Customer Reviews

From Birth to Backing: The Complete Handling of the Young Horse

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When my daughter began riding and eventually entering any and all competitions within our county, my husband and I knew we had to keep up! Her passion for riding led to us leasing horses, and we took this responsibility seriously. We found this book by Maxwell and Sharples to be extrememly helpful. I was overwhelmed with how much there was to learn, but her book efficiently catagorized the most essential things one needs to know about horses. The format of the book profiles all ages of the horse from young to elder and deals with behaviors, anxieties, training, problems and solutions. The book goes in depth to reveal the best way to handle your horse and their behavior, not to mention health and maintainance issues.

Briefly, this is an excellent all encompassing manual of comprehensive horse care and maintainance. For a lay person like myself, I feel I can tackle this book and come away with some very useful information, even if I am not exactly Elizabeth Taylor in her younger years.

This really is a must for all levels of horse owner, both novice and experienced. Richard Maxwell (Max) takes you through a step by step guide to all aspects of horse handling. Some of the stuff you may already be aware of, but I guarantee that you will learn alot. Additionally this isn't only for people interested in young horses, but is an important educational tool for everyone. Max doesn't make any assumptions about the reader, and he is careful to explain why he works the way he does. This book is well should be in every horse lovers library.

My mare had her (and my)first foal. The imprint training tips as well as basics on leading, body language, etc. are terrific. The book is filled with excellent pictures showing you what to do. I looked through dozens of books before selecting this one to be my guide.

This is the best foal and horse training book ever written! When I first bought it, it didn't look interesting but when I read it, I couldn't put it down!. Now that I'm buying a foal, and am going to be there when it's born, I'M PREPARED! A must have for all who are going to have foals!

Young horses can be scary when you have only dealt with trained horses - even green ones and problem horses are easier to work with because you already have a common point of reference.
Young untrained horses don't react the way you always think they should and they have different development stages just as young humans do - their behavior will change in each stage and you need to expect this. This book prepares you with telling you what is "normal" at what ages and how to deal with these everyday behavioral changes and problems that will crop up when raising your own horse. Books covering 6months - 3 years are hard to find and this was the best I found at covering the usual challenges you would face and showing you how to be a firm, kind and confident leader. This book is short and easy to read in one day, easy to use as a reference but I don't think its meant to be a one complete source - just a good starting point to get you on your way. Yes you can find bits of this information from other trainers, yes this book is not big or complete - but it is a good introduction and I still go back to it again and again.

Young horses are a blank slate and as close as you will come to the wild horse mind without adopting a Mustang. Once you have reared a baby or two, you will never relate to any horse in the same way again - and it's a good thing.

Combine with "Imprint Training", "Bringing up Baby" and "Right from the Start" for a complete reference collection on raising foals to young horses to be good and happy citizens.

This is an excellent book using Monty Robert's training. It has been (thus far) a life safer for training my young foal. Highly recommend.

This book was one of the best foaling guides I have ever read. It was easy to read and understand. Richard Maxwell is an expert in his field, and all of his methods were very simple for my warmblood foal to understand. I would highly recommend this book to horsepeople of all ages.

At first i was slightly put off by the review that was entitled "not worth a penny" as it was the most recent, however i carried on and read all other reviews and how glad i am. It was fantastic, a real bible, my horse and i have benefited hugely from the information given. I can only think that "Not worth a penny" was having a bad day.

i can't wait to read richards new book, unlock your horses talents.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was to-the-point, very informative and has LOTS of excellent illustrative photos.

I was searching for a book which would follow the same principles as Monty Roberts (author of "The Man Who Listens to Horses") and Cesar Millan (whose television show is the "Dog Whisperer"). I didn't expect to find another book on horse training so quickly which matches their psychological techniques as precisely as this book does!

It appears that the reviews on this book are determined by what the reader is expecting from it. I personally will rate a book as being great when it instructs in a logical manner, contains good sense, and works when put to the test. Rare is the book that can tell you everything there is to know. This book seems to cover the basics to help one to understand the mindset of horses and that is very important, especially for younger horses since they're in their highly influential years.

One word of caution: If someone appears to be copying another's ideas, don't forget how possible it is for more than one person to be capable of coming to the same conclusions on their own.