Solve your partnership puzzle
Training horses can be one of the more rewarding—and perplexing—equestrian experiences. Communicating with an animal of a different species is hard, and a lot can get lost in translation. Whether you’ve been working with your horse for years, just got a new partner, or want to pursue a career in horse training, online courses can help prepare you for the next step in your journey.
So where do you begin? Read on to see our hand-selected suite of the best digital classes across topics like natural horsemanship, equine mindset, groundwork, liberty work, and more.
If you want to improve every aspect of your horse/human interactions, these learning opportunities are worth every penny.
Beginner’s Guide to Natural Horsemanship
Course by Elvira Noot
As equestrians, we often crave mutual respect, communication, and participation from our equine partners. But how do we go about finding that foundation? Beginning on the ground, you will learn simple exercises to increase respect and solidify your partnership in Beginner’s Guide for Natural Horsemanship. This course will give you the tools and knowledge to build a solid foundation with your horse.
This was a very fun, interesting and helpful course! – Marne
What You’ll Learn:
- How to use your horse’s psychology to work for you, instead of against you
- To develop a report with your horse that causes him to approach riding in a more cooperative state of mind
- Make a connection with your horse that will make him willing to stay with you, even at liberty
What You’ll Get:
- 3.5 hours on-demand video
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of completion
What It Costs: $189.99
Foundation Ground Exercises
Course by Tanja Kraus
This course is designed to lay a solid foundation for healthy communication between you and your horse. Tanja dives into how your horse gives you cues while you’re training, which in turn helps facilitate a mutual understanding in your partnership. With 2.5 hours of video and 10 downloadable resources, you are sure to accelerate your training and riding.
This is a great beginner guide for foundation work. – Christine
What You’ll Learn:
- How to establish healthy communication with your horse
- Meaningful ways to increase trust in your partnership
- Short, simple exercises that are effective and powerful
What You’ll Get:
- 2.5 hours on-demand video
- 1 article
- 10 downloadable resources
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of completion
What It Costs: $19.99
Teach Your Horse to Be Curious
Course by Equestrian Movement
A bag blowing in the wind. The puddle of death. The carnivorous flower box. We’ve all been there–our horse is spooking at the most benign things, and it’s ruining our peace and confidence in the saddle every time we swing a leg over. Instead of just focusing on how we can manage those situations as riders, what if we could teach our horses to be curious instead of afraid? The Teaching Your Horse to Be Curious course will do just that.
Imagine if you knew a way to giving your horse the confidence to investigate the scary monsters instead of trying to bolt from them. – Equestrian Movement
What You’ll Learn:
- How to show your horse how to respond safely and confidently in new (possibly scary) situations
- The methods to work with your horse and not against your horse to turn spooky situations into moments for curiosity
- Ways to effectively coach your horse to spook less often and with less severity
What You’ll Get:
- Why (and how) to start building confidence in safe places
- Step-by-step tutorials to implement
- Video demonstrations on the process
- How to take the next steps and start exploring confidence outside of the safe place
- Additional references and resources to build out your knowledge and skills
What It Costs: $99.00 AUD
Building the Showjumper
Course by Horse Class
One simple thing sets apart a horse that’s just okay at jumping from one who is a great jumper, and that thing is confidence. But you might be wondering if this is just an innate trait, or whether it’s trainable. The good news is that confidence comes from how a horse is taught, not how a horse is bred.
In Building the Showjumper, you can learn the methodology that will teach your horse to feel comfortable using their body and mind when jumping at different paces, heights, lengths, and even difficult approaches.
Whether you want a confident, responsive horse for the showjumping course, a steady, even rhythm for the hunter ring, or just to jump a few crossrails in the arena or logs out on the trail for fun, this course with Angelo will improve both you and your horse. – Horse Class
What You’ll Learn:
- To retrain bad habits such as refusals, run-outs and rushing
- How to calm the anxious horse who rushes
- The training of a young horse who has never jumped before
- Why investigative behavior should be allowed, even in the last few strides before the jump
- How to train your horse to jump from any distance
What You’ll Get:
- 5 Core Modules released over 5 Weeks
- 1 Video Coaching Session with Angelo Telatin
Lifetime Access to the Entire Course - Full 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
- Course Critiques with Angelo Telatin
Course Building Tutorial with course designer Cherie - Access to Private HorseClass Members Facebook Community
What It Costs: $497
Training Trainability
Course by Equestrian Movement
Every single horse has a story and a unique personality. Whether you’re trying to deepen your partnership with your horse or troubleshoot issues to no avail, Training Trainability might just be your ticket.
Instead of focusing on being your horse’s leader through sheer dominance, the Training Trainability membership walks you through how to understand your horse’s unique personality, how to resolve bad behavior without having to be the “bigger bully,” and how to be the leader while still allowing valuable input from your horse.
