1. CARROT STRETCHES – Break a few carrots (or any horse treat) into small pieces so that you have enough to reward about 12 stretches (six on each side). Stand about where your leg would be if you were riding. Show the carrot piece to your horse and use it to encourage him to reach around to where you’re standing. Note how far your horse can comfortably stretch, and record it in your horse log. After practicing these stretches for a month, compare your “before and after” results.
STRETCH #2 – This is similar to Stretch No. 1, but hold the carrot higher up on your horse’s barrel – approximately where the corner edge of your saddle would be.
STRETCH #3 – Hold the carrot on the outside of your horse’s front foot, right at the hoof. Encourage him to reach down and stretch his neck out to grab his reward.
Add a nice neck scratch between stretches, and your horse will be very happy to see you the next time you visit!
Thanks!
Any ideas on helping an 8 year old stud horse who is gentle but never been rode? He takes the saddle well, but has no idea about the bit. We are working on flexibility but need advise on helping him move his feet.
Sorry, but I don’t like this method of achieving flexibility at all. Flexibilty can easily be achieved with pressure and release. Using a carrot or any food for training is unecessary and in my view dangerous. Using a carrot like this will encourage many horses to make a snatch for the food potentially taking your fingers with it if you are not just enough out of reach. Next they will be reaching (snatching for it)out of your hand when you are leading them in and you are carrying one or have it in your pocket. You are going to end up being bitten any time they think you have feed or they can smell it.I don’t like this idea at all.
I do positive reinforcement training with food so I am not opposed to handfeeding. But I think Ralph is right in saying getting the horse to grab it from difficult positions teaches the horse bad things. Better to make a target for the animal to touch, then reward it for doing so.
I do this with my horse. It has not caused bad habits such as snatching food or nipping. Many people believe that any hand feeding leads to this type of behavior. This is one of the great horse myths that lives on. If you are letting the horse call the shots, as in, hand over the food or else, it would be trouble. Done correctly, it is fine.
I always wonder why people’s horses stand still for this. My horse is very flexible but if I try something like this he just turns his whole body around.
my horse steps back alltime to get to carrot
Some of the comments here make me shake my head. There are lots of ways to achieve the same the result. This is one way to achieve flexibility. I have done these types of stretches, using treats, for years with no bad habits formed by my horse. I know many folks who use this method and guess what? No bad habits formed. So it’s okay if this is not your preferred method, but that does not make it wrong. It works. So use it or don’t but don’t criticize what you haven’t tried just based on an assumption of the result.