How to Train a Horse Not to Kick

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Training a horse not to kick is done by spending time near the horse, grooming the horse, handling his legs and making him comfortable with human contact. Set the parameters for acceptable behavior from a horse with helpful advice in this video on training horses.

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Posted By Rebecca Riel
on April 14, 2009, 11:42 pm

Could you go into more detail as to what sort of "negative reinforcement" you DO do if they try to kick or jerk their foot away? (Such as, you get a horse that already has that habit -- how do you break it?)

Comment By Rick Gore
on April 15, 2009, 11:34 am

Per your question on kicking -- if a horse respects you and knows you are a higher horse he will not kick at you. Any threatening or aggressive behavior must be met with threatening and aggressive behavior from you. You have make sure the horse knows that any threats or aggression will create him work and you will make him move his feet, get a pop with a lead rope or a whack with a something else you are holding, a swat with a hat and even a kick, elbow or knee. You don't want to kick too much or the horse will start kicking back, but if in a situation where you have nothing else, you cannot allow a threat without a hard response from you or the horse will see you as weak and as a lower horse and then he will know he can kick at you since he thinks you are lower. Higher horses can kick lower horses, but lower horses cannot kick a higher horse.

I have some good kick videos on my training video page of my web site: www.thinklikeahorse.org

Hope this helps,

Rick

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Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Rick Gore out here at the Travis Equestrian Center. Today we're going to talk about how not to get your horse to kick you. I guess there's a lot of searches out there about how to train your horse not to kick you. Horses don't kick unless they're taught that it's OK or that there's no repercussion for kicking. You can't really train a horse not to kick. What you can do is set the horse up to learn that kicking is unacceptable. And you can do that by handling. You do it by brushing and grooming, getting underneath your horse, walking around your horse, letting him know that it's safe to be around him, touching him underneath, in between his legs, rubbing him, being able to walk underneath him, do some good sacking out, rub his legs. The more you handle and touch and around your horse, the less likely he's going to kick you. If you pick his feet everyday, he's going to know when you reach down to pick up his feet, that that's what you want him to do so he'll lift up his foot nice and easy, when you ask him for the foot, he's going to pick it up and give it to you. Same way with the back feet. If I move back here and I do this all the time, he knows to pick that foot up and give it to me, so he's not going to kick me because I spend time around his back legs, his hips, his tail, I'm brushing him, I'm grooming him, I'm spending time teaching him that it's OK for me to touch and be with him and do whatever I want with him. So spending time with your horse is probably the best thing that's going to get you in a safe position to where you don't get kicked by your horse so he doesn't want to kick you and he's not going to try and kick you. And then when he does kick you or he does try, of course you have to give him some good quick discipline, move his feet, make him know that's unacceptable, you're the higher horse and he can't do that. So training your horse not to kick, it's a lot easier to teach your horse that you can be anywhere and kicking is unacceptable and then you won't have to worry about correcting that learned trait.

About The Author

Expert: Rick Gore

Specialty: Horsemanship

It is never the horse's fault. Good natural horsemanship and a true understanding of horses will always get the best results with a horse.

