Hi Guys!

Im new to the site and LOVE all the advice and comment here, yall seem so nice and earnest people. That being said, forgive me if this has been addressed before...

I have a three y/o pony colt that was originally bought as a "green broke" pony for a friend's grandson. When he showed him to me to ask my opinion, i was appalled! This poor pony's knees were as open as a barn door, he was wild eyed, have evidently been aced to get through the sale and now was NOT a fan of people at all. He also had a cyst directly on his backbone. More for the horses sake than anything else, i volunteered to work with the pony for my friend. Using the cyst as an excuse (my friend is old school "when they're two, they're ready" kind of guy) i turned the pony out with a herd of heffers and my retired barrell mare. Unfortunatly my mare died so the pony has been out by himself with the cows and very little interaction other than feed time.

To make a long story a little shorter, the pony is now three and a half, the cyst is all but gone and it's time for hime to start being a productive member of the family. My question is should i go the "nautral horsemanship" way and take the time for the pony to trust me, let me pet him, halter him, etc from the ground up or should i play the "cowboy" and corral him, stall him and break him before i worry about trust and respect? Granted i do see the benefits and drawbacks of both and do not intend to follow either method to the tee, i would like ya'lls opinion on the best way to proceed.

While I do have pretty extensive expierence training and breaking young horses i have always delt with horses that have been handled from birth so any help, hints, tricks or advice would be very appreciated.

~me~

My horse, Chance, was close to being the same as you describe when I got him at 11 months old. I used natural horsemanship with him and have had excellent results. I would work with establishing trust and respect first. Chance was scared of strange people when I got him. (I've had him almost 3 years now - he'll be 4 in June) I wouldn't "cowboy" the pony, especially if he's not people orientated. I had bought a horse that had been "cowboyed" (sold to me as "safe-sound-sane") and I ended up with 7 broken ribs and a broken collar bone from him.

Personally, I don't follow any particular natural horseman's training. The ones that I have found work well are: John Lyons, Clinton Anderson, and Pat Parelli. Having a horse that wants to be around humans (instead of seeing them as a preditor) gave me a whole new take on how to interact/train (my own only) horses. Use what works best in the situation but be careful. My second horse (that I bought a little over a month ago) can be classified as "buddy sour" and insecure. Working with him when he decides to "shut down" has been a challenge (and extremely dangerous! He doesn't hesitate to throw his heels when he "shuts down".) Just remember that in the early stages there will be some moments where you'll be thinking OMG! Patience and time will determine how he'll do. Just remember that if there's no trust on the ground there will be no trust in the saddle. Good luck and stay safe.

Your best bet is to do what you know, and if/when you get to a point you don't know, get some help.
I am a firm believer against vodoo horse training, don't have a round pen,carrot stick, rope halter, etc...
Do have books from the 20's and apprx. 25 different people from different generations who's advice I truely cherish.

Seriously, Go with your gut. You already stepped up and saw a youngster that was not mentally/physically ready for the job at hand.
Don't second guess yourself.

There seems to be some confusion about "natural" and "cowboy" way.

I have seen / heard / read a lot of nonsense under the "natural" flag - carrot sticks belong in there. And I have learned a lot about horse training from cowboys - real ones. The "Vaquero Style" is still considered part of the art of horse training - and these were cowboys.

Sure there are some cowboys who are not the greatest trainers - but I think in part this was created by these "natural" arena dudes. If your life depends on your horse you will take care of your horse.

To me the most important part of training is to gain the trust of the horse - the respect comes more or less automatically with it. Second is the willingness of the horse to learn and try things. I have developed my ways to do that and everybody needs to develop his or her way based on what you learned from other people AND horses.

It is always kind of a trial and error thing what works best for you and the specific horse.

Good luck!

GC

thanks for the advice guys.

Wolfgang:
* in the interest of keeping the post short, i used sterotypical terms to describe commonly refered to types of training styles, namely bottom-up (nautral horsemanship) vs bottom-down (cowboy). Of course everyone has a slightly different intrepertation of these terms so i should have been more specific.