A natural way to break in horses

Emirati Amru Al Abidi uses body language to quickly accustom an untrained horse to lose its fear of people and accept a rider.

At the recent Abu Dhabi International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition, Emirati Amru Al Abidi took only four hours to break in a horse using an equestrian style known as natural horsemanship, which iShow more

ABU DHABI // The ancient art of natural horsemanship – or horse whispering as it is sometimes known – is becoming a popular hobby in this country, according to its exponents.

The practice involves communicating with the horse using only body language to get the animal to follow commands.

One of the country’s leading experts in the field is Amru Al Abidi, an Emirati.

For the recent Abu Dhabi International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition, he decided to set himself a challenge.

“I said I would take an unsaddled, untrained horse and I would train it in four days, and give it a go,” he said, adding that the challenge was to “break in” the animal within the time Adihex was running. The process usually takes many days, but it took Mr Al Abidi only four hours.

“The technique calls for respect, and developing respect by gaining control of its feet without using ropes,” he said. “It will start to see me as a lead horse, and trust me to let it know that the tools we use aren’t scary.”

After an hour’s training on each preceding day, by the fourth hour on day four, Mr Al Abidi was not only riding the horse, but performing on the mare.

“The trust needs to be mutual, that’s the style we use. To demonstrate that to the crowd, to show them that she trusted me as much as I trusted her, I stood up in the saddle,” he said.

Mr Al Abidi said that he has been obsessed with horses since he was a child, but started working with them only six years ago.

He implemented this style of horsemanship with one of his first horses.

“I started working with a stallion. On one of his first days of training I thought I was doing the right thing until I turned around, he managed to grab me by the shoulder and threw me to the ground,” Mr Al Abidi said.

“Then I realised how much power these animals have, so I thought I could take a stick to it, or I could research why he did that to me,” he said.

Since then, Mr Al Abidi has put in a lot of effort to understand the mentality of horses.

Now, he trains others in horsemanship at the Dhabian Equestrian Club and puts on demonstrations across the country.

“There are many different interpretations of natural horsemanship but, for us, it is about becoming one with your horse,” said Tina Al Qubaisi, founder of the club. “It’s being one with your horse and being able to communicate with horses using body language.

“Amru has his own style. All people who do natural horsemanship do a similar style, with tweaks, he has his own gentle way,” she said.

She said Mr Al Abidi “gets the horse to accept him and trust him by making the horse think that he is its safe area”.

Ms Al Qubaisi said her son Khalid used a similar style of natural horsemanship to train horses.

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