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20	Ashley Leith	ESB Irish Doctrine	USA	Withdrawn						Withdrawn				Withdrawn
15	Kristin Schmolze	Cavaldi	USA	51.00	51.67	56.67	--	70.3	47	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
32	Corinne Ashton	Dobbin	USA	68.33	70.00	66.67	--	47.5	12	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
6	Mike Winter	Kingpin	CAN	65.67	66.00	67.67	--	50.3	17+	Eliminated				Eliminated
17	Susie Beale	Isabella II	GBR	56.67	58.00	59.67	--	62.8	42	Eliminated				Eliminated
21	Sandra Donnelly	Buenos Aires	CAN	61.33	59.33	62.33	--	58.5	34	Eliminated				Eliminated
26	Karl Slezak	Kachemak Bay	CAN	58.00	59.67	57.00	--	62.7	41	Eliminated				Eliminated
54	Tamra Smith	Chaos Theory	USA	55.67	51.00	49.33	--	72.0	48	Retired				Retired
35	Stanislas de Zuchowicz	Quirinal de la Bastide	FRA	60.33	71.00	68.00	--	50.3	17+	Eliminated				Eliminated
37	Barbara Crabo	Eveready	USA	62.00	60.33	62.00	--	57.8	33	Eliminated				Eliminated
58	Jennifer Wooten-Dafoe	The Good Witch	USA	65.00	65.33	65.00	--	52.3	21	Eliminated				Eliminated
67	Mike Winter	Wonderful Will	CAN	64.67	65.33	64.33	--	52.8	23+	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
68	Jose Ortelli Jr.	JOS Aquiles	ARG	Eliminated						Eliminated				Eliminated
42	Missy Ransehousen	Critical Decision	USA	64.33	66.33	67.67	--	50.8	20	--	0.4	51.2	13	Withdrawn
43	Bonner Carpenter (YR)	Acapulco Jazz	USA	63.67	62.67	60.33	--	56.7	30	--	11.6	68.3	23	Withdrawn
57	Lucinda Fredericks	Headley Britannia	AUS	79.67	78.67	77.00	--	32.3	2	--	--	32.3	1	--	--	32.3	1
51	Bettina Hoy	Ringwood Cockatoo	GER	82.00	84.67	75.67	--	28.8	1	--	9.6	38.4	2	--	--	38.4	2
63	Bruce O. Davidson Jr.	My Boy Bobby	USA	74.00	72.67	75.33	--	39.0	3	--	1.2	40.2	3	--	--	40.2	3
53	Nicolas Touzaint	Hildago de l'Ile	FRA	72.67	73.67	65.00	--	44.3	7	--	--	44.3	5	--	--	44.3	4
61	Lucy Wiegersma	Woodfalls Inigo Jones	GBR	70.33	72.00	71.33	--	43.2	5	--	1.2	44.4	6	--	--	44.4	5
66	William Fox-Pitt	Seacookie	GBR	71.00	70.33	71.67	--	43.5	6	--	2.4	45.9	8	--	--	45.9	6
64	Phillip Dutton	Connaught	USA	69.00	68.00	69.00	--	47.0	10	--	--	47.0	9	--	--	47.0	7
18	Oliver Townend	Carousel Quest	GBR	70.00	74.67	68.00	--	45.2	8	--	--	45.2	7	4	--	49.2	8
30	Tim Lips	Concrex Oncarlos	NED	73.33	72.00	70.67	--	42.0	4	--	--	42.0	4	8	--	50.0	9
11	Stephen S. Bradley	Brandenburg's Joshua	USA	68.00	65.67	70.00	2	48.2	13+	--	0.4	48.6	10	4	--	52.6	10
41	Nicola Wilson	Opposition Buzz	GBR	62.33	65.00	63.33	--	54.7	26	--	--	54.7	15	--	--	54.7	11
2	Phillip Dutton	Woodburn	USA	64.33	69.00	66.00	--	50.3	17+	--	--	50.3	12	4	1	55.3	12
48	Amy Tryon	Leyland	USA	69.33	65.67	67.33	--	48.8	15	--	--	48.8	11	8	--	56.8	13
40	Allison Springer	Arthur	USA	64.33	67.00	68.33	--	50.2	16	--	4.0	54.2	14	4	--	58.2	14
1	Bruce O. Davidson Jr.	Ballynoe Castle RM	USA	60.33	60.67	59.67	--	59.7	38+	20	6.4	86.1	29	--	--	62.9	15
33	Sara Dierks	Somerset II	USA	55.67	62.00	57.00	--	63.2	43+	--	--	63.2	19	--	1	64.2	16
59	Tiffani Loudon-Meetze	Above 'N' Beyond	USA	64.67	61.33	65.33	--	54.3	25	--	12.0	66.3	21	--	--	66.3	17
14	Jolie Sexson	Killian O'Connor	USA	69.33	67.00	69.00	--	47.3	11	--	12.8	60.1	18	8	--	68.1	18
65	Bruce O. Davidson Sr.	Cruise Lion	USA	64.00	61.67	62.33	--	56.0	28	--	9.6	65.6	20	4	--	69.6	19
12	Selena O'Hanlon	Colombo	CAN	67.33	70.33	66.00	--	48.2	13+	--	20.0	68.2	22	4	--	72.2	20
31	Ashley Adams	Vaunted	USA	64.33	41.00	63.33	--	55.7	27	--	2.8	58.5	16	12	2	72.5	21
27	Jan Byyny	Syd Kent	USA	61.00	61.33	64.00	--	56.8	31	20	3.6	80.4	26	--	--	80.4	22
4	William Fox-Pitt	Navigator	GBR	68.67	69.67	68.33	--	46.7	9	20	16.4	83.1	28	--	--	83.1	23
62	Peter Thomsen	The Ghost of Hamish	GER	66.00	62.33	66.00	--	52.8	23+	20	8.4	81.2	27	4	--	85.2	24
50	Debbie Rosen	The Alchemyst	USA	61.67	59.00	60.33	--	59.5	37	20	27.2	106.7	36	4	--	90.7	25
7	Jose Ortelli Jr.	JOS Aladar	ARG	58.33	55.67	59.67	--	63.2	43+	--	27.6	90.8	31	--	--	90.8	26
29	Kelly Sult	Hollywood	USA	53.33	53.00	54.67	--	69.5	46	--	5.6	75.1	25	4	12	91.1	27
22	Cayla Kitayama	Esker Riada	USA	61.00	59.67	60.00	--	59.7	38+	--	9.2	68.9	24	20	3	91.9	28
16	Diana Burnett	Manny	CAN	64.33	64.00	66.33	--	52.7	22	20	15.6	88.3	30	8	--	96.3	29
25	Ronald Zabala-Goetschel	Che Mr. Wiseguy	ECU	63.67	61.33	62.67	--	56.2	29	--	36.4	92.6	32	4	--	96.6	30
52	Stephanie Boyer	Macloud	USA	62.33	62.00	61.33	--	57.2	32	--	37.2	94.4	33	8	--	102.4	31
3	Bruce O. Davidson Sr.	Jam	USA	60.33	57.33	60.67	--	60.8	40	20	25.2	106.0	35	--	--	106.0	32
47	Kyle Carter	Madison Park	CAN	59.67	60.33	62.33	--	58.8	35	20	20.8	99.6	34	8	--	107.6	33
23	Madeline Blackman (YR)	Gordonstown	USA	59.67	55.67	58.33	--	63.2	43+	20	23.2	108.4	37	--	--	108.4	34
60	Tara Ziegler	Buckingham Place	USA	51.33	50.33	50.67	--	73.8	49	40	36.8	150.6	38	20	--	170.6	35
24	Ralph Holstein	Arctic Dancer	USA	60.33	60.00	61.00	--	59.3	36	--	--	59.3	17	--	--	--	--