Please help me

Question
Hello,
My name is Melissa Allen and i have been riding for almost one year, but know alot about horses. I do western pleasure and I want to start training a 2 year old stallion named Coco. Coco is a QH paint and has been ridden 4 times and was perfect. He was aboned and left at the barn that i ride with in North Carolina. I was wondering if you have any starting tips for me while your grooming him.
Thank you for your time
Melissa Allen  

Answer
Hi Melissa,

I'm sure people have told you this but I'll just give you a word of caution, you have only been riding a year and you can't be all that experienced after a year so be careful because your also training a young stallion,  I understand he may be a quiet little horse and that's great because I have a stallion who is quiet and nice at 4.  Just, your both green and that can equal black and blue if you know what I mean!

Anyways, grooming tips...I wou;ld say that you sould start off with what is called the friendly game, this is exacally how it sounds... being friendly to him.
To explain farther, this is basiacally being able to touch him everywhere, I do mean EVERYWHERE.
maybe he dosn't like his ears touched, I'll give you an example on how to deal with this.  Begin down his neck and let your hand slid up toward his ear, when he begins to get nervous let your hand run back down and away from the ear, it's basically call ed approach and retreat.  Keeping approaching the eas and retreating when he gets nervous, if you do this over and over you can slowlt get closer to the ear and eventually be able to touch it...approach and retreat can be used on any area that he is afraid of being touched...just make sure that to start off if he is really scared of having something touched and he finally let you put a hand on it, don't leave your hand there, just run it over briefly and eventually...he'll let you leave it there longer and longer!

Also the friendly game involves desenitizing him to things, anything like bags and tarps and balloons and umbrellas and loud noises...anythng and everything...you want to be able to crinkle  them and run tem all over his body without hetting him scared...you want to be able to do jumping jacks and run around him and have him just stand there.
So start opff gently to build his confidence and slowly do more and more and get him used to anything you can think of.  Also, if he's only two it's fine to get on him just try not to ride him to much, I know it's hard to wait, but it will be worth it, you can ruin a horses legs by riding them to young, that's why thouroughbreds alwasy have bowed tendons and other leg problems when their older, the trainers beging riding at one or two.

Good luck with the horse and have fun

Echo Savage