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A big part of horse training is trying to figure out what we need to do first in order to get the results from the horse. Different things work with different horses, so it takes patience and experimentation to train different horses.

I was working with a colt on his feet and stumbled across a way to get him to quit leaning and slamming his feet down.

This colt had been a pill to the farrier; he wouldn't pick up his feet sometimes, and when he did, he'd lean on the farrier not holding his own weight, or try to slam his feet back down.

I had a small buggy whip and tapped the fetlock, saying, "Foot" loudly each time. He would pick his foot up a bit, at least getting the weight off, and I'd lift the foot up. So far, so good. But a few seconds of standing there, and he'd lean his weight onto me, and slam his foot back into the dirt.

The situation started to get a little frustrating because when a 1,200-pound horse decides to slam his foot down, there's little any person can do to stop it. So, the next time I picked his foot up, before he could slam it down, I did. I dropped it. That kind of confused him. Isn't the person supposed to be holding the foot up while I slam it down?

Next time, I did it again. Tap with the buggy whip asking for his foot, he'd take a little weight off of it and let me lift it-- and before he did anything wrong, I dropped the foot. He didn't want or need to slam his foot any more-- instead, he set it down gently.

Horses don't like their feet to drop suddenly. If you were setting your foot down, you wouldn't drop it like dead weight, either. So when you completely let loose of the foot, their only option is to pick up the slack and hold up their own leg, setting it down gently. They begin to take weight off of you and hold their own weight up.

After awhile, he quit the slamming completely. Since he didn't know if or when I'd be dropping the foot, he began to hold it up himself.

When I started dropping his foot, he stopped, realizing it was easier to just hold it up. This might not work for every horse, but its worth a try if you have a foot-slammer.