Page 204 - Equine Chronicle August Select 2020

FOAL PRESCHOOL • EARLY EDUCATION FOR SHOW BABIES
a whole lot of pressure on them.”
Daily lessons include getting haltered and letting them drag a
lead rope for a while. They get used to stepping on it, pulling, and giving to that pressure. They will get led down the barn aisle and then go right back to the stall so the halter is removed. He keeps this activity to less than five minutes so as not to blow their atten- tion span.
As training advances, it’s still minimal. He says, “When I start the longe line with them, I might put them on it five times in the first four or five months and that’s it. I’ll pony them off a cart so they’re not dipping their shoulder or putting a lot of stress on those joints in a tight circle. It’s especially hard with those long- legged Hunt Seat babies. You want them
to stretch out.”
Ross Roark
Ross Roark has led many great AQHA horses through the years to collect over 100 World Championship titles. He also raises horses at the other end of the indus- try spectrum: racing. There is a common thread to both his programs. He breeds and trains to produce sound horses with strong feet and legs.
When the foals are about a week old,
Roark and his team go in and start handling
them. He stresses that it’s important to go
easy with them. He says, “We get them
broke so we can catch them and put a halter
on them. We teach them to lead. The first
two or three weeks are important with the babies. That’s when they learn to trust you. Once those babies lose trust in somebody or something, it’s hard to get it back. You don’t know what might set them off. It can show up in that arena when you are presenting for Grand Champion.”
After that initial foundation is laid, the path of the race baby and show baby diverges. The show babies continue with more han- dling, and the race babies are kicked out together with their moms in the pasture and pretty much left alone. He explains, “I don’t want them to turn into pets. They have to learn to fight for their feed and assert themselves for some things. If they don’t have a lot of heart, they will get blown out in the racing world.” The young horses are all caught every five weeks and trimmed, handled, given shots or wormed as necessary, but then that’s it; they’re kicked back out.
Roark constantly evaluates his show crop. He can usually tell by two months if the baby is an early prospect. “I have a pretty good idea by then, but you never really know until weaning. There are many mares that produce stronger milk and those babies carry more fat; they’ve got more cover. It’s not until they are weaned that you see what you really have.” The foals he judges to have enough tal-
ent to show as a baby are brought up closer to the barn to keep a better eye on them. “If I don’t think they have weanling show po- tential, we let them stay out and be horses,” he says. When babies make it to the show barn, preschool moves into kindergarten les- sons. They are exposed to more things including loading into the trailer and going for a ride.
Whether a race or show prospect, Roark believes that the months spent in the pasture conditions the youngsters to be more sound adults. “It’s good for their mind and they learn manners. It’s also better for their feet, legs, and tendons. They have plenty of room to run around, and they get lots of exercise just walking frorm one end of the pasture to the other to drink or eat.”
Roark’s race colts enjoy longer time in the pastures than the show horses. “We never bring them in until about June of their yearling year, and that’s only the ones that are going to the sale. Those that I’m going to run are left out even longer. We don’t bring them up until about three weeks be- fore it’s time to send them off to the trainer. That gives them the chance to get used to a stall and getting handled. I’ll pony them for 7-10 days,” he says.
Roark believes there is another often overlooked component to the early educa- tion of foals. He says, “The mare has a lot to do with the temperament of the baby. If you have a mare that acts like an idiot and is running around every time you’re out there, that’s going to carry over to the baby. I try to have good recipient mares. They are
teaching those colts every day.”
Deana Searles
While Jim and Deana Searles have racked up a plethora of AQHA World, NSBA World, and Congress championships, they also maintain a robust breeding operation in Scottsdale, Arizona. They stand the legendary AQHA Hunt Seat stallion, Allocate Your Assets, and Western Pleasure Super Sire, VS Code Blue. With their own herd of talented mares, they routinely produce a high percent- age of foals that go on to have very successful show careers.
The Searles believe handling during the early formative months gets their babies ready for training. Deana Searles says, “We halter break them, and we mess with them as much as possible, handling their legs, and brushing them. We get them used to picking up their legs so the farrier can trim them. We lead them back and forth to their turn-out pens every day.”
The amount of time spent with each baby is short. Searles shares, “They’re just like little kids, and they don’t have a very long attention span. They’ll get flustered if you mess with them
A Foal at Masterson Farms
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