Day 3: Today I went out into the pasture alone carrying a halter as if I was going to catch one of them. I guess it would help to describe the pasture a bit because most people I see showing how to catch a hard-to-catch horse, do it in a small paddock. In our case, we have a 10-acre area that gives them plenty of ways to escape. At the back is a wooded area that they’ll try to get to as well, but they don’t usually go into it.

I started my clock once I walked through the gate, but the horses were at the far side of the back pasture and it took me a few minutes to even get there. Another issue most people don’t bring up is the fact that horses are herd animals and once one starts running they all do. We also have one absolute trouble maker that attempts to push the other horses to move with her. The point is, with 4 horses in a fairly large area, we are not set up for success.

So how did it go? My horse, Rain, was the first to let me catch her today. It took just 7 minutes including the walk down so I was pretty impressed. Dos was next and could have been first so will just say they were the same. Pepper was next at 11 minutes as she was following Dakota around and Dakota finally gave up around 17 minutes. At this point I’m encouraged to continue as the times are getting smaller and smaller.

This was a test run as I wasn’t ready to ride anyone. I came back later in the afternoon for the actual catch so we could ride them. This time they decided to try to escape into the wooded area and even went down into the swamp, which surprised us. There were two of us on this trip though so not entirely a fair evaluation. Rain, I am proud to say let us catch her almost immediately with the other 3 going down into the woods.

We were really only after Pepper and Rain at this point, so it was funny the other two horses ran past us on the trail to get down to Pepper which only encouraged her to run deeper. Times are also skewed a bit due to us having to navigate a swamp and only one of us went in, while the other stayed with Rain on dry ground. This catch took 17 minutes, but it happened without any food or treats. At this point, we can definitely determine this is likely going to work but is not for the faint of heart or those only riding once a month.

Day 4: I think this may be working. Today my horse “Rain” actually walked up to me as did Jacobs’s horse Pepper. Dos was pretty quick as well and Dakota took about 5 minutes.

Day 5-7: At present, I’m having very little trouble catching any of the horses so I’m going to declare this a success. I’ll report back later if something changes as well as declare it a total success or a short-lived deal. I don’t think it would work for those of you that visit their horses once a month, but I don’t have any way to test that as we’re at the barn every single day.