The Kikkuli Method of Horse Training Startling Modern Benefits from an Ancient Horse Training Method Do you want to produce a superb equine athlete without the use of drugs or expensive feed additives? Do you have an endurance horse, eventer, racehorse or Standardbred? Or do you have any horse you want to get fit and keep sound?

A 3000 year old fitness program for horses offers modern trainers the opportunity to save both time and money. The program was named after its creator, the Master Mitannian Horse Trainer Kikkuli, whose techniques helped establish a military empire about 1345 BC.

Performance horses and race horses as a whole continue to be trained by tired old conventional methods. Race times for horses have barely improved in the last few decades (unlike the great improvement in times for human athletes) and lameness disqualifies potentially outstanding endurance horses and eventers at the beginning of their careers.

Modern science has not provided us with a test to determine performance potential in the untrained horse. Millions of dollars are wasted every year on horses which do not make the grade.

It’s time to go back to the ancient training methods of the Mitannians, a horsemaster race of people whose methods have survived today in the Kikkuli Text.

The Kikkuli Text, a horse training text dating to c. 1345  B.C., caused the Hittites to become a powerful "Empire" whose war horses surpassed all others. Hittite horses had to march hard for 4 weeks to the battlefields then gallop all day in battle.

In 1991, then doctoral student Ann Nyland - an Arabian breeder and endurance competitor - translated the Kikkuli Text, which was written on 4 clay tablets in Hittite cuneiform, into English. On June 1991, Ann started a replication of the Kikkuli Text regime with ten Arabian horses, the breed used by the Hittites. The training programme set down by Kikkuli lasts for seven months and the training regime and feeding programme were followed precisely.

The methods used in the Kikkuli Text enable modern horses to be trained without injury. One of Kikkuli’s techniques was to use long periods leading the horses at the trotting and cantering gaits rather than riding them (or harnessing them). The use of long periods of leading in the first half of training strengthens horses without straining them.

By following the instructions laid down in the Kikkuli Text, you will be able to produce a superb equine athlete without the use of drugs or expensive feed additives. Your horse will remain sound and not subject to frequent bouts of lameness. Above all, your horse will be happy and confident in its work, thus producing its maximum performance for you.