Day 3 – Phil’s Courage’s Journal

This morning’s breakfast routine was repeated. Phil was a little less pushy. This is a huge step for him. I asked for the head down cue and let him go to his food dish. He did dance around a bit, but I did not let up on my head down request.We worked on walking through the gate again. I insist Phil stands slightly behind me while I open the gate. I will walk through with Phil following. Well, at least that was the plan. Phil feels so much pressure from the gate he rushes. This is very common, it is a natural survival instinct not to be in a position where there is no escape from a predator. Read more

Day 2 – Phil’s Courage’s Journal

Today, I had to teach from 7:45am to 12:45pm. I am adjunct college faculty. I left school to pick up my kids from school and returned home around 3:00pm. The kids had 2 hours of homework. We fed the horses at 5:00pm.

We are a breeding farm and have 13-15 horses at any given time. I handle all the breeding and foaling. My family helps out tremendously. They are the only employees at Blue Steel Quarter Horses and they are paid poorly.

My schedule did not allow me to ride or formally school any horse today. However, every interaction you have with your horse you are either teaching or un-teaching a behavior.

Feeding routine: My husband fed this morning and reported Phil was dead set on eating. He sent Phil away until Phil acknowledged him and let him pet his forehead. I fed Phil and sent him to the far end of the round pen this evening. I let him approach to eat and used this time to groom him. Phil will begin to associate me with good feelings during eating and the physical stimulation of grooming like his dam used to do. If you don’t have brushes with you, rub your body on your horse. This not only brings back memories of your horse’s dam, but puts your sent on him. While Phil was eating I asked him to move out of his feed dish and go to the end of the round pen. When Phil gave me a submissive posture, I let him follow me to the feed dish and let him resume eating. I repeated this several times. Read more

Day 1 – Phil’s Courage Journal

When I first met Phil he was absolutely stunning, a real eye catcher. I was in awe of his stature and magnificent beauty. My “awe” quickly was replaced with ”oh, no” as soon as the human element entered the picture. While Phil was magnificent in his world, he didn’t quite fit into the human world. Phil was pushy, mouthy, and did not know there were rules when interacting with humans. Phil was mentally unstable. Read more

Training OTTBs – Phil’s Courage’s Journal – From Ex-Race Horse to Sport Horse

 Insights to Retraining Thoroughbred Race Horses

Phil’s Courage was purchased as a Prospect Horse from the Bits & Bytes Farm Web site in 2007.

His first owner off-the-track was Christa Mooney of Charlotte, NC. Unfortunately, Christa had a family health issue and a lack of time to continue “Phil’s” off-the-track training. Christa loved Phil’s Courage very much and she did a good job of letting him down and getting him started as a sport horse. As time went on Christa had less and less time to work with Phil’s Courage and he started taking control.

He was fortunately purchased by Kara who has the experience to unschool some of the bad habits that “Phil” had picked up in his leisure time while Christa was busy caring for her son. I have asked Kara to give us a Journal of Phil’s Courage’s training. She uses common techniques promoted by most “Natural Horseman” trainers. It is our hope that our reader’s will see how these techniques work to make your horse respect you on the ground and when mounted. It is important to have patience and not rush through the process. Kara explains what she is doing and more importantly why. You can follow along and see the results. Enjoy and learn! Start at Ground Training – Day 1 Phil’s Courage under the Page listings.
Elizabeth Wood
Bits & Bytes Farm