horse. This is particularly beneficial when taking your horse to shows, going on trail rides, or simply being in a new environment.
Along with desensitizing your horse, you'll be able to put to practice some of the pressure-and-release techniques you've been learning by teaching your horse to pivot, back, and trot with you! Pivoting on the forehand (front leg) and hindquarter (back leg) is essential to communicating with your horse, both now and further along in it's training. Being able to pivot on each leg in a 360-degree turn is a great way to reinforce the movement away from pressure while learning to control each "section" of your horse. This is an especially useful skill when saddle training them the following semester.
You'll learn much, much, much more than the things listed above, and you'll have the time of your life doing it! That's not to say it won't be difficult--it absolutely will. You'll feel as though you're riding a roller coaster with your yearling. Some things will come naturally to them and others will take a thorough convincing, but either way you'll feel the reward in the end as you complete your final evaluation and ride away from it with a better understanding of how horses think.
