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What Makes Heartwood's
Training Program so Unique?

Our goal is always to develop respectful and versatile performance and pleasure horses that are a joy to handle and own – and a blast to ride! Heartwood’s flexible training program is designed according to our philosophy, based around a solid routine, and considerate of each horse’s age, temperament and talents. We give our horses a firm structure to rely on, the freedom to make mistakes and the time to learn. Our program results in calmer, more reliable horses because their foundation gives them the confidence to handle many different situations.

We expose our horses to as many different situations as we can. Instead of avoiding things that horses might be frightened of, we expose them to those things as much as we can by building them into our everyday routine. By allowing the horses to find comfort with the thing that they are afraid of – plastic bags, clippers, water, tarps and so on – they quickly become not only unafraid of these things, but eager seek them out!

Ground Work

We start with the basics – ground manners. Horses with good ground manners are not only a pleasure to work around, but are also safer to handle.

We expect our horses to:

• Be easy to catch – or better yet, meet us at the gate!
• Be polite while being led – to stay next to and at the same speed as the handler (forwards and backwards!), to easily yield the shoulder and to stand calmly.
• Be good with their feet – both for daily maintenance and for the farrier.
• Be quiet while being hosed or bathed.
• Be easy to trailer load and unload – to go willingly into the trailer and calmly back out.
• Yield from pressure – an important skill to know for the safety of both the horse and handler.
• Respond to basic voice commands through longeing and roundpen work, ground-driving and ponying.

Riding

Our horses are ridden everywhere – in the ring, on the trail, through water, over natural obstacles and on the road. We want you to have fun riding, regardless of whether you are riding for performance or pleasure, so we focus on maintaining lightness and eagerness in our horses.

We expect our horses to:

• Lower their heads to accept the bridle.
• Be relaxed at the walk, trot and canter.
• Respond promptly to voice, leg, rein and seat aids.
• Willingly adjust their stride – from collected to working to extended.
• Go out to the ring or on the trails in a group or by themselves without any herdbound issues.

Tricks!

We love to play around with our horses and get them to do tricks. Tricks are not only fun for everyone involved, but also help the horses to develop a keen, willing disposition. We are constantly looking for new things to play around with with the horses, so our list of tricks is always evolving.

Some of the things that we have taught horses to do include:

• To bow and lie down when asked.
• Using only a voice command, to sidepass and stand quietly at the mounting block (or anywhere else we choose to get on!) to be mounted.
• To play with a ball.
• To follow us, yield their front and hind ends, back up, jump obstacles, side pass – all without a halter or lead shank.

Are You Shopping for Your Dream Horse?

We invite you to check out our sale horses. Each of these horses has been involved in our training program; their profiles will tell you where they are at in the program and what talents we are developing. Contact us today and we will work with you to find a horse that will exceed your expectations.

We look forward to meeting you!

© 2010 Heartwood Horses