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[RC] Early handling - k s swigartEd said: I have no idea who or how John Henry was trained from 0 to 2 years old, shucks I even thought that I remembered that he was a harness horse. There is a good chance that, like many race horses (even many horses), he wasn't trained at all from 0 to 2 years old. When I picked up my ill tempered race bred TB as a two year old from her breeder one of the things he told me was "first you gotta catch her; she ain't never been caught before." He may have been one of those extremely rare individuals who was so aggressive that no amount of proper early training would have changed his attitude, but somehow I doubt that. There is no way to know if John Henry would have been an ill tempered son of a bitch no matter what his early handling. However, this statement is true for all horses, not just John Henry. My ill tempered tb mare might be more manageable were she handled differently (like at all) in her early years, but those years has already passed before she crossed my path. By the time I got her, it was too late to give her "early handling." Since very few people raise horses from a baby (and I have recently come to the conclusion that few people should because it is easier to do wrong than to do right), but rather have to handle full grown adult horses, it is fatuous, to say the least, that the bad behaviour could have been corrected if only it had been done before you got the horse. John Lyons's (or virtually all other's) techniques are presented as techniques for working with adult horses. By the time they get to be adults, not only has the inherent differences in individuals personalities already set it; but the effects of early handling has already set in as well. Consequently, it is entirely appropriate to assert that one should be careful in applying any techniques across the board. There are some horses that the cookie cutter techniques won't work on, whether it is because they were born different, or they learned to be different from their early handling is irrelevant. kat Orange County, Calif. :) p.s. It is also possible that any early handling of my mare would have been WORSE than the none that she got. Since, I contend, no early handling is a much better option than poor early handling. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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