KBR Training Case Study:

"Chancellor"

Spike was adopted by first time horse owner Kristi Fish who renamed him Chancellor. Her intention was to train Chancellor as a Civil War reenactment horse. She planned to gentle and saddle train Chancellor herself. She had no relevant prior experience but she did have dedication and the support and advice from the LRTC Wild Horse Mentors.

This case study follows Kristi's and Chancellor's first 60 days together. It demonstrates how well older wild horses respond to respect and low key socialization and training approaches.

First Steps

The first step in Chancellor's training involved getting him desensitized to humans. Several of the volunteers use the Gentling Wild Horses 101 approaches.

As soon as Chancellor was no longer spooked when humans approached, we made first contact in the safe squeeze. Chancellor was, after all, a dominant and aggressive horse. He needed the protection the fence panel afforded between himself and humans, and Kristi needed protection in case Chancellor overreacted to the contact.

The idea here was to make the experience as pleasant as possible for the horse and let him understand that being touched was no big deal. Once Kristi found his itchy spots, contact became pleasurable. As soon as Chancellor was comfortable with Kristi, other volunteers handled him and eventually several people would rub and scratch him from both sides at once.

The Next Big Steps

Kristi next took Chancellor out into the round pen on the line. The first objective was simply to let him get comfortable wearing the halter and with the feel of the lead line hanging from the halter. Kristi also gently asked him to face up while on the line.

As soon as Chancellor felt safe facing up to Kristi, she was able to ease up the lead rope and make contact. Pretty soon Chancellor was relaxing to having his neck rubbed and being scratched.

First Contact in a "safe squeeze"

Learning to be quiet on the line

Sliding up the line

First nice rubs outside of the squeeze!