Safety While Working With Horses

Now here's the late Howard Hale with Cal Middleton asking him a question on safety around horses.   Cal Middleton is a horseman and clinician from Missouri. What do you need to do to be safe around a horse, Cal?   "The truth is if we want to be safe on a horse or around a horse, our first goal needs to be to make the horse feel safe. Because when the horse feels safe, we're on the right track. It doesn't mean that we just pet him and feed him cookies all the time. There's a lot of things we have to do. We have to be a little more firm when necessary, but we have to be as light as possible, and we have to care about the horse. And if we don't care about the horse, then we're better off to get a four-wheeler. That's kind of where it's got to start for me. Talk about some of the steps you need to take to make that horse feel safe, will you? Number one, it's the way we approach him, and that's physically and mentally. It's the way we approach him literally, and the way we approach him in a philosophical sense. The way we grab a hold of that lead rope, the way we put the halter on him, the way we put the bridle on him, and the way that we pick up the reins, you know, the way we saddle him. All those things come into play. It's something that I enjoy teaching to people, but it's not something that I can just explain to them real quick."   "Sometimes people will send me a question on an email like, my horse is doing this, what do I do? And I say, well, make him feel safer, and here's a few steps how, but it's something that you can't just pick up on a little weekend course or a little book, or a DVD."