09/28/2026
This! Young horse owners do you agree?
10 THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR 2-YEAR-OLD OTHER THAN RIDING…
There’s so much we can teach a young horse without needing to ride them.
The goal shouldn’t be how much training we can cram into a young horse, or how quickly we can get them under saddle, but how much we can invest in them and their future with the life skills and early education they need to thrive.
2. LEADING WITH FEEL & FINESSE
We aren’t just looking for them to follow us, we’re looking for them to follow a feel.
Can they lead with finesse and hunt the slack, through upward and downward transitions, and turns away from us?
Can they trot up off light halter pressure?
That last piece can help tying enormously.
A horse who understands how to follow light pressure is so much better prepared for the inevitable moments when they reach the end of a lead rope.
A big priority for me is to get people to stop pulling on their horse’s heads, whether it’s with a lead rope or a rein, because pulling creates torque on the poll.
It also contributes to a motor pattern I call flexion/abduction, where when we pull the nose to the side, the horse learns to let go of the opposite thoracic sling and de-collect to step out to catch themselves with the forelimb.
Handlers often get frustrated when their horses lean into them and won’t yield and bend around them, but that’s exactly what we’re teaching them to do!

Teaching a horse to ‘follow their nose’ actually needs to happen from the hind leg.
For instance, when halter-breaking a young horse, if we release when the front feet move, they will often learn to step forward with the front feet, but lag with the hindquarters, so they might get stuck, or they’ll always drag on the lead a little bit, whereas if we release when the hind leg steps forward, too, they’ll start hunting the slack a little better.
That’s also a great way to ensure a good translation to trailer loading.
The amount of times I’ve seen horses get stuck trailer loading because they don’t understand how to lead back to front, and the handler keeps releasing when the front feet move…
Trailer loading is kind of like dressage.
We want them to do it back to front, with the hindquarters driving them forward.
Whether it’s leading, or bending, or steering, we don’t get softness by pulling, we get softness by communicating to the whole horse, starting with the hind leg.
We’ll talk more about that in the next piece…
