The Young Horse

A wide range of services are available for developing your young horse. Some of these services include:

      - Foal Imprinting

      - Colt Starting

      - Weanling and Yearling Training

Thank you for your interest in our training program. We've done lots of foal imprinting and would be happy to do that for you. It's most effective done within the first hour of birth so it's fine to call us at 3:00 AM to come over to do the imprinting. We can come back to do the follow up sessions during the first two weeks or we can show you how to do the follow up sessions.

Weanling and Yearling training done at our facility is a comprehensive program that covers catching, leading, ground manners, despooking, hosing, fly spray, trailer loading, standing tied, picking up feet, saddling with a very small pony saddle, wearing a snaffle bit, being led from another horse out on the trails across water, ditches and up and down hills. We would also do some long line ground driving to teach the cues for speed and direction control.

Our program uses gentle communication, low stress short sessions and absolutely no violence or rough handling. A relationship of mutual respect and trust is built between horse and human.

You are welcome to come watch any of your horse's training sessions. You may come and visit your horse at any time without an appointment or prior notice to us.

Toward the end of the training period we'll make appointments for personal instruction with you in order to transfer the cues and exercises over to you so you can be consistent with your horse's handling.

We train at the horse's pace. We don't rush them through the program in order to finish up on a certain date.

This type of training is not an exact science that we can manage strictly on a calendar. Our training program takes the horse's mental, physical and emotional state into consideration. We build trust and confidence and bring your horse through the program in a way that keeps him calm and thinking rather than overwhelming the young horse and making him anxious.

Please contact Ed for more details.

 

Nakotas

The Nokota horses are the last wild horses in North Dakota. Descended from generations of ranch and Indian horses, including horses confiscated from Sitting Bull’s Lakota people in 1881, Nokota horses are living history. They are smart, tough, and athletic. These horses survived in the Little Missouri badlands for more than 100 years, until they were removed by the National Park Service and sold for slaughter during the 1980’s. The Kuntz family bought and maintains the herd, but they cannot do it alone. The Nokota Horse Conservancy is a non-profit organization formed in 1999 to save and protect these horses, provide a permanent sanctuary, and reunite them with people. To learn more about the Nokotas and the Conservancy, please visit their website at www.nokotahorse.org.

You are invited to visit the Nokotas in Georgia, at Painted Moon Farm, near Madison. The owner, Elizabeth Bell, is an authorized preservation breeder for the Conservancy. Feel free to contact her at (706)474-3002.