You have planned your baby with a great deal of thought and money, you have chosen the stallion and you have spent time assuring that your mare has everything that she needs for a healthy pregnancy.

Your mare is now in labour and pushes the eagerly awaited new born foal into your world, where after drawing his first air into his lungs you are probably the first 'foreign object' to touch him, other than the mare's muzzle.

Your first reaction is to touch him. That touch is called imprinting.

Robert M Miller, DVM from California is the man responsible for this pioneering technique. People would laugh and ridicule his technique - who wants to rub ears, crinkle bags, set clippers going and palpitate the rectum, and more to the point, why?

Dr Miller has succeeded in changing millions of horse owner's attitudes world wide to the vital first hours of a foal's life, and the changes we can make to his life long attitude.

Dr Miller has proved that foals can absorb more information in the first few hours of birth than at any other time in their lives, and that the lessons they learn at this critical stage will remain with them for a lifetime.

The book that perhaps bought Dr Miller to the equestrian world's attention was Imprint Training of the New-born Foal published in 1991. In it he outlines the approach to handling a new-born foal, just hours old, and the reasoning behind his methods. This is not a quick-found remedy; imprinting is a method he developed over many years based on his very strong knowledge of equine psychology.

As an example we can teach a young child to speak more than two languages at one time and in a short while they are able to talk them fluently, unlike teaching an adult. So surely the same theory same can be said of horses?

So why is imprinting used? There are four main reasons - to bond with humans, desensitisation to certain stimuli, sensitisation to other stimuli and submission to humans.

It is vital that you know what you are doing. For example, if you lift the hoof and interrupt the process with him moving it away from you, he has learnt to pull away his foot each time you lift it. The same with desensitising the ears; if the process is stopped and the foal jerks away; he has learnt to jerk away from you for a long time afterwards, even years. Timing is of critical importance, it must be started immediately after birth.

People think that they can begin the process of imprinting one to two days after the birth. You can train a foal at a young age, in fact the earlier it is the faster it will learn, but the actual imprinting can only occur right after birth.

Ideally, you need three people to help with the process, one to hold the mare and two to work on the foal. It is best to let the mare be nose to nose with her foal, keeping it within touch, sight and smell to allow bonding with her baby to begin.

People have often said it can ruin the bonding process of the mare and she will reject the baby. This is not true, it is usually the "young" mare that rejects her foal, and that is normally out of fear. If a human is working in her stall with her baby, it helps give her confidence to accept the foal.

Imprinted foals will often feel confident enough to leave the mother whilst grazing and come up to the person responsible for the imprinting, thus already showing their trust in the handler. This makes life a lot easier when general handling turns into breaking and riding.

To begin the process of imprinting, kneel down with the foal's back against your knees and the head flexed so that the foal is unable to get up. Gently take the foal's muzzle in one hand turning the head towards his withers (be very careful not to obstruct the airways doing this). When comfortable, take a soft towel and dry him, allowing the mare to nuzzle the foal at the same time.

Once this is done take your hands and gently rub your hands over the entire head. Dr Miller's term for this is "flooding", as the foal is literally flooded with tactile stimuli. You must not stop this until you can physically feel the foal relaxing in your hands and against your body. You can never overdo this stimulus but you can under-do it. If you stop too soon the opposite effect may occur, instead of desensitising to a particular touch, the foal will be sensitised to it, reacting in a negative way for the rest of his life.

Move from the head and face to the ears, rub and massage each ear well until he is relaxed and desensitised then move onto the mouth and nostrils. Insert a little of your finger into each nostril moving it about very gently. (This will help the foal in future life should he need to be stomach tubed). By inserting a finger into the mouth and rubbing it on the gums you are preparing the foal for a bit and dental checks. You need to do these exercises about 30-50 times.

Next move your hands down both sides of the neck gently pulling on the mane, continue over the withers down the back bone to the base and under the tail. Only when you achieve total acceptance do you move onto the shoulders and legs.

Run your hands over the shoulder, rib cage and chest proceeding down the foreleg.

Bend and straighten the leg repeatedly until the leg relaxes in you hands devoid of all tension, tapping the sole of the hoof. Throughout the foal's life he will not mind you picking up his feet after doing this.

It is important to note that there is one area that you don't want to desensitise and that is the where a future rider will apply leg pressure, just behind the girth line, this must remain sensitised.

Desensitise the groin area, particularly if a filly, paying attention to her teats and then move to the rectal area. Very gently place a well lubricated and gloved finger tip into the anus and wiggle around until the foal relaxes and pays no attention to it. Having finished the first side of the foal, roll him over and do the same on the other side.

Once you have completed this process by hand you are then ready to move onto the more sophisticated stimuli.

Make sure that you have items ready at hand before starting this, as you don't want to interrupt the process more than you have to.

Take noisy newspaper and plastic and rub the foal's body with them, run a pair of clippers switched on over the head, legs and body. (Do not clip the hair). You can spray warm water over the foal and use a hairdryer to dry him off. All of these procedures will prepare him for his future involvement with humans.

The time taken to achieve this is about one hour, but it can vary depending on the handler's experience.

Continue to train him over the next couple of days after imprinting and you will have a halter-broken foal that you can lead and tie up, he will move forward and backwards and from side to side with only a gentlest of touches.

By using this imprinting technique you are teaching a foal from the very start that a handler can invade its space, touch and manipulate him with no fear of us, knowing that he will come to no harm.

The results of imprinting are astounding and what is more they are permanent. You will have a grown horse which is unafraid but respectful of humans and one who is easy to train in which ever field you choose you use him in.

There is no pain or fear in imprinting your foal correctly, just submission and total respect for you; the handler.

To find our more about Dr Robert Millers imprinting technique visit his web site www.robertmmiller.com , he also has an online store to buy his informative books and videos.

Published: 25/02/2005