A client of mine called me for some advice on how to get her stallion to cross a bridge; a bridge that he was used to crossing. She housed the stallion in a barn at night and put him out in a field with his mares during the day. The mares came in with him at night and were put out first thing in the morning to make it easy to take him out to the field later.

For some reason though, suddenly he would not go any further when he got to this bridge he had to cross. They did not want to get into a fight with him on this issue and had tried many different training methods before they called me. I asked them, “What happened at the bridge that might have caused him not to want to cross it?” She told me, “One day when the stallion was in the middle of the bridge, a stork flew out from under it and scared him badly and ever since that time he has become more and more resistant to crossing it.”

After I learned more about her stallion and how well he was trained, I asked her to describe the surroundings around the bridge so that I could figure out a plan that might solve his problem. This is the advice I suggested that worked like a charm.

I told her, “In the morning, take the stallion to the bridge and tie him to a tree close to it.” The stallion I was told was always reliable in being tied and they could trust him in not pulling back. I had her tell him, “You stay here; I am going to look under the bridge to see if there is a stork”. Then I told her to go under the bridge, make some noises as if she was looking for the stork and then go back to the stallion and tell him in a very firm voice, “There is no stork or anything else under this bridge!”

From communicating to him in this manner, he walked over the bridge with confidence. I also warned her that if he should later decide to stop at the bridge again, to just repeat the process.