Treat Your Baby Right

– a video series on handling a young horse

The Desert Arabian horse is usually of excep­tion­ally coop­er­a­tive tempera­ment. In this series of videos, Susan Mayo shows how to work with a young, previ­ously unhan­dled colt. Begin­ning with his arrival as a year­ling, you’ll watch Prince Badr (“Boo”) progress, and you’ll learn how to work with your own young horse.

Susan describes his arrival in Texas, after a journey that began in South Carolina:

“He is here and he is a wonderful little fellow!  We took video getting him off the trailer. He decided imme­di­ately that carrots were a good thing and came off for carrot bites.  I have him in a 22 x 20 foaling stall with a paddock and he has already had halter-​​on, halter-​​off lessons.  He doesn’t know a thing, but he has already let me brush him all over, take his halter on and off a few times, and learned that when he coop­er­ates, he gets a carrot bite.

I am confi­dent he will be just fine.  He is big but he is smart, curious and does not have a mean bone in his body.  He is just scared in a new environment.

So, a new adven­ture begins.  We will tape his lessons and keep his progress on video.“

  • Prince Badr’s Arrival
  • First lesson in stall
  • First lesson outside of stall
  • Prac­ticing
  • Working on lifting feet and accepting saddle pad
  • Learning to tie longe and approach scary things
  • Prac­ticing [2]
  • Boo learns about the surcingle
  • Boo and Keith Kosel

    • About Susan Mayo

    Susan began her love affair with Arabian horses more than 40 years ago, exercising horses for Linda Tellington. She has offered schooling and rated shows at her farm in Texas for more than 30 years. Susan has helped an extra­or­di­nary number of people train their own Desert Arabian horses, believing that the tractable nature of the Desert Arabian makes it partic­u­larly suit­able for such an approach. She has a long and envi­able record of success in the show ring, riding in many disci­plines. [Read more about Susan Mayo]

    More about the young Prince Badr

    Prince Badr Al Sheik blends Egyptian and old Saudi desert blood­lines. His dam, ASF Ubei­diya, is one of the last Desert Arabians carrying blood­lines imported into the US by Albert Harris, who brought horses from the newly formed Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  in 1931. ASF Ubei­diya has the largest concen­tra­tion of old Harris breeding found in today’s Desert Arabians (25%). She also has other Early Amer­ican blood­lines, including Babson and Daven­port. Badr’s sire, MarhilasPrinceAbu, blends a variety of Egyptian blood­lines, including horses that were part of the founding of the Royal Agri­cul­tural Society in 1914 as well as others gifted (mostly by the Saudi royal family) to Egyptian Kings Farouk and Fuad in the 1930s and 1940s.