How a horse blanket can become a training tool

The one thing I have learned as a horse owner and trainer is that you can never start too early training young horses. Sure, almost everyone knows that you train a foal to wear a halter and lead them around. In fact most experienced breeders will have the foal use to having it’s feet picked up and have had their feet trimmed at 6 weeks old.

I have found another very useful training tool for foal and weanlings, the horse blanket.

Foal wearing Techno fleece blanket

By putting a blanket on a foal or weanling horse you would not only keep them warm and clean, you will also teach them not to spook at items rubbing against their bodies. The sight feel of fabric moving around them will help desensitize them for saddle training later on. Use the blanket as a training tool. I don’t want to hear you say “my young horses don’t need blankets”, but instead “blankets will help de-spook my horses, so I use them”

You don’t even have to leave the blanket on for more than a few hours a day it you don’t want to. In fact it would help with their training if they got use to having the blanket taking off and put on again everyday. I also like to take the blanket off over their heads so they get use to having something block their vision once and awhile. It also gets them use to having something brush around their ears and head, making them less head shy.

So will you be using a horse blanket as a training tool from now on?