About

Hi,

Thanks for stopping by

I’m Jain and this is my wonderful horse, Trigger.

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About Trigger

Trigger is a quarter horse and I think he is about 18 years old.  Most days he acts about 5 but my horse dentist insists that he’s at least 3 times that age.

We’ve been together about 2 years.  I was asked to look after him for a while because he’s owners couldn’t and to try and find him a good home.

The horse truck driver that bought him over to my place said that if I couldn’t find a home for Trigger he’d take him.  ”Horses like this are hard to find” were his parting words.   I thought – gee Trigger you’ve made an instant impression!

Well it only took about a week for me to also realise what a wonderful horse he was.  Smart, affectionate and not a bad bone in his body.  So Trigger’s new home was my home.

Trigger’s past life is patchy but I’ve been told that he might have been a barrel racer.  One day I’ll set up some barrels, hold on, point him at them and see what happens!  I’ve never barrel raced but I’m told by a professional barrel racer that Trigger will know what to do.

He makes an excellent trick horse because not too much surprises him – one of the benefits of having a ‘mature’ horse.  He really likes to learn and and has an excellent sense of humour – more attributes of the perfect trick horse.

About Me

I started riding when I was about eight years old, but I have alway loved horses.  Growing up, my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of horses.  I dreamt about them, wrote about them and was completely hooked on them.

I learnt to ride the traditional English way which included dressage and jumping.  I worked in several racing stables and on studs (with thoroughbreds and Arabians).  I even took trail rides and had great fun galloping along the beach.

I began teaching my horses to do tricks about ten years ago.

It all started when I had a thoroughbred gelding that had cut himself where his girth would normally lie.  Even though the wound was only small I couldn’t put a saddle on him.  He was a very smart horse who enjoyed doing something every day.  He was fit and healthy … and bored.

I’d read quite a bit on natural horsemanship, attended some courses and liked the way they did things.  I particularly liked the idea of asking a horse to do something that he responds to willingly, rather than forcing the horse to do things through fear and pain.  I also studied ‘clicker training’ and used some of these methods to train my dog (that competed in obedience trials) –and my horse.

I became interested in trick training and found it was an excellent way to keep my smart horse occupied while I couldn’t ride him.  He really enjoyed it (and so did I) and the benefits were greater than I expected.  He became super keen to learn, we seemed to understand each other better and because of this, I found I could teach him just about anything.

Horse Tricks 101

I decided to start the Horse Tricks 101 website because there wasn’t much on the internet about the basics of teaching horses to LEARN tricks.  There is a fair bit about getting a horse to do a trick eg bowing by just following a treat (which only works for a few tricks) but not much about how to actual teach your horse to LEARN new tricks.  It’s about building communication with your horse, rewarding their attempts to learn and having fun.

I’ve done a fair bit of clicker training and I think it is fantastic.  I train in a very similar way.  Ask the horse to do something – tell them when they get it right – reward them.   However I found it was a bit of a pain having to carry a clicker with me all the time when teaching new tricks (I was always forgetting where I’d left it!).  I now just use a word or sound to replace the clicker and I find my horses respond just the same.

What started out as a way to keep my horse occupied has now spilled over into all areas of my life with horses.  I use the same principles to teach my horses not only new tricks but anything new.  I work with lots of horses with problems and these same techniques can help a horse to overcome all sorts of problems such as head shyness, loading into a truck, fear of new objects.

But probably the most wonderful thing about trick training is I feel I am really communicating with my horses.  They understand I would like them to do something and they try really hard to work out what that is.  It’s great fun for all of us!  :-)