Talk:Horse training

article commentary
Montana, thank you for this line: >Some training techniques may appear violent to people unused to horse behavior, but in practice may not be as harsh as they appear. > SO True! Lil 19:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice work, WBMontana! Lil

I agree with Lil. Very nice work. Roan Art 22:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see a section summing up the various methods of horse training. -Arcking


 * I sympathize, but based on the discussions in wikiproject horse training, a section on "various methods" would be ENORMOUS and invite incessant edit wars. This article is intended to be a basic summary and then have wikilinks at the bottom to all the various methods where everyone can plug their own thing -- Note how long the "See also" links are getting.  But, that said, we always welcome more links in the "See also" section.


 * However, if you are interested in more, the two basic schools of humane methods of horse traning these days pretty much can be summed up (IMHO) as dressage and natural horsemanship. Montanabw 04:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if you could post the link back for the "Road to the Horse". Yes it is a specific event, but it is for different methods of horse training. thanks. --Cirlot20 21:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thaks for asking, here's the reason it was tossed: The Road to the Horse is exclusively a competition for people within the field of Natural horsemanship (so far, no dressage practitioners have been invited, for example). So, it would be perfectly appropriate to post a link there, and I recommend that you do so. Also see Parelli Natural Horsemanship, John Lyons, etc., most of these folks who have participated could have a wikilink there as well. Maybe in horse breaking also, as that article is about 99% natural horsemanship focused anyway. Plenty of places for a link, just not here, don't want yet another horse article taken over by just one camp, and REALLY don't want edit wars. Montanabw (talk) 22:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This page is very bias toward "Natural Hosremanship". Where are the other points of view??????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.77.87.111 (talk) 23:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The Definition Part
I would expect (and prefere) to have a definition at the beginning of this article. Currently the Horse training is not really defined:

Horse training refers to a wide variety of practices that teach horses to perform certain behaviors when asked to do so by humans. …

I suggest to insert a broad definition like this:

Horse training is a process of consecutive steps, in which the horse is involved as trainee and the human as trainer who might use some tools during the process. The steps of the training are built on each other, and have a defined set of purposes and goals. Horse training refers to a wide variety of practices that teach horses to perform certain behaviors when asked to do so by humans. …

