Our one year old Suffolk Punch colt, Charley, was gelded a little over a month ago. We have an excellent vet who is extremely skilled, efficient and humane. Within an hour after the vet's arrival, Charley was back on his feet, though groggy and quiet. Charley would receive antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for several days after the procedure, but other than that, the vet expected him to be pretty much back to normal within a day. He was stiff and clearly somewhat sore for several days, but his spirits were good and he moved around normally. Horses (and animals in general) have an amazing tolerance for pain. The instinct is very strong to keep moving and to conceal weakness or vulnerability.
Our horses are kept in an open shelter during the day with access to move freely in a large paddock and, in the grass months, go out to pasture at night. Charley was gelded on April 12, which was a good time for management of his wound -- mud season was over so the ground was relatively dry and the bugs hadn't woken up yet. However, the grass wasn't ready yet to pasture our animals, so other than wandering around in the paddock, Charley wasn't able to get much exercise on his own. He also lives with older animals who don't share his youthful exuberance very often.
I've concentrated on manners with Charley over the winter months, with the added bonus of developing the bond of respect and trust between us. I hadn't asked him to do more than walk on the lead rope before he was gelded. So the vet's order to "make him move!" became a challenging training opportunity. Charley is a draft horse, and draft horses are not generally asked to move at high speeds nor is it their inclination for long periods of time. Training a draft horse for work includes the need to teach him to move at an even, steady pace, usually no faster than a walk. But horses also love to run.
When I brought Charley into the enclosed training area we've set up, my task was to get him to move around me in a circle, first at a walk and then at a trot, in both directions. This is basically the same thing as "lungeing." Normally, when I train a horse for work, the intent of this exercise is not to make the horse run in countless circles but only in 3-4 circles at most, and then to either change direction or yield his hindquarters and turn with his head directly to me. This is called giving me "two eyes." This teaches a horse to yield his frontquarters and hindquarters and to keep his full attention on me. In horse language, the one who can make the other horse move (backwards, forwards, side to side) is dominant. This is the cornerstone of respect and a safe, attentive relationship.
Charley didn't have a huge area to run in over the winter, and the ground was sometimes slippery or covered in snow. When I asked him to move, it took him a while to understand that I really meant MOVE. I first taught him to move away from and around me to either left or right. I held the lead rope up and to the side I wanted him to move to and swung the end of the lead rope toward the side of his head, increasing the pressure until he moved a step in the right direction. The moment he moved in the correct direction, I stopped swinging and released the pressure on the lead rope which directed him to move in that direction. Eventually, Charley figured out what I wanted and moved with very little pressure. His first inclination was to move toward me or to be distracted by something in another direction, but this exercise taught him to pay attention to my signals and to yield with light pressure.
Once I could ask Charley to move either direction at a walk, I taught him to stop by turning his hindquarters away from me and giving me two eyes. As he walked in a circle, I turned my own attention directly on his hip and slowly swung the end of the lead rope toward it until he understood the signal and came to a stop. It took a while for him to understand that the signal meant not only stop, but also to yield his hip and turn his whole body to face me. Once this signal was clear, I needed to ask Charley to move at a much faster pace if he was going to get the exercise the vet ordered.
Despite Charley's youth, he proved surprisingly unwilling to move at more than a walk. It took a lot of pressure and quite a lot of time to get Charley to move at a trot, and he quickly moved back to a walk unless I kept pressure on at the moment he showed that sign. Once he did move at a trot, he tried to exert his own will by sometimes pulling hard on the rope and trying to get away from me. I paid very close attention to his signals and made sure to pull his head hard toward me when he tried that move. Eventually, he understood it was much easier to move in the way I asked him to, rather than to either balk or put up a fight. Horses will usually try to find the safest and most comfortable place, whether in their environment or in their relationships. This is one of the most important guiding principles in training and underlies almost every exercise I've learned or dream up in their training progress.
Charley learned some valuable lessons because of the vet's orders to exercise him hard and frequently for several days. And he and I deepened our bond of mutual trust and respect. There's a long way to go in our training, but Charley continues to develop as an intelligent, friendly, and willing horse -- and I'm constantly learning new things about him and myself in the process. It's both a great challenge and great joy to me to train my horses for work on our farm.