How do you halter break a foal correctly and at what age should you start?

Halter breaking a foal — teaching it to accept a halter and yield to halter pressure without pulling back, dragging, or panicking — is one of the most important early training tasks and one that is frequently done incorrectly in ways that create problems that persist for years. The correct age to introduce the halter is within the first few days of life, when the foal's nervous system is in the imprinting phase and its acceptance of novel contact is at its highest. A foal that first experiences a halter at two weeks old, when it has already established stronger flight responses, requires more work to accept it than one introduced to the halter in the first days. Clinton Anderson's halter-breaking sequence begins with the foal accepting having its head and ears touched without concern, then introduces the halter as a natural extension of that touching — sliding it on while maintaining contact rather than making a separate, alarming event of the haltering. The halter is put on and taken off many times in the early sessions so that it becomes a familiar object associated with handling rather than a restraint. Teaching the yield to halter pressure — the foundational lesson that pulling back on the lead rope produces a release when the foal steps forward — is the critical second step. Anderson uses a slip lead or a lead attached to the halter and applies steady pressure toward him, waiting for any forward movement, then releasing immediately. Even a slight lean forward earns the release. Over repetitions, the foal learns that forward movement produces release and that pulling back does not. Warwick Schiller emphasizes patience specifically in halter breaking, noting that foals that are forced or frightened during halter breaking — held down while they struggle, jerked when they pull — develop a pull-back response that is extremely difficult to extinguish in adult horses.