Page 206 - Equine Chronicle August Select 2020

FOAL PRESCHOOL • EARLY EDUCATION FOR SHOW BABIES
too long or demand too much of them. They’re still babies, so we do about 10 minutes a day. I certainly wouldn’t work with them longer than 15 minutes.”
Searles is very aware of a foal’s body language while working with them. She watches for any signs that they are losing attention or getting stressed. She says, “One thing to watch out for is when a foal starts flipping his head. They might start pulling back too much, or try to go back to their mom. That’s their way of telling you they have had enough.” It’s important to be aware of those be- haviors. She continues, “You never want to get to that point because they will think, ‘Oh, if I do that then you will leave me alone.’ You end up conditioning them to do something unwanted. Instead, you want to let them know that handling is always a good thing. The petting, the scratching, and the rubbing on them is all a reward.”
An exact routine is not as important as simple time spent building trust and socialization skills, she believes. “We work with them early on so that they’re not too wild, because once they’re weaned, we mostly leave them alone for a few months. They’re turned out together. We’ll go in and pet them, give them a good scratch, brush them, and keep that physical contact with them. But rather than handling them every day, we cut back to a couple times a week.”
By February, Searles starts increasing the amount of time spent with the youngster to see where it is at developmentally. In March, it is time to bring them up to the barn to start their more formal education. She says, “We have to separate them. It’s like weaning all over again. Some of them are herd bound, and they don’t like that at all. They miss their buddies. We have to work them through that phase.”
Don Griffey
Don and Melanie Griffey own Griffey Equine Center Inc. in Pataskala, Ohio where they specialize in breeding and fitting Halter horses. Griffey doesn’t handle his babies much during those first couple months of life. He says, “I can’t say that’s my protocol as much as we simply don’t have time to do it. We do break them to lead alongside their mother, because they’re more apt to follow their mother than anybody else.”
Griffey’s foals spend a lot of time playing. “Weather permitting, here in the Midwest, our babies get turned out six days a week. My rule of thumb is if it’s 25 degrees or higher, with no snow or rain, they are out. I’d rather let them get that fresh air in their lungs as much as possible. If the weather is bad, they get to stretch their legs out running around the indoor arena.”
Once weaned, Griffey and his team are much more hands-on. He evaluates his prospects and splits them into three groups. “If
they’re not close to making our cut from a competitive standpoint, then I usually keep them in another barn,” Griffey says. They work with them and get their hands on them, introducing them to all the basics. He figures while they’re probably not going to make it in his show circuit, they’ll make it in somebody’s show circuit, and they still need a good foundation on them.
The group he thinks is close to the cut gets “an educated try.” He gives them the 30- to 60-day push to see how they progress. He says, “The ones we definitely feel are going to make it go into a program with high quality feed and hay. We get our hands on them every day but Sunday. We pick up their legs, clip them, and groom them.” While he isn’t a big fan of longing young horses, they get plenty of exercise. He says, “We free play them a lot, and we will pony them off the side of a golf cart.”
Griffey is keen on desensitizing. “We intro- duce them to a range of experiences, so that by the time we get to the shows in the fall, they hopefully don’t see anything new thrown at them. We will do 20-30 minutes of hand walk- ing at a brisk pace. We take them down around the pond and walk near the road. They have the chance to see a dog, a cat, birds flying up, cars, or hear strange noises.”
He also introduces them to the trailer. “We have a little two-horse trailer with a small ramp on it that we leave open all day long. In the process of handling them, we will walk them onto the trailer, pet them, rub on them a bit, and give them a handful of hay. Then, we’ll back them off the trailer and go on to our next thing. We make it such a normal routine so that come show day, it’s no big deal. You don’t want to wait until your first show and think you’re all ready to go only to have a wreck when you try to load for the first time.”
Griffey believes it is very important to be able to hand off desensitized babies to their customers at the show. “They have to be quiet and used to anything and everything that can be thrown at them for that amateur to have any fun showing them.” He adds proudly, “Most of our six-month-old babies know
as much as other farm’s yearlings and 2-year-olds.”
Griffey does not work his weanlings hard physically. On average, weanlings work three days a week for four minutes on the golf cart. They are free to play the other three days a week. He contends, “If it’s natural, they have it. If they don’t, you are not going put it on them.” He cautions against overworking babies saying, “you’re just stripping the muscle and natural weight right off of them. You
never see a big body on a cross country runner.”
Hopefully, you can glean some tips from our experts when it
comes to starting your own foals at home to help give them the best chance for a successful, productive, and happy future.
A Masterson Farms Foal
200 - August/September, 2020