Training Day

Want to teach an old horse new tricks? Here’s some advice.

“Practice sharpens, but overschooling blunts the edge. If your horse isn’t doing right, the first place to look is yourself.”

—Joe Heim, horse trainer and breeder

“The one best precept—the golden rule in dealing with a horse—is never to approach him angrily. Anger is so devoid of forethought that it will often drive a man to do things which in a calmer mood he will regret.”

—Xenophon, ancient Greek writer

“When your horse has reached his potential, leave it. It is such a nice feeling when you and your horse are still friends.”

—Reiner Klimke, Olympic dressage gold medalist

“If training has not made a horse more beautiful, nobler in carriage, more attentive in his behavior, revealing pleasure in his own accomplishment . . . then he has not truly been schooled in dressage.”

—Colonel Handler, head of Vienna’s Spanish Riding School