For a prey animal, the instinct to flee is vital for survival. The domesticated horse still carries the instinct. To be able to use the horse he has to accept some things that in nature would seem life threatening. A horse has to enter narrow spaces, accept loud noises, stand still even when there are sudden movements in the surroundings, accept hard bounces from his rider etc. you can't safeguard against the fact that the horse sees danger where we can't see anything dangerous. Through training we can raise the horse's threshold for flight and gain control over his reactions to danger.

The first thing a horse must learn is to stand still. During the training the horse has to be loose or with such a long rope that he does not feel forced to stay, when he wants to walk away he must be able to. Start by standing at the horse's side. You keep one hand on the horse and walk carefully back and forth along his side with soft steps. After a bit, the horse has to let the trainer walk behind him to reach the other side, it is important to train both sides. When you walk in front of the horse, don't walk so close that he feels cornered and has to move.

The horse will slowly allow more, the movements get more intense and the steps harder. Stop and wait sometimes, with your hand on the horse. Then you can take your hand away for a couple of steps. The horse learns patterns immediately, so vary the movements all the time. When the horse permits you to walk around him without touching him, your distance to him can be bigger.

Next step is to disturb him more by stomping the ground while you walk around him, first with your hand touching him, then without. In the same way you get the horse used to the trainer running around him. First soft and slow, then faster and harder. Should the horse walk away you can have forced the training too much, is the basic well trained, he should come back when the trainer asks him to. Go back one level and continue the training. If the horse should make a system of not standing still because he does not want to be trained, then the alternative for him is work.

Horses are lazy by nature and they always choose what is easiest for them, if the horse walks away several times he has to work instead. The horse may walk away, but he is not allowed to go where he wants to and not at the speed he wants. The horse has to run around and is forced to turn in a quicker tempo than he wanted, after a couple of times he normally thinks it is more comfortable to stand still and the training can go on.

The horse must be safe to touch on his whole body, he must let you stroke and pat every part of his body, first with your hand, then with objects. If the horse should kick at your hand when you touch his legs, you can use a whip or something as an extension of your arm. Next step can be to train with a blanket.

The training always starts at a low level, the same way you trained the stand still, you fold the blanket and caress the horse with it over his whole body, then unfold the blanket and make the movements big and sweeping. Saddling can be trained by putting the blanket on the ground, lifting it up and throwing it on the horse's back like a saddle, always train both sides.

A sheet of plastic of 1.5 by 1.5 meters. is useful to train crackling noises and other noise. Start small and slowly go bigger. The horse has to accept the trainer running around him shaking the plastic, he has to accept the plastic being thrown over him from anywhere. Start small which is easy, end big which is difficult. Rolling an empty oil drum around the horse prepares him for being driven among other things. Take objects from the surrounding to train the horse, try with an umbrella, but the horse must never be hurt or frightened, then the work is worthless. After every training session he should be a bit more trusting and safer to handle.

Changes in the footing can be frightening to some horses, for example dark spots on the floor of the indoor school or puddles on the path. The basics to step on different things is easiest trained in the round pen. The horse should be trained loose with a big tarpaulin around 3 x 4 meters. and accept it fully. Put the plastic on the ground at the wall and lunge the horse loose, or with a rope, over it. If you have no round pen you can put the plastic by a wall or a fence.

When the horse can walk over and stop on the plastic he should be able to be led loose over it. The plastic can now be made smaller and more difficult to step on. The plastic can then be substituted for other objects, a sheet of plywood, a pallet, a carpet or anything else that can stand the weight and not hurt the horse.

May the horse choose, he will not walk through a small puddle, he can see no reason for it. It is easier to get the horse through a big puddle, compare with the training i the round pen. When the horse as an animal of habits walks obediently through big puddles it is easier to give him a motivation to walk through small ones. Here big is easy and small is difficult. Always start with the easy.

Training the horse to walk through narrow passageways is done in the same way, first big then small. Think through the training first and don't put the horse in situations he can't handle, there will be lots of mistakes done anyway in the horse's whole life.

The way the horse reacts during the training, he will react to new challenges, if you know it, it's easier to solve unforeseen situations. People often say the horse has never acted this way before, it might be true, but the horse has shown in other situations what he is prepared to do.