This stallion called Salem has never been manipulated, nor halter broken or anything. He has spent the first five years of his life completely free in his pasture and paddock.
- Name: Salem
- Breed: French/Spanish
- Age: 5 years old
- Genre: stallion
This video is to share a very interesting experience I had recently and which could hopefully be useful.
Salem is a French/Spanish cross stallion that turned five years old a few months ago. His story is quite particular: his current owner bought him when he was one and a half in order to offer a horse to his daughter. Unfortunately, he has not been informed correctly about horses and horsemanship, and had to deal with a dishonest horse seller.
Halter breaking? Never heard of…
The colt had never been manipulated. Halter breaking was unknown concept to this horse. Once he arrived to his new home, he never accepted the halter and spent four years growing strong and independent.
At the beginning of this session, I could barely touch him. I first tried to desensitize him to the halter and rope, without any success. So, I had to use my lariat in order to rope him and try to work on our connection. Once he accepted the lasso, we could start groundwork: following the lead rope and respecting my space.
We finished very positively, as Salem was lead around the paddock, wearing a halter, for the very first time of his life!
WARNING:
I am fully aware of the very low quality of this video. The footage has been recorded by the owner’s daughter with her own video camera and covers five hours of work. I could have removed it from my website, but I think it is important to share that experience, and to see how this stallion reacted to natural horsemanship principles and methods.