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Imprint Training of Foals
If you'd like to see some videos of our horses, I have a number of them on www.youtube.com. My user name is tncwalkerlover and you should be able to see them all on that site. There are some videos of us with the foals and videos of our horses performing at horse shows in Minnesota.
We want our customers to be happy with the horses they buy from Northern Foundations Farm so we spend time teaching the foals to handle daily life on the farm as well as encountering some obstacles they might find on the trail. We challenge the foals with all sorts of interesting learning experiences. They are worked with daily and learn fast.
We imprint our foals and each year we do a variety of training activities, including loading in the trailer, picking up the feet, navigating an obstacle course, as well as leading.
Below you will see some photos of our foals in action over the years. These are just some of the activities we do with the foals while they are with us. It makes life for the new buyer a lot easier to have a foal that has been handled and taught to lead, load, pick up their feet and stay calm when doing it. It just makes sense to start them out while they are small and can be handled easy than to wait till they are 1200 pounds in size and then try to work with them!
The above photo is NFF My Echo's Foxxy Lady, now owned by Rachel Hill, Ontario, Canada.
 
Left: Amber with the pony saddle on. This is a very lightweight saddle and no one is attempting to ride her at this age.
The saddle is merely a training tool we use to get the foals accustomed to something on their back, the sound of
leather squeaking, and the girth on the belly.
Right: Dale and Amber on the wooden bridge. This is one of the obstacles the foals learn to negotiate when they are
young. It's always interestng to see their reaction to it. Some stomp across it like they're trying to kill it, some jump
on it and stand, some try to eat it.
 
Left: Opie showing off his trailer loading skills as he calmly waits for Dale to cue him to back out.
Right: Dale sacking out Royal Affair with a clump of oak leaves. While she's not sure what to make of this, she knows
to trust what we're doing and that we won't hurt her in the process. She was a real trooper when it came
to the foal lessons.
 
Left: Dale and NFF Wilson's Lady Scarlet going through the "L" made of wooden fence posts on the ground. The foals learned how to back through the L without hitting the poles. This particular obstacle was Scarlet's forte.
RIght: Dale with Iceman dragging a bag with some wooden blocks in it. The bag made noise behind the horses
plus they could feel they were dragging something. Good preparation for driving training in the future as well
as getting the horse used to hearing things make noise behind him and not being afraid of it.
 
Left: Iceman stepping over the "jump" we set up. Foals learn to pick up their feet to get around obstacles they
may some day encounter on trail rides like a log down on the trail.
Right: Dale and Iceman take a walk over the tarp.
 
Left: David picking up MayFlower's front foot. The foals are all taught to stand calmly while their feet are handled.
It sure makes their first hoof trimming go a lot smoother!
Right: I know, you're thinking sure, it's easy to pick up front feet and sometimes the back ones can be a challenge
so I'm including one with the back foot picked up so you know we really do handle all of the feet!
The photos below were taken August 23, 2008
 
Abby leading Katie in the photo on the left. Photo on the right shows Abby and Katie doing a Figure 8 pattern around the
blue barrels. Katie is a 2008 baby.
 
Left photo Max is showing off how quickly he can get over the jump and it looks like he's in fine form.
Right photo shows Max's skills at crossing the wooden "bridge".
 
Abby and Toby were practicing Toby's leading skills. The right photo shows Toby crossing the tarp
and doing so in a nice flatwalk gait!
 
Left shows Dock crossing the tarp. This is a skill he's especially good at. He likes stomping on it.
Right shows Dock and Abby working the Figure 8 pattern around the barrels.
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