Horse Training Tips
Horse Training is still at the old Horse barn on east side of Calhoun Falls off hwy.72. Look for the Tri S Ranch sign beside Pentacostal Church. Take the dirt road to barn.
This Tip information below is  still useful today and why we are able to educate horses. I've seen Little girls ( 95 pound ) Train horses and never break a nail, using this common Horse Sense. The hardest part about training horses, she said after learning how, was "picking up the saddle".  That's the way horse training should be, any other way is just guessing. You got to know how.
Definition of Horse Trainer = One who Trains Horses to understand humans.
TIP 1
PATIENCE is the biggest and hardest lesson for a human to learn..
Giving the horse time to understand what you are asking for, when you asked. Don't be rude to the horse by moving past that point of the horses understanding to quick.  The horse MAY get it, but doesn't show it to You in the way You understand. (this is not the horses fault)
When most people move past this point because of frustration, the horse has left to.  You moved past what you were trying to teach, before, You realize the horse may have HAD IT.

TIP 2
Never show the horse his or her power.
Horses don't know how strong they are until you show them, THEN THE PROBLEMS START.

TIP 3
Baby Steps.. Horse Never Assume!   That's, a human thing...
Horses have a small mind, give them little pieces to understand working toward a total.  In a 1 + 1 = 2 solution, (TRAINING) Teach the 1 and what 1 is before teaching the + and the next 1 and the = and the horse will give you 2, what you wanted.  
Save yourself and the horse a lot of time and trouble.. simple solutions. Don't assume.

TIP 4
**Horses fix impressions into their nervous system.
Repeated impressions that you want are good habits
Repeated Impressions that you don't want are bad habits
There is nether a good habit or bad habit to a horse.

It is your business to see that the horse knows what you want him to do, and repeat and continue to repeat until the habit is fixed..

TIP 5
TEACH the horse to drive like a mule. That's right, driving leason from behind her, at a safe distance.
Teach her everything you would from driving that you would use from the saddle..
Make sure she's got it down perfect. Left, right, going, stopping, reins all about her back side and legs. ect.
Use very little English if any when you start..Wait till later to use words.
Teach her to stop first before saying the word ho..
After she feels the reins start to stop her she should start to stop.
After she responds to the driving reins real good, and stops from the reins, then and only then, start with words like, Ho.
Do this all along when adding ANY words to physical action.
Action first, words second only after the horse learns the action
One thing at a time or confussion will set in.. Swishing of the tail, ant'cee not walking stright, throwing head, raising head.

TIP 6
Of course all training tricks are not tricks to the horse. It's very real to them.

The best way to explain this is...Horses have a button that you can push that makes them do certain things every time because they understand the commands. After you learn these buttons, it's just a matter of time before you can make a horse do what you asked, by adding them together. It's like a card trick with you knowing what the secrect card is, then you just play the trick out until it's time to show the card.

That's what the tv horse trainers do. They make the card game (trick) last a long time before showing the card by pushing the right buttons on the horse in order.
Good for the cameras, and makes the people drool but you don't see a lot of the buttons.

"That's the part that can't be put into words, there's really no way to explain it. "
Tom Dorrance

You gain that part by Experience.
 Round pen work is a good place to start. It can be done in a stall the same way, but is a little dangerous.  

TIP 7
A horse can't reason.
A Horses brain is simple and has no conection between its several parts. Parts of the brain work independently with the nervous system.

ex.. Someone sneaks up on you and yells boo, you jump...everybodys done that, well Horses are worse. After you see what it is that scares you, you stop, a horse DON'T.
You have to do more to calm him, the horse down...
You have effected the horses nervous system, and until you change the imprint left in the  nervous system, the imprint remains.

TIP 8
Less is Best
Use as little motion as possible to get your point across as to what you want.
EX. Rider wants to make the horse go left. Instead of banging on his rib cage with your feet, moving around in the saddle, making a bunch of get moving noise, moving your head around like a chicken. Before trying to make the horse learn all thoses movements your giving to turn left, try a solution like below with  PATIENCE.

Solution: Try sitting still and with the left hand gently bump the left rein with your fingers like you are scratching. When the horse moves 1 inch to the left forward, quit bumping. Mission accomplished. The horse got it...that's it. Now you can add to it.