Helping people help horses

Every animal deserves a second chance. But the larger the animal, the larger the degree of difficulty.

That’s how horse trainers from six different states found themselves in a pen a few miles north of Clovis, taking part in the still-young Forever Foundation.

The foundation, which operates at the Carter Horse Ranch just west of Ned Houk Park, is an effort supported by the Humane Society of the United States to help alleviate obstacles in the charitable effort of horse rescue.

Horse rescue has the same philosophy as cat or dog rescue, which is to get the animal into a family that will adequately provide for it. But everything is bigger with a horse, including the size, danger and associated costs.

link Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

Trevor Carter, left, works with Dani Horton of Auburndale, Florida, on making her horse do a tight circle during Saturday’s Forever Foundation clinic. The three-day clinic teaches techniques to the trainers, all part of horse rescue organizations, to help them learn skills to get a horse ready for a new home.

“A lot of (dogs and cat) rescues come to be sheltered because they’re strays or unwanted litter,” said Vickie Spears, director of the Murcheson, Texas-based Doris Day Equine Center. “With horses, they usually come to us as cruelty cases and have been seized by law enforcement.”

The horses go through three steps, Spears said. First, the health is assessed and improved. Next, the horse receives a behavior assessment.

Based on both of those factors is the third step of training the horse for the next chapter of its life, whether it become a work horse, a show horse or a family pet with minimal tasks.

The third step is the focus of this weekend’s work, with 8 a.m.-5 p.m. instruction Friday through Sunday operated by Trevor and Tara Carter.

Everybody who attended the clinic, Tara Carter said, was a rescue organization trainer. Some trainers brought their own horses, but most of them were horses the Carters were still training themselves. Over the three days, the intent is to make the trainers better with a variety of horses

The end result: Better trainers get horses trained faster and are placed in homes quicker, and the trainers can help other horses sooner.

“There are two purposes,” Tara Carter said. “It’s either to advance a trainer’s skills, or advance a horse’s skills, and sometimes they go hand in hand.”

Trevor Carter does most of the teaching, using a wireless mic to broadcast every instruction he can think of.

Move your horse clockwise. Now counterclockwise. Keep him in one place, and make him spin in a tight circle. Find a partner for the next exercise. Switch partners, but find a new partner without speaking. Now switch horses. Move from this pen to that pen, and open and close the gate without getting off the horse. Don’t run into Trevor.

The Carters, who train horses for a living, do similar clinics in general. But Trevor said the lessons get deeper for the rescue trainers because they don’t know the challenges in their next horse.

“I try to teach a similar setup to everyone, because the goal is still to get the rider comfortable with the horse,” he said. “But most people are only going to ride the horse they came to the clinic with. These people, they have to get their skills to a much higher rate.”

The foundation serves 29 different organizations, and this weekend’s trainers came from New Mexico, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Texas and Colorado.

Nora Lujan, a volunteer trainer for Four Corners Equine Rescue in Flora Vista, was one of 11 students at the ranch for the weekend. She said getting the teaching from the foundation is better because the expenses can be paid for through grant monies instead of the rescue’s pocket, and any training is good training.

“We all need training,” Lujan said. “We can never get enough training when it comes to horses.”

Spears said horse training is important because the larger an animal is, the more consequences there are for unpredictability. She said any horse can be trained, but for 5 to 10 percent of rescued horses it may be more humane to avoid training and let them live out their remaining years in a sanctuary.

“You may spend a year just getting them to the riding stage,” Spears said. “Sometimes the animal has had some professional training before it gets to us. In general, your shortest training period is going to be 90 days and your longest is going to be two to three years.”