About US

Main > Farm > Endurance Riding >Training Style

My Horse Training Style

By Donna DeYoung, Pure Spanish (PRE) Andalusian Horse Breeder

My horse training method involves a combination of traditional approaches, classical training, and natural horsemanship. I use basic training equipment such as halters, lead ropes, stud chains, lunging cavessons, lunge whips, Spanish serreton, snaffle bits, and side reins in a humane way to get the training job done.

My training methods work best with Quarter horse and Andalusians, but most techniques will also work with Arabians and thoroughbreds with some modifications. Much of my work focuses on ground training and using the round pen to your advantage. Whether you want to call it "breaking" or "training" each horse must be treated as an individual. A miniature horse will be trained much differently than a Tennessee walking horse.

If John Lyon horse training is your thing, you will approve of some of my methods. If you've never heard of clicker training, why not give it a try? Parelli horse training is all about getting your horse to "play" games with you - something I do by nature. I even talk about going to the barn to "play with my horses".

I'm very interested in Natural horsemanship training and got my first experience training horses with wild horse training. Problem horses and nervous horses have never been my thing, I much prefer basic horse training with young horses who I start the right way. Some of my experience comes from police horse training and I've found that very helpful for training horses not to spook. I've even worked at a hunter jumper stable and so have some experience with hunter training. One of my specialties is horse loading training. I've only met one horse I couldn't load on the first try (it was an Arabian).

People say I have an extreme amount of patience which I feel is the key to my "horse whispering". I don't like to start a training job that I can't finish. I've also worked with Spanish Andalusian horse trainers and several western pleasure trainers. Other experience includes working with a German rider/trainer to learn the German methods of starting a young horse under saddle. All this adds up to a broad background for basic English and western young horse training.