Training Horses with Your Spouse
- October 27, 2024
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- Anna Foulger
Posted in: Featured, Horse Training
“Don’t ever coach on someone you’ve seen naked,” says the trainer I am interning for as he laughs about training horses with his wife. I am twenty-two years old at this time, no husband, no prospects and utterly confused as to why he felt I needed this little piece of advice; five years later, these words roll around my head daily, as me and my husband build a business training and selling horses together. When I was first told this, I thought they were wrong. How could working with the love of your life doing what you both love be difficult… as me and my husband yell across a round pen about starting a colt.
“You don’t think I know how to start a colt,” he states.
As I stomp off, “Obviously that is not what I said! I was just trying to help!!!” This was our first big disagreement over how to train a horse, but certainly not the last. In a huff, I sit in the alleyway, grab my bridle and start tying on my reins, steaming still, knowing I am right as he steams in the round pen, knowing he is right. Within a few minutes he comes and apologizes, being he is the more level headed of us two. I said I was sorry as well and peace was reignited.
After a few more of these arguments, then a few more after that, feeling at odds with my husband, I realized why we both could get so hot over what seemed like something we should love doing together. Fact of the matter is, WE LOVE WHAT WE DO! We are passionate about what we do, horses are a part of us, training them is part of who we are. Both of us spent years of our lives, learning and cultivating a style of training that fit us. How do you blend two different styles of training to make a product that reflects both of you, without causing conflict during the training process? Living in our strengths, loving each other’s gifts, loving the gifts God gave us.
After lots of trial and error, we decided to step out of each other’s way and live in our strengths. Meaning instead of tearing each other apart every time the other person did something we didn’t agree with, we focus on the aspects of training that we appreciate, the parts of each other’s horses we like, rather than the parts we don’t. As well as having open discussions about what we both do well.
“Babe, you’re great at grinding a colt down and getting them to be where you need them without exhausting them,” he told me one day. That led us to this thought process of changing how we went about training horses. He is amazing at those first few rides, calm, cool and collected, then later when a colt needs a softer feel or a harder stop, I could step in and ask them for more correctness, but when a colt needs to be pushed and asked to a job he is the best at making them handy. We started working as a team, the disagreement became less aggressive and with a tongue of kindness, our training flourished, making some of the best horses we’ve ever made, together, rather than at odds.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal,” 1 Corinthians 13:1.




Posted in: Featured, Horse Training
About Anna Foulger
Hey there! My name is Anna Foulger, I am a young mom of soon to be two; a toddler daughter and little boy on the way! Me and my husband ranch in Eastern Montana with his family and we love every minute! My background is in...