Excited about getting your mare into equestrian training suited for dressage? An old adage reminds of crossing bridges when you are there, and if you and your equine partner have just met, you’re a long way from the dressage bridge—you’re probably still at the holistic pony care and health upkeep bridge. Before embarking on fantastic training programs and horse riding expeditions, you first have to understand how to take care of your mare and her grooming and hygiene wants. Take cleaning her udders as an example.

If you have been feeling out your horse, you ought to know she’s both proud and delicate. She’ll easily go run or fight on any danger or discomfort—even just the perception of it. And almost all of the time, especially for horses that are new to their domestic dwellings, the source of both danger and pain is you. And if you think you’ve seen your mare get sensitive when you touch her ears or mouth, try jumping on her udders.

You need to establish you’re not going to hurt her. From there, you make her get used to your touch, irrespective of where you are touching. The whole process takes patience, and isn’t a one day deal. You will have to patiently work on getting her comfy to the routines for days until she finally gets it. Before starting, know two things: practice patience and always reward her positive responses and improvements, and always stay safe—that is, away from places she could easily kick your head off.

The steps to making a pony let you touch her is to begin at places you can already touch, and carefully work your way to the part that you want her to become used to. Say you want to train her to not react negatively to your touching her ear. Then start stroking her face where she allows you, then steadily work your way to her ears. Move your hand quick enough so that your hand brushes her ear and moves away before she can react, gradually slowing down until you can touch her ear, then hold it, and do whatever with it without her reacting. Always reward your pony for responding properly, even if it is just for not pulling away. The same general procedure applies for your horse’s udder. Only before you really get there you must make her comfortable with you touching almost every other part of her body first.

Know that she will most likely unleashe on you if you rush the task. So work slowly. To be safe, always stay next to her shoulders as if to mount and start on a horse riding spree, so if she steps away with her hips and kicks out you either cannot be reached or have sufficient time to scram. Holding her head towards you through her reins also helps, so you can partially restrain her when she starts reacting.

As in equestrian sport where you don’t ride with just your hands, you also don’t clean your horse—any part of her—with just your hands. So be sure to introduce whatever it is you will be using to wash your mare’s udders to her the same way you did with your hands. And do not use cleaners that will irritate her.

Most horses need sheath or udder cleaning only 4 times each year and others might need monthly cleaning. You can do it yourself or let a vet do it. Whether or not you select the second, you’ll still have to go thru the motions of training your horse to let people touch her delicate areas. Vets can help give pointers when you make a decision to do so.

Horses are Heather Toms’ passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100’s of articles with other horse lovers… like all things about cheap horse rugs