Question: Hi, my name is Jackie, and I have a great story. I am now 29 years old and haven't owned or been on a horse since I was a teenager. I use to be brave and would ride almost anything. I also barrel raced for a while, any how now I am a mom of 4, and horses haven't been a good fit. Untill now. A few months ago I took my four kids to the auction, just to show them what it was like. Well they were sending horses through off the indian reservation for dog food and I bought him,(Buddy) for $20 .00 Well I had a mini van, and no where to put him. any way I worked out all the bugs. He is around 4 years old. I have had a proffesional horse trainer/farrier come out, and he said he was a good sound horse. He is very loving, gentle, kind, and sweet. I am a little afraid of him being my years of estrangment from horses. He knows how to lunge, and lead. you can pick up his feet, walk under his neck. I have put a briddle on, and now a saddle. It can be a battle, but he eventually does it. The mans pature he lives on has tried to get on him 2x, but he has thrown him both times. And he seems to be a bucker........ He bucks when I put the saddle on, and now he bucks on the lounge line,(only when the saddle is on) I am able too hold him on the lead line untill he is finished, I tell him no, in a hard tone. Is there any hope for us. I adore him, and do not want to get rid of him. I don't have the money to pay a proffesional trainer, but I don't want to mess him up worse. I work with him only about 15 minutes, the rest of the time i feed him, brush him, and just hang out with him. Thanks for your time, Jackie!!!

Answer: Hi Jackie, There is a saying in the training world - green on green equals black and blue. One side of the person/horse partnership needs to have "been there and done it all" experience. You can put inexperienced people on dead broke horses or experienced people on green unbroke horses but as you are finding out, green/unbroke horse with inexperienced person makes for a very frustrating relationship both for the person and the horse. Go to http://www.clintonanderson.net and purchase his Colt Starting video series (it's about $130 for 6 videos) - or you can go to ebay and see if anyone is selling a used set of this video series and get them cheaper. These videos will walk you through from the beginning on how to start a horse. Unfortunately you've already created some issues you'll now need to overcome but if you follow the series you should see a major improvement and depending on your riding abilities get your horse started and going. I participated in Clinton Anderson's 10 day colt starting clinic held at his facility in IL in 2003 and it was a revelation in multiple techniques for starting horses. During the clinic I saw fat lazy horses, hot hi-strung horses, and one horse that could have been a rodeo bucking bronc he could buck so hard. Clinton's colt starting exercises took all of these diverse horse temperaments and worked magic on them, getting all 15 horses under saddle at walk/trot/canter within 5 days then spending the next 5 days refining all of the exercises and working on steering. I would also recommend that If you are not a strong confident rider then you might want to do all of the ground work in the series and then work with a trainer or experienced rider to accomplish the undersaddle portion. Good Luck & be careful! Amber