To start horse training, you must develop a communication system with the horse. This might take time. In the same way, as children may not fully grasp the idea of things at an instant, baby horses in training may not get every pressure, pat, or way of holding the reins at once.

When you apply a certain pressure, you expect a certain response. During horse training, you must make the horse understand that a certain pressure should elicit a corresponding response. We don’t expect full compliance in the beginning. But as time goes by, these actions will be part of the horse’s vocabulary.

Throughout the horse training, one by one, these actions will be added to his vocabulary. But these actions should still be broken down into minute details that the horse can take in one at a time. Learn how to pace with each horse. Training is something that should be done slowly and surely.

Learn how to “speak” to your horse in a way that it will be able to comprehend. This manner of speaking would mean fewer words and more body language. Horses are herd animals. They learn well by imitating the leaders of the herd. You should be that “leader” your horse will follow. Patience is a key in training your horses.

Also, consider that no one, animal or human, learns well when under stress. Do not force lessons into your horse during horse training. They don’t appreciate the yelling and whipping, especially if they do not know what all the harshness is for. Unlike humans who can speak their minds, horses resort to more physical responses. And you certainly wouldn’t want your horse to whirl, kick, strike and do out-of-hand movements.

Create an environment wherein the horse can learn on its own, aside from the horse training that you give it. It is also important to see the difference between having been able to teach the horse something and just accepting it. If a horse is relaxed when you do something, this does not necessarily mean that it is trained. This might just mean to it as another thing a human being normally does. Resistance at first is needed to see that the horse recognizes that something new is being taught to him.

The horse’s daily training routine should not be based on a set of particular things you want to teach to the horse. It should be based on how your horse reacts to your actions. Don’t teach something new to it without reviewing what it already knows.

Most importantly – don’t force your horse to go on horse training if it doesn’t feel well. A good routine does not only maintain the horse’s attention level but also its comfort level.

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 can be started steady and true in a few minutes. I never found one that I could not teach to start 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. Not one horse in a hundred is vicious until made so by cruelty. 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 stubbornness, 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 master’s hand.

Timely Fact #5:

When a hose is afraid or excited, quiet him with 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 increases balkiness.

In Beery’s manual, he explains the different steps it takes to train a horse to be gentle, safe, reliable, and valuable. Although this is a very basic example, Beery describes the number one abuse of a command given to horses by their riders. The command is “whoa.” The reason this command is so abused is that the rider will often say “whoa” while riding when they want the horse to slow down. The horse then associates the word “whoa” with slowing down instead of stopping. Soon, the frustrated horse owner wonders why his horse won’t stop when he says “whoa.” Beery reminds the reader to say “whoa” ONLY when you want the horse to stop. Pick a different command for the horse to slow down.
Furthermore, Beery explains with great detail how to teach a horse to stop – even under any circumstance. This lesson, according to Beery, is THE MOST important one of all.

Beery also describes in his book how to cure different vices a horse may have. For instance, if a horse is a confirmed biter and has been for a long time, Beery gives clear instruction on how to stop it for good. Even better is the instruction Beery offers for horses that jump fences. In the book, you see a picture of a simple apparatus put on a horse to keep him from jumping. Beery says, “When this simple appliance is on your horse, he can lie down and get up, eat, or do anything but run fast or jump. This is the best, most reliable, and safest remedy that has ever been devised for fence jumpers.”

Unfortunately, this book is rare enough that few copies exist. The copies that exist are not always readable due to fading and age. Thus, good copies are very pricey.

American horse trainer Andy Curry discovered a legible copy from a used book store on a dusty shelf. Curry was able to make copies available to horse owners who want to learn about Beery’s methods.

Fortunately, Beery’s secrets remain after all these years. His information can be found in the book he wrote in the late 1800s. However, very few copies of his book exist. It is virtually impossible to find an original – much less one that is readable.

Here is a partial reading from the first chapter of Beery’s book:
Fear is the principal motive that causes the colt to resist training. It is natural for him to kick against an unknown object at his heels, to pull his head out of the halter as from a trap, and if of a bad disposition, to strike and bite if he does not thoroughly understand you.

His fear is governed by his sense of touch, sight, and hearing; and it is through these senses we obtain a mastery, and at the same time remove his fears of the halter, the robe, the harness, and the wagon. These are the fixed laws that govern the actions of all horses, and the training of a colt is merely teaching him not to fear the working apparatus, but to respect his master, and to obey his commands as soon as he has learned their meaning.

Each one of these senses must be educated before the colt is trained. A colt’s education may be compared with that of a child to a great extent. A horse’s reasoning powers are limited to his experience. So we must reason with him by acts alone. Hence the importance of beginning every step with the colt right; for by our acts he learns.

The successful schoolmaster aims to teach the child to have confidence in him. Hence the first lesson we give the colt is simply to teach it to have confidence in us and that we are its best friend and don’t intend to hurt it. The book continues with the first lesson a colt is to have which is “How to gain a colt’s confidence.”

Fortunately, horse trainer Andy Curry discovered a legible copy and made it available for horse owners who want to learn this incredible information.

Andy Curry encourages responsible horse owners to check into Jesse Beery’s book and learn what it has to teach.

His name was Jesse Beery. Before he was twenty, he became a world-class horse trainer. He was so well known, more people heard of him than didn’t. Jesse Beery learned how to train horses almost entirely on his own because few people knew how to train a horse.

Beery’s parents discouraged horse training as a career but later supported his passion. From then on, there was no stopping Beery from achieving greatness. Beery’s first inclination to train horses happened when he drove a horse and buggy to a friend’s house. As Beery exited the buggy, the horse spooked and ran home. During that long walk home, Beery was determined to make his horse stay put.

As he worked with his horse, he discovered ways to get a horse to do what he wanted. Although nearly killed in training incidents and laughed at by friends and neighbors, Beery soon became THE authority on horse training.

Beery’s methods solved numerous problems with horses that seemed unsolvable. If a horse was hard to shoe, ran away, pulled while tied, spooky, and more… Beery knew how to fix it.

As if his accomplishments weren’t enough to keep him busy, Beery wrote a Horse Training manual describing how to do what he did. Unfortunately, few copies exist today, and those that do may be hard to read due to the poor condition of these very old books.

Beery’s book may be available in used book stores if one is motivated to search. Be prepared for a time-consuming search – but if a Beery book is found in good condition, be ready to pay a handsome price.

There may be an alternative. Beery’s book was recently revived by horse trainer, Andy Curry. Curry discovered Beery’s book in a used book store by accident.

Curry says, “This is one of the most amazing books I’ve EVER read about horse training. Beery explains his methods so clearly it’s like he’s there with you…holding your hand…showing what to do. Every responsible horse owner should have a copy of this book – period!”