Selecting and Starting the Reined Cow Horse

We are going to take an adventure, and travel together through the process of starting our young colts for Reining and Working Cow Horse. This process takes much dedication, determination and focus to accomplish, but the rewards and satisfaction are great. We will lay out the step by step process of training and a guide to monitor your progress throughout the process. Also, we will cover possible problems that can and might happen. Many books tell “how to” in a perfect world but my goal is to guide you through this process in the real world. This will be accomplished, not only, by showing you when and what to do to the horse, but also to develop your understanding and abilities. Learning the proven methods of training and putting them in a structured forum ensures progress.
Training is a building process. First, starting a foundation then, step by step, building up to your finished product. This is something that is not accomplished over night; it takes approximately 1 ½ to 2 years to make a finished, Reined Cow Horse. Time depends greatly on the horse and the time you put into the horse.
Training primarily consists of time, consistency, and repetition on our part.
I hope you will join us here each month as we travel together through the training process. Do you have a colt to start, a trail horse you want to handle better, a performance horse that needs to be finished, or do you want to take one through the whole process? I believe you can learn something about any kind of training from these articles. The key to a true horseman is continually striving to learn and better ourselves, horses, and our ability to communicate with our horses. I want to give a great thanks to legends and horsemen that have shared with me some of their knowledge and time.
Selecting the Reined Cow Horse: I have had many people ask me what I look for in a prospect. There are many important things to consider in this process but you have to start somewhere. I encourage people to start with the pedigree. Selecting the appropriate pedigree will increase the chance that the horse will be able to perform and have the mind and cow savvy you want. This does not always mean that pedigree will determine performance.
There are many great bloodlines that are great producers of reining and cow horses. Here are a few of the legendary producers that have provided us with some of the best performance horses of our time:

Mr. San Peppy
Top Sail Cody
Mr. Jo Glo
Cutter Bill
Zan Par Bar
Doc bar
Tonto Bar Hank
BH Enterprise
Poco Buneo
Colonel Freckles
Doc Olena
King Fritz

After I have selected a prospect that has the breeding that I like, I look at their mind, their disposition and attitude. This, to me, is very important. Their mind is what determines their trainability. A horse can have the greatest pedigree and conformation but if he has a bad mind (unwilling and poor temperament) he will not go very far. I have seen horses with no specialized breeding behind them, but with very willing attitudes, great dispositions, and a lot of try out perform the best bred horse. To me, this is the most important aspect to look for. A good mind will make your job a lot easier. If you are selecting a prospect that is not started under saddle yet, if possible, spend some time in a round pen working with them. You will then be able to tell a lot about their attitude. Do not just lope them around the pen. The key is to put a little pressure on them, ask something of them, and watch for their attitude.
The next thing to look for is conformation. While a good-minded horse, with a lot of heart and try, can still perform well, conformational defects, or flaws, in a horse can and will hinder peak performance. Some of the things to look for are: a) Start with good clean front legs (no toeing in or out) b) Hind legs should be clean and have a good angle to the hock (too straight of hock makes it hard to stop properly) c) Powerful hips and loins (this is where the horse’s motor and stopping power comes from) d) The back should be short e) Good angle on the shoulder (not too straight or with too much of a slope) f) Neck should come out of shoulders at a natural looking angle (this will partially determine the high or low headset of a horse) g) The width of the chest should also be taken into consideration. Too wide and muscled of a chest can hinder a horse’s performance and agility in cutting and turning around (spinning) in reining. If the horse is too wide and bully in the front end it makes it harder for them to step across with the front legs or to jump their front end through on a cow. On occasion I have seen horses with wider chests do well, this is when it all comes down to heart and willingness.
After you look at pedigree and conformation you should watch the horse travel in each gate from the ground. Here are some questions to ask yourself when watching the horse: Does he move fluidly and easily or does it look like he is choppy and working at the lope? In the round pen does he pick up his lead okay? When you step in front of him, does he stop and change directions effortlessly or is it clumbsy for him? Watch him travel at a trot straight towards you and away from you. Do his feet move freely and straight or does he paddle with his front feet. Are his hocks turned in or out with his hind legs?
This briefly covers some of the important things to look for in the selection of your prospect.
Starting the Reined Cow Horse:
Let’s move on and cover the aspects of training and starting our prospect. Training primarily includes Time, Consistence, and Repetition (these are the things you have control over).
Time has a great impact on how fast the training process moves along. The amount of time you spend on each session and the number of sessions a week you spend with your horse determines how long the training process will take. We ride our horses 5 to 6 days a week for maximum progress. You have to do what your schedule allows. Hopefully a minimum of 3 to 4 days a week will work for everyone. As for the duration of each training session, we will spend any where from 30 minutes to two hours depending on the horse and the kind of session we are having. If the horse is very willing and has done what I have asked with smoothness and no hesitation, showing me he clearly understands, there is no reason to work him longer than needed. If he does not understand, is resistant, or stiff, I will work him as long as it takes. When I feel he understands and becomes willing and softens up to me I will end training for the day.
After we warm a horse up for 10 to 15 minutes, we start to train. You want to be sure and give the horse a warm up period before asking them to concentrate and go straight to work, especially if they have been standing in a box stall. Let them work off a little excess energy before getting down to business. Once a horse is warmed up and ready to pay attention it is time for the actual training. The actual concentration or attention span of a horse is about 20 minutes. This is the actual learning time of new material. This does not mean you should put them away after 20 minutes, it just gives you some information to keep in the back of your mind. Training is a step by step building process. If you come to a stand still or feel you have moved backwards, do not get discouraged. Keep working on the basics, which we will discuss in detail in the future. Many times we have to back up before we can move ahead and make new progress.
The next aspect of training is consistency. This means that we use the same cue or set of cues at the same time and in the same order.
The key is acquiring the desired response by using cues and timing of pressure and release. For example, we can teach a horse to lower or raise their head with the same cue. This depends upon the timing and consistency in which we give these cues.
Repetition is the next aspect of our training. When we first ask a colt to do something they have to think it over a bit before they respond. With repetition, asking them over and over in the same way, they give us a quicker and correct response. We are training the path of their mind, so that when we ask the horse to do something, they do not have to think about it. The actions will become an immediate response in the correct form. We want them to get to the point where when we ask something of the horse they do it immediately and correctly
Now I would like to talk about the individual horse. I believe it is very important to approach each horse as an individual. I have started and ridden hundreds of horses, and they are all different. They all have unique personalities, their own fears, athletic abilities, intelligence levels and different levels of hand pressure and reactions to pressure. I believe we need to approach each one with an open mind and without any premeditated thoughts or ideas of what they might be or do. I have seen some horses that, I thought, were going to be easy to train that gave me the most difficulty. I have had others that some thought would be the most challenging to train that turned out to be real nice to work with. This is why I think it is best to approach them with open minds.

There are many methods and styles of starting colts that are good. The thing to remember is the method of how we are presenting the information to the horse.

In next month’s issue we will discuss how horses learn, how to present the information, and how to watch the horse for signs of acceptance. Then we will get started with the step by step training process that I use in my program. Until then, good luck, God bless and remember, as true Horsemen, we need to educate ourselves all we can.

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