Q: “What if he´s good to approach and send away without a halter in your hand, but then when you have the halter, he leaves?”
Bill: “On some of these horse-catching projects, you need supervision from someone who has quite a little background in this. A lot of people are ready to give advice, but you´ve got to know what part of it fits you and sometimes none of it will. Some people can get the job done on their own but there aren´t many who can really help a person avoid some of the things that can get them into more problems, if the horse is really hard to catch, I´ll say that.
If he starts to move around that corral, why to blend in real smooth with that evading sort of horse, you´d want to be pretty smooth. You can tell when he´s going to change [Pp: 305, 306] direction, and you get yourself to that side where he wanted to go. If he starts to the right, then you get over there to that right side and the same way on the left. You´d be over there. We´ll assume he´s got his butt towards you and he´s turning away with his head.
But with some horses, you might have to let them run around that corral quite a little bit, and it takes some knowledge [Pp: 331, 332] to do that, too. so there´s quite a little that takes place teaching a horse how to be caught. When you move and how you move and all those little things are so important to a horse. That´s where experimenting [Pp: 317, 318] comes into things. It all depends on how experienced you are and how much trouble the horse is to catch. It also depends on what sort of place he´s in where he doesn't want to be caught.
Some horses will understand what to do with you anticipating their moves and wanting to blend in with them, and they will catch on right away. Others will do quite a little running around until they find out that they can´t get away from you, completely, we´ll say. So then it´s up to the person to do a little something that will attract that horse´s attention, and there´s an unlimited amount of variations in there. We´ll assume that you aren´t on a time clock to catch your horse, and haven´t any plans to trap the horse to be caught because you´re short on time. When you do that, it´s a sure thing you´ll be doing more of it later on, and that´s just what we´re trying to stay away from, is pursuing those horses.
It´s usually not helpful to the horse if you´re too quick in your movements. If he wants to keep going, then you don´t try to stop him. Your better judgment [Pg: 331] will tell you if he´s ready to stop. Most horses, if they have the right opportunity won´t want to run over you or get too close to you. Of course, there are exceptions and this is where your own survival comes in. You´ll try real hard not to set up a situation where this takes place. If that horse does get in the habit of wanting to come up to you too fast, then you can hit him over the butt with the rope you have, and change [Pp: 305, 306] other things about the way you handle that horse on the ground to build in respect [Pp: 348, 349]. If you can lay that rope over his butt at the right time, then there's a lot of meaning [Pp: 339, 340] to that horse. It tells him there´s a better way to do things. And you´ll be positioned far enough away that he wouldn´t kick you, and if your adjustment [Pg: 297] was fitting [Pp: 322, 323] he wouldn´t have that thought anyway, because he´d be real busy leaving. A fella won´t rush towards the horse or threaten him in any way before he swats him on the butt, and he´d be sure to have a long enough lead rope for this Improvement. [Pg: 330]
If he takes off and runs fast, then you can encourage that to a certain point, and pretty soon he´ll start to think of a better way. A person can step out in front of him and that will help to slow him down - he needs to slow down before you can catch him anyway. some horses will run into you, or surprise you in other ways, so wouldn´t do this in a way that caused an excess of pressure [Pg: 346] for the horse or a rise in his instincts of self-preservation. You don´t want him to get afraid and turn back to the fence. Getting the horse physically hurt is just one of many things that can go wrong there if he doesn´t understand your presentation [Pp: 345, 346]. It´s best to get some help on this from a person who understands how to get feel [Pp: 319, 320] applied in a way the horse can understand.
From: "True Horsemanship Through Feel” By Bill Dorrance with Leslie Desmond