If you’re doing your own horse training on a young or green horse, you’ll obviously need some good advice and horse training tips from an experienced handler or trainer. I’ve trained my share of young horses, including some we purchased and some that were born to our mares. If you’re going to ride the horse, you’ll need for it to accept and carry a saddle, of course.
For saddle training, you don’t want to just throw a saddle on the animal’s back. You’ll have to introduce it gradually. I usually started with something like a saddle blanket or pad first. Once the horse wasn’t bothered by the blanket’s being on its back, I might graduate to a bareback pad with a girth. At first, I’d just place the bareback pad on the horse’s back, without tightening the cinch. When it got used to that, I’d fasten the cinch very loosely. As the animal got comfortable with that, I’d gradually tighten the girth a little every day. When the horse would carry the bareback pad with the cinch tightened comfortably and without showing any fear or hesitation, I’d begin using a real saddle.
Most of the time, I rode western, so I trained with a western saddle. I had an old saddle that I used specifically for training. I removed the stirrups from the saddle first because sometimes the flailing stirrups can spook a green horse.