When approaching a horse, it's important to first take a minute and observe the horse's body language. Find out the best way to safely approach a horse with tips from a Certified Horsemanship Association instructor in this video on beginning horseback riding.
Hi. My name is Maryjo Turnbull and I'm here at Silver Buckle Ranch in Brush Prairie, Washington. And today we're going to talk about how to properly approach a horse. This is my student Ivy, and she's going to help me out with this demonstration today. First off, we want to look over here at our horse Black. And if we look at Black we want to take a minute and observe what he's doing. And how he's feeling today. So his body language can show us all kinds of stuff Ivy. So when we looked at him, he was swishing his tail, which just means he's a little impatient right now. He's been standing here for awhile. His head and his ears aren't looking at us though. So is it safe for us to approach him when his head and his ears aren't looking at us? Nope. We always want at least an eye, or one ear looking back at us okay? So now we have an eye, and we have his ear, and we know that he knows we're here. And we know that he can hear us. So we say "Black, look at us", we try to get him to look at us. Or we can call his name out. So let's walk on up here and get his attention. Here he is. Okay Black. So we ideally are going to always want to approach at his shoulder. Can you walk up to his shoulder Ivy? Good job. And we want to put two hands on, all the time, for safety we always put two hands on our horse. That's our very first thing. And our very first grooming tool is always our hands. So whenever, we introduce ourself to a horse, we want to go to the shoulder, put two hands on, after we notice he has an ear or an eye on us okay? After that, when we leave a horse, we want to do just the opposite okay? So we always have two hands on, and when we leave our horse we want to push off with our two hands. So put your two hands up there, push off, take two steps backwards, and then we can walk away. And then we've safely departed. Okay? So once again, we approach the shoulder. So let's approach the shoulder, two hands on, good job. Introduce ourself to our horse, have his attention. And depart our horse by pushing off two hands, two steps back, and then we can turn and leave safely. Okay so just to review. When we approach a horse, we want to have an eye or an ear looking towards us so that we know the horse knows we're here. After that, we approach to the horse's shoulder with two hands on. Introduce ourself, say hey how you doing today Black? And when we depart, we're going to push off with our two hands, take two steps backwards, and then we can turn around and go get whatever we need to get. And that would be the safe way of approaching and departing from your horse.
