In the next two or three weeks (waiting on her shipping date) I’m expecting a new horse. One who has only lived at her breeder’s farm, though she has traveled off of it. It made me think about the things we do to help a new horse settle in to a strange place or a new home. So COTH peeps, what do you do to help your new horse, or current horse settle in to a new or strange place?
When we go trail riding, camping, to a clinic or a show we expect horse to settle in and do it’s job immediately. When we move barns we feel like that’s super disruptive to a horse and they need lots of settling in and coddling.
But horses don’t know if any given move is permanent or temporary. Though my horse has expressed strong preference that she’d like to stay grazing in the rough beside the eventing field at the horse park indefinitely.
A bigger issue I think is when the horse is new to.you, and you don’t have an established routine or connection. And you can’t read your horse well because you don’t know them yet.
Also I think full board is different from self board because the horses need to adapt to different staff and handlers who aren’t under your control.
When I take my solid older mare camping, I give her free choice hay, I pop in and visit her, check water, talk over fence, let her see I’m around, multiple times but also am.mindful that after a big ride on challenging terrain, she also needs to rest and chill. Camping is the opposite of showing in that horses tend to get more mellow and relaxed in the open back country
I do like the idea of walking the horse all.over the property, letting them see everything and through all the barns early on
I think its also important to set your horse up for success by not creating any spooky corners etc
Also horses are often better behaved for the first couple of weeks. After that is when the holes in your mutual communication or system will.stsr to produce effects whether horse gets balky or spooky or bolty etc.
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