To the uninitiated horse owner, there are timely facts about horses they should understand . In fact, when someone first gets a horse these timely facts should be studied and learned.

These timely facts come from the Jesse Beery horse training manual. Jesse Beery was a famous horse trainer from the 1800s. Interestingly, Beerys training methods are as powerful today as they we are when Beery was alive.

Timely Fact #1:

Make your horse your friend, not your slave.

Timely Fact #2:

Almost every wrong act of the horse is caused by fear, excitement or mismanagement. One harsh word will increase the pulse of a nervous horse ten beats a minute. Hoses know nothing about balking until forced into it by bad management. Any balky horse an be started steady and true in a few minutes. I never found one that I could not teach to beginning his load in fifteen minutes and usually in three.

Timely Fact #3:

Intelligent horsemen have learned that kickers, biters and balkers are natural results of abuse, that not one horse in a hundred is vicious until made so by cruelty; that whipping a horse is as mean and senseless as whipping a baby, and that the most useful, obedient and long lived horses are those treated from birth with kindness and common sense.

Timely Fact #4:

The whip is the parent of stubborness, but gentleness wins obedience. There is no such thing as balkiness in a horse that is kindly treated, and that gets an occasional apple, potato or sugar from his masters hand.

Timely Fact #5:

When a hose is afraid or excited, quiet him by kind words and caress. An excited horse is practically crazy and to whip him is dangerous, foolish and cruel. I have known a single blow of the whip to balk a spirited horse. Whipping a balky horse is barbarous and only enhances balkiness.

Andy Curry is a nationally known horse trainer and author of several best selling horse training and horse care books. For information visit his website at www.horsetrainingandtips.com. He is also the leading expert on Jesse Beerys horse training methods which might be seen at www.horsetrainingandtips.com/Jesse_Beerya.htm.