Welcome to Fiona Craig's Breaking In Lessons for horses. By sending your young horse to us for breaking in, it will learn confidence, strength and mileage that set them up very well for their future riding careers.
We firmly believe that developing a solid work ethic through regular routine and consistency during this training period sets up a young horse with the strongest foundation for its future.
As well as accepting and understanding a rider and the basic aids in all paces and situations, we help to ensure that owners can continue on their own with success once the horse goes home again.
We encourage owners to have several rides with us on their horse and offer ongoing support, advice and lessons for all owners once the horse has gone home again.
Our general time frame for starting horses under saddle is 6 - 8 weeks (depending on each individual and mileage required).
Ground manners are given priority and we ensure the horse is settled in, leading, picking up feet, tying up, brushing, washing and all aspects of handling and stable management.
The first piece of tack we introduce the horse to is the bridle. To start with, the bridle is put on and they are set free in the stable to become comfortable with the bridle and the bit in their mouth.
After the bridle, the horse is led out and taught to lunge.
At this stage we think it is very important to teach them voice commands so that they know how to walk, trot, canter and halt on the lunge.
Once the horse starts growing confident with lunging, the training proceeds with the next piece of tack, the saddle.
The horse will have a saddle placed on them and, as in the case of the bridle, they are set free in the stable to become comfortable with the new tack.
Once they are comfortable with the saddle, the lunging/voice command exercise is repeated.
We then move on to side reins. Just very loosely at first so they become used to a contact on their mouth.
When they are comfortable we resume lunging and the horse begins to understand to move forward into a contact.
When walk, trot and canter on a contact is comfortable for them, we move on to the next step.
The voice commands show their importance now as the horse is asked to move forward while we are behind them, now they learn to turn, at first just circles and then weaving in and out of obstacles.
We now have a horse who has good ground manners, is comfortable with being handled and being tacked up.
They can walk, trot and canter in a frame (contact), they can turn, and have been out and about, becoming comfortable with different environments.
The next step of acutely mounting becomes straight forward.
They are relaxed with all of these things, they have learnt stop, go and turn and feel confident to move ahead with their rider.
So next we get on them and get them to a stage that they are happy to walk trot and canter around an arena and out hacking.
This is the horse's first ride, still attached to the lunge for safety.
Once the horse is relaxed; walking, trotting and cantering on the lunge, the horse will be ridden around the arena.
Now that the rider is confident riding the horse forward, she can start concentrating on walk-trot transitions, moving away from the leg, etc.
Once Stage One is complete, the horse can then be returned to the owner to continue it's education, or Fiona and her team can commence Stage Two.
Stage Two includes:
Forest Hacking
Further arena schooling at walk, trot, canter, to prepare horse for entry level competition.