Giving your horse the best start to his ridden career at Primrose Court

 

 

Backing/starting under saddle

At Primrose Court we offer a specialist “starting under saddle’ service.

With over 20 years’ experience breeding, producing and competing performance horses for the international equine industry you can really trust and know your horse is in the best and most capable hands.  
Such sound and traditional European training along with so many years expereince is great news for you in WA.
You are able to tap in and make use of such knowledge that will give your horse the very best start under saddle and make and easy transition into his competition career. You yourself will also gain immesnely from how your horse is trained in this way.

We believe there is absolutely no point sending your horse to a ‘breaker’ that has little or no understanding of the performance disciplines. You have just spent a fair amount buying your precious performance horse so why send him to the incorrect trainer….it would be as similar as sending a young talented ballet dancer to a boxing club to learn about the art of ballet!

The breaking in process is going to have an effect for the rest of your horse’s life.
In just 8 short wks (approx.) out of his entire life, your horse will be changed for ever whether this will be in the correct way or incorrect way.
It is you’re responsibility to find the correct trainer for the job you have in mind.
If its western pleasure you enjoy, send him to an experienced western trainer…racing send him to a good pre trainer…..dressage,jumping,showing send him to a performance trainer that has good sound experience riding in such a way  
If not you will possibly experience one very confused horse once he’s home and it could possibly be confusing for you as his owner/rider too.
 All too often we have horses in for re backing or re training because they are too green for their owners to continue with and have little or no understanding of the general basics that are the building blocks of performance training.  What a complete waste of money for the owner who now has to have their horse re started the correct way. And what a real shame your horse now has to undo everything he has learnt and be re taught again.

 

What we offer

We offer a comprehensive complete package for all horses that visit Primrose Court. Every horse is seen as an individual and his work is based upon this. No horse is that same and therefore no horse will be at the same stages and levels as the next one. We don’t not rush or hurry, we just keep asking easy questions that he will pick up and happily try. If he doesn’t understand we ask him a different way.

We do not use fancy terms or weird and wonderful ‘techniques’. We use straight forward mainstream, “normal” European/UK based methods that have proven to work time and time again in Europe for our leading performance riders.
We do not and will never use hobbles, ear twitches, leg ties and any other cruel ‘aid’. We have never needed to use such gadgets and do not agree with the use of them either.

Our horses are taught the fundamentals from the ground first before we consider mounting him.  If he doesn’t understand what we are asking from the ground the likely hood is he will not have a clue what you are asking once you are on him.

This stage is the most important aspect of starting a horse and this process is not hurried.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you can expect

 

• He will learn to lead properly from the shoulder

• To tie up and wait patiently in cross ties

• To be happily tacked up, un tacked and washed off.

• To happily lunge in an open arena on both reins, walk, trot and canter if he is ready. (we do not use round yards as they learn to hug the fence and do not offer much other than to run in a circle and get fit!. Most have deep sand which is also not so great on young soft legs and growing joints.)

• To lunge with loose side reins on into a light contact

• To happily long rein on a circle in both directions as well as in straight lines on his own working in front.  

 

Once he has mastered these basic but important parts only then do we start the mounting process. Usually by this stage a great relationship has been made and complete trust has been gained. The actually mounting part and early riding away is really classed as the icing on the cake and is usually very non eventful ( it should be if every other step has been carried out properly prior)

After which we ride them straight out into the arena and work is started to put the basic aids in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you can expect

 

• to be ridden free and forward into a soft giving hand

• lightness

• responsiveness

• true self carriage

• in front of the leg

• happily walking ,trotting and cantering on both reins in the arena

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  And once this is achieved you will have a very well rounded, very happy confident horse to bring home and start working   with yourself