HorsemansWiki (talk) 07:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point. Let me mull it over.  The big thing with this particular article is to keep it as general as possible, because there are so many articles on all the various disciplines of training.  (You want a challenge?  Look at horse breaking, it's so terrible that I look at it and just throw up my hands in despair)  Your suggested wording isn't too bad.  I may look at some other definitions to see if there are certain ways of phrasing it that are consistently used.   Montanabw (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Translation
Hi, this Kagermtc 14:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC), new to Project Horse Training, does anybody mind, if the project relating pages become translated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kagermtc (talk • contribs) 14:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, translated into other languages? Not a problem.  But please DO discuss adding any material here, this article is intended to be a very general overview that deliberately avoids specifics and how to material.  We have separate articles on most of the actual different schools or methods of training (dressage, etc.)   Montanabw (talk) 05:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Horse riding stunts
This article I found was difficult to locate elsewhere and also believe me there is a huge amount of training in involved in producing these horses for mounted and/or liberty work. It is an area that needs more work.Cgoodwin (talk) 22:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but then we would also have to add Equestrian Vaulting, and Rodeo, and everything else under the sun that requires specialized training to the see also list (oh yeah, driving, polo, campdrafting, etc). I guess there is room for improving organization and adding more cross-links, but maybe we should just sort out the scope.  My thinking is that the catchall article is Equestrianism (which is also kind of messy).  Not a moral issue, just need to decide how long to make the list...I'm open to discussing it a bit more.   Montanabw (talk) 23:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that an equestrian is usually regarded as a driver or rider (by dictionary definitions), so where do liberty horses etc go? Driving, polo, campdrafting, etc are obviously Equestrian pursuits. 02:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, and if you are one of my talk page lurkers, remember the time I got into trouble for wanting to lump equestrian vaulting in with "riding?" Oh au contraire!  (I guess)  And liberty horses, like the Cavalia stuff is yet another tricky kettle of fish.  And where we put stunt riding in that...oh man. OK, well, thoughts on where we go with this?  My mind just boggled.  Montanabw (talk) 21:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Gentling?
How universal is the word gentling? I only started hearing it regularly recently, and initially thought it was a politically correct natural horsemanship derived euphemism for "breaking". Is it perhaps common in western/cowboy style horse training but less commonly used in others? Tangledweb (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yup, newer word anyway. Maybe a better word and more accurate, but a newer word. I kind of think it may have come East to West, but about the same time the NH movement went west to east.   However, "breaking" is also mostly a western word; "backing" is sometimes seen in older books for the process of getting on a young horse for the first time.  I think the connotations of "breaking-in" a horse have been controversial for a long time, I think even Black Beauty discussed the terminology, if memory serves.   Montanabw (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Breaking is not a Western word. It's the normal term for it in other English speaking countries that don't have a Western tradition.  Black Beauty (set in England) uses the term Breaking in and has strong ideas about the process, but not as fair as I can tell the term.  From a quick skim of the text I can't find a specific term for halter-breaking or young horse training in that book. (full text http://www.gutenberg.org/files/271/271-h/271-h.htm#link2H_4_0004 ) Tangledweb (talk) 01:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting question you raise, but probably one of those things where we ARE seeing a valid terminology shift: You are probably correct about origins, though I think if you want to be technical about it, as I see in Sewell (and thanks for finding the text, been years since I read the book), "breaking-in" probably is the more accurate form with "breaking" or "break" as the abbreviation; I don't know what the etymology is precisely, but "breaking-in" also refers to the softening of boots and shoes to make them more useful (finding no help in online sources so far, either way). The cowboy form I have  sometimes heard called "rough-breaking", (but usually shortened to "breaking") and that was the more abusive form of roping half-wild colts, forcibly saddling them up and then jumping on them, letting them buck, whipping them with each jump until they rode them to a standstill - in some cases, the overt goal being a "breaking" of the sprit of the horse, though true horsemen even in the bad old days did not advocate breaking the sprit of the horse; sometimes I heard the term "gentle-breaking" used, even many years ago.  (Yeah, I know, this commentary is all OR, but I live out here and know the oral traditions)  Back when I was a professional trainer (when I was younger and more nimble), we'd say things like "gotta get the horse broke to ride," but not intending the meaning of harsh use (I credit myself that I never had a green horse buck with me on their first ride, occasionally you could tell they were thinking about it, but most were easily redirected, usually if they tried it, it was at ride 3 or 4 when they started feeling over-confident, and even then were easily redirected) But I remember seeing the language shift coming: clients who were new to horses in general would take substantial issue with the word "breaking" and the "spirit-breaking" that it implied.  The whole Ray Hunt, Tom Dorrance bunch - the credited founders of the newer "natural horsemanship" movement - may have coined "gentling" as a stand-alone word  - I'm not sure where it first appeared - but I think we can trace it back at least 30 years or so.   Montanabw (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

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Bias towards horses
The language used indicates biases of the author towards horses or non-human animals in general. I would like to improve this article to paint a factual picture of them and remove passages I believe to be disrespectful towards them.

Here is an example of a passage that bothers me: 'Today, most horse training is geared toward making horses useful for a variety of recreational and sporting equestrian pursuits.' 'Making horses useful', dismisses their unconditional worth and makes them seem like mere commodities.

I accept that the bias in the text may be quite subtle but I still find it to be significant.

DrownLies (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm honestly finding it hard to wrap my head around this. There's no bias in the article as all, as horse training is exactly that: training horses to become more useful in a specific area. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:11, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * some of the more extreme animal rights activists do indeed use “speciesism” and see bias in using animals. Definitely an extreme POV and fringe also. There is nothing wrong with the original language. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:42, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see what you’re saying. When I initially read this article I noticed the phrasing of several sentences seemed off. I think it’s different when you have personally worked with these animals for years, you develop an affinity for them and it’s only natural to want to use, for lack of a better term, more affectionate words when talking about them. However, for the average wikipedia reader, I think this article is worded fine. It is, after all, a place to acquire quick information rather than read personal or interesting stories about horses. Horsegirl1015 (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

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