Trainer offers tips for ‘how to enjoy your horse’

By LORI COPE | East Texas Edition

Joe Schwemin of Pickton, a certified John Lyons trainer, provided a plethora of information to the horse owners, and potential horse owners, that attended the recent free clinic in Sulphur Springs. � Staff photo by Cope

Nov. 17, 2005 - How about buying a horse to go trail riding on this fall, or maybe one for Christmas?

Did you know 80 percent of the people who buy a horse get rid of it within the first year of ownership? And those that don’t sell it in the first year, they do so within the first five years?

So how can you buy a horse that is a “keeper?”

Or, what can you do to train a horse that needs some adjustments?

The answers to these questions were shared by horseman Joe Schwemin during a “How to Enjoy Your Horse” clinic, offered free, on Nov. 5 in Sulphur Springs. The clinic was hosted by the Hopkins County Extension horse committee, and about 40 horse owners, and potential horse owners, came to learn.

Schwemin, a native Texan, is a Paint and Quarter Horse breeder, and he trains a variety of disciplines – from dressage to reining. He is a John Lyons certified trainer, and has been through Levels I and II of Pat Parelli’s training. “But I’ll steal (good training methods) from anyone good,” he chuckled.

When it comes to buying a horse, Schwemin suggested the “weekly horse sale” isn’t the place to go, and the buyer should be ready to spend between $2,500 and $7,500 for a horse that they’ll want to keep. He also said it is good to “go with someone who knows” horses, or send a knowledgeable person to buy the horse. “A $60 to $70 horse evaluation” is well worth the money to pay someone before the horse is purchased.

�Now, can you buy a good horse for $500? Yes. Can you buy a poor horse for $10,000? Yes,� Schwemin added.

Most horses have a need for some training, but that’s easier than “fixing” a horse with a lot of bad habits.

But how long does it take to train a horse? “There’s no straight answer,” Schwemin said. But the horse’s disposition is important.

Some horse owners opt for taking their new horse to a trainer. “If you do, don’t just take the horse and drop it off for 30 days,” Schwemin said. “Go there every week and make him (trainer) show you what the horse has learned, and show you how to get the horse to do it. … This is not the best way for a trainer to make money,” he shared.

�Almost everyone has a problem with the horse,� he said. �Maybe it won�t back up, � or it won�t stand still while your are trying to get in the saddle.�

The good thing is most horses can learn, and are willing to learn, and the horse owner can do a lot of the training. But the owner needs to realize the horse doesn’t speak English, Schwemin said, so body language and communication between the human and the horse is essential.

When working with a horse, the training session should last “as long as you can pay attention,” he said. A mind exercise he offered the audience was to think about an apple – and just the apple — for three minutes. “It won’t be long and you’ll be thinking ‘Did I turn the coffee pot off?’ or something else besides the apple.”

Focus is the first key to successful training. “I work a horse 20 minutes twice a day,” he said. And, having a written plan with a list of steps helps with focus. “Because no matter how much you’ve thought about it, about three steps into it, the plan goes south. But if it’s on paper, you can go back and say, ‘okay, step one went okay, and step two, but step three, that’s where it’s coming apart.’”

Schwemin said the second key to successful training is to set yourself up for success. It’s important to know how to use pressure to make a horse do what is being asked of it. Smooching, stepping towards the horse, stepping away from the horse … those are just a few of the pressure keys to a horse and her job is to figure out what to move.

When it comes to the pressure-release method, it’s important to give the horse “release” from the pressure because this tells her “yes, that’s what I want from you,” he continued.

Then, when the task is learned, it needs to be repeated several times.

The third key is raising the bar for the horse. “I ask her to go further, faster, or softer” in the thing being taught. An example, Schwemin cited, is when teaching the horse to turn, and she masters it, “then I ask her to turn ‘right here’ or I ask her to do it sooner.” If the bar is not raised, the horse will get bored.

�You are a trainer. Every time you touch the horse or handle it, you are training it,� he said with a caution about reinforcing a bad habit.

Schwemin also pointed out that those attending the clinic will forget 75 percent of what they learned that morning. “But a horse remembers 80 percent of what she’s learned for 18 months.”

The horseman’s three-hour session was filled with numerous tidbits of useful information. For instance, Schwemin pointed out that if a horse has a small “dent” in the upper portion of its neck, that is usually signs of a once-torn muscle, created by the horse stepping on a lead rope. If the horse has a small “dent” in the lower portion of its neck, then usually signs of a once-torn muscle created by the tied horse pulling back on a rope.

He also pointed out that a horse sees far away things from the bottom portion of its eye, and close things from the top half. That means a horse will hold its head up to see something far off, like someone coming across a pasture; or hold its head down to see what’s spooked it on the trail.

Schwemin trains several horses at his J-J Ranch in Pickton. A native Texan, he came back to the state in 1999 after living in Oklahoma for many years. He and his wife had traveled much of Texas as Schwemin competed in a professional fishing circuit. They decided to settle in Hopkins County because “we just loved the area here, and the people. We looked at many places in East Texas, all the way down to Palestine, but decided Hopkins County is where we wanted to be.”

(Joe Schwemin has J-J Ranch in Pickton. He can be reached at 903-866-9844 or email joe@j-ranch.com.)