Schooling a Green Horse for Polo – Video 1

March 4, 2009 Featured, Horsemanship, Videos 3 Comments

Christian Moon has posted the first in a series of videos on schooling a green horse for polo. In this first video, Moon shows us how to acclimate the green horse to its first mallet and its first saddle. Moon talks about introducing the “whoa” command, keeping the intensity of the training session low to keep the horse relaxed, and punishment vs. positive reinforcement.

I’m excited to see this series develop as I think it’s good to watch even if you have no plans of ever making a horse yourself. It’s beneficial to see how a horse is made into a polo pony because you’ll see how to reinforce the lessons your horse should already have learned in its initial schooling. Schooling is an ongoing processes and should be done between matches throughout the horse’s career, video’s like Moon’s can give us great insight into the mind of the trainer and horse to allow us to more effectively school our own horses to keep them eager, attentive, and reliable.

You can find a link to Moon’s blog under the Links section in the sidebar.

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Schooling a Green Horse for Polo – Video 1

Currently there are "3 comments" on this Article:

Caleb says:

March 10, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Moon,

You mention in the video that Hanalei has been handled a number of times before this session — by farriers and perhaps others — so she is familiar with people.

Do you have a different process for acclimating herd-bound totally green horses (no human familiarity)? Or green horses that are soured on humans for whatever reason? I’m thinking of the Monty Roberts “Join-up” technique or Pat Parelli’s “Parelli Technique”.
Basically, my question is how do you initiate first contact with a horse and get it comfortable enough with your presence that you can even begin starting it with the stick or saddle…or the farrier for that matter. Any differences from what you’ve shown us with Hanalei or pretty much the same thing?
Moon says:

March 17, 2009 at 12:28 am

Pretty much the same thing. Usually I have to do more to make the horse stand still so the tapping the ground bit might go on for a week or two.
Moon says:

March 17, 2009 at 12:32 am

Oh, and if the horse is heard bound then it is very important that it see’s me as a friend and eventually part of it’s new herd of 2!

If the horse has never been haltered then I do more of a “join up” type of thing just to get close and have the horse let me halter it. I don’t go on as Monty does and get the horse haltered, saddled, and ridden in one session if the horse does not “know’ humans. In fact I think that is a bit of a violation of the horses’ new found trust for it’s 2 legged master.