The Arena Classroom Program has come to life and changed the world of many horses and their owners. – Equestrian Movement
What You’ll Learn:
- Understand the horse chakra system
- How to scan you and your horse for energy disturbances
- Self-healing meditations
- How to attune to your horse and safely offer healing both in-person and remotely
What You’ll Get:
- Full access to the trainability program
- Group coaching each month (e.g. lesson plans and troubleshooting)
- Arena classroom social community for support
- Bonus monthly lesson plans to expand your skills
- Bonus: Groundwork starter courses
What It Costs: $49 AUD
Developing Balance in Hand
Course by Horse Class
Tension: often the culprit of things like crookedness, stiffness, and hollowness in our horses can also lead to more extreme behavior issues like anxiety, bucking, and head shaking. What we want is to help our horses get back to balanced, supple, and soft movement.
The good news is that we can, with Developing Balance in Hand. In-hand work can help us teach our horses how to move their bodies with greater ease and less tension with your instructor, Patrick King.
I wish someone had explained all this (as clearly and understandably as Patrick King did) when I first started with horses. – Catherine
What You’ll Learn:
- The foundation and benefits of in-hand work
- How to warm up your horse and teach the in-hand positions and progressive movement towards better balance in a halter and bridle
- Advance to a collected Shoulder In, Haunches In, Half Pass, and Piaffe
- How to transfer this improved movement into your riding
What You’ll Get:
- 5 Lesson modules
- Online course workbook
- Anatomy of Collection Lecture Series
- One on One Video Coaching with Patrick
- Along For The Dance Audio Lesson
- Pattern Pack with 5 additional patterns to keep work focused, interesting, and challenging
What It Costs: $497
Training with Games
Course by Equestrian Movement
Just like us, horses can grow bored with their learning, which makes training time less enjoyable for everyone involved. These Training with Games lesson plans stemmed from Equestrian Movement’s Katie Boniface when she realized that her horse, Fitty, was not enjoying his training time anymore and needed some more fun thrown in.
Katie has a passion for training horses in a way that engages their learning brain and creates true willingness. – Equestrian Movement
What You’ll Learn:
- How to restore the fun into your horse’s training sessions when you’ve hit a plateau
- Step-by-step instructions to learn the foundation of the training game
- How to increase the challenge level as your horse learns the games
What You’ll Get:
- Downloadable, step-by-step lesson plans that introduce the foundation of the training game
- Recommendations on how to ramp up the training game into more and different games once your horse has nailed the basics.
- And fun. That’s the name of these training games!
- Not every animal likes exactly the same thing, so we have included 2 of our favourites to see which is more engaging for your individual horse.
What It Costs: $17 AUD
Pure Liberty
Course by Horse Class
At some level, we all desire a deeper friendship with our horse. Are we really offering them a solace from their fears and a trust that transcends training? In Pure Liberty, Andrea Wady walks you through the process of creating layers of connection with your horse with a holistic understanding of their emotional needs and how you can make a deep impact on their happiness.
Andrea Wady has an incredible feel for building a relationship with horses and a teaching style that is clear and reproducible by every horse/human partnership. – Diane
What You’ll Learn:
- What motivates your horse and what he values and enjoys
- Stages of learning for your horse and the “emotional bank account” that we impact with every interaction
- Creating layers of connection and trust that decrease frustration and encourage more “yes” answers from your horse
What You’ll Get:
- 4 Lesson modules
- Online course workbook
- Video coaching
- Bonus: The Science of Connection
- Bonus: Finding Inner Calm
- Bonus: Starting Pure Liberty with a New Horse
- Bonus: Taming Wild Documentary
- Bonus: The Pasture Meditation
What It Costs: $497
Grass Training for Horses
Course by Hippologic
Grass is life, or so it would seem based on our horse’s behavior in the spring and summer months. If you’re dealing with a horse that pulls you towards the grass, doesn’t pay attention to your cues when grass is around, or is difficult to catch from the pasture in those lush, sunny months when grass is at its peak, this course is for you.
Grass Training teaches you to use positive reinforcement with your horse to: 1) wait for your permission to graze and 2) ignore grass when you’re training.
I now feel confident that I have a thorough understanding of the complicated equine digestive system, nutrition and feeding which is so important for the welfare of our beloved equine friends. – Carol
What You’ll Learn:
- Teach your horse clear “Graze” and “Stop Grazing” cues that he respects every time
- How to train your horse to ignore grass and other foliage when you’re training
- Feeling confident and in control around grass with your horse (even on a slack lead rope)
What You’ll Get:
- 27 Videos lessons
- Printable workbook with a Step-by-step plan (shaping plan) to train your horse (pdf)
- 14-day printable Training journal (pdf)
- Baseline assessment form (pdf)
- Self-evaluation tool (pdf)
What It Costs: $97 (Get 10% off with code HORSEROOKIE)
Hungry for More Knowledge?
As equestrians, we’re never finished learning. That’s why the team at Horse Rookie created the Knowledge Center—a curated library of the best online courses about horse riding, training, care, and much more. After all, Knowledge is Horsepower!™
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