The First Stage of Horse Development by Pat Parelli

Taming Comes Before Starting in Any Young Horses Development

I believe the four stages every horse should go through in order to be set up for success during his life are taming, starting, foundation and then specialization or sport training. If you don’t progress through these stages in order, then you leave gaping holes in the horse’s development. You end up realizing only a fraction of the potential of that horse.

We hear a lot of talk about colt starting, but there is an important step that comes before starting. To me, taming a horse absolutely must happen before starting, or you haven’t won the Friendly game.
Every horse needs to be tamed, but for some it happens during the first twenty minutes of life, during imprinting. Others don’t ever experience taming and hopscotch to being started. Perhaps they miss their foundation and hopscotch to performance, and then people are left wondering why a horse blows up in the warm-up pen. - Pat Parelli

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