Does your horse trust you ?
We expect to be able to ride and train our horses, and yet how often do we forget their very nature? They are flight and fright creatures, and they run before they think; if punished they run even faster before they think.
Spooking and shying are problems initially with being unbalanced and crooked but these problems can accelerate very quickly if not addressed correctly. If a frightened horse is punished and shouted at, he becomes a more frightened horse and this sort of behaviour from the rider does not reform or help to subdue him, in fact quite the opposite.
Rider’s attitudes to a spooky horse vary widely and it does not do us any harm to review our horse’s attitudes and instincts, especially if we expect them to work with us. The world that our horses perceive is a very different world to ours. We physically see things differently to them; our eyes are in the front, theirs are on the side of the face. Eyes set on the side are far better designed to see predators. Our eyes are in positioned in front because technically we are “predators”; have you ever really thought about that?
We need to think horse and try to look at the world our horses see before we administer any punishment for “inappropriate” behaviours. Not only do we often take the wrong approach, but we insist that we are right! If our approach to our horses fears is wrong it will lead very quickly to a loss of trust; and once lost it is enormously difficult to regain it.
The philosophy behind correct training is to encourage the horse to trust us; and that means that he has to trust us when we ask him to go past the bag blowing about in the corner of the school. Everyone is familiar with this scenario and to a horse it signifies danger, and instinct dictates that he should run from danger rather than stop and wonder whether the plastic actually is dangerous; in the wild this might make the difference between survival and death, it is as fundamental as that. Horses have an accelerated concept of danger, and we cannot modify that by punishment and aversive training methods.
Trust between horse and rider is incredibly important; if a horse does not trust the rider every exercise becomes difficult and will be performed with tension. Loss of trust and tension go together. If tension predominates in your training regime not only will your horse be very difficult to teach and train, but you will find it incredibly difficult to develop him into the horse you really want. Tension leads to low marks in dressage, will prevent you getting clear rounds, and will most certainly hamper horses who are expected to go cross country, whether this is on a hack or around a course of solid jumps.
If your horse is invariably spooky in wind and bad weather, the best way of schooling him to accept the conditions is to remain calm and to work him quietly. Losing your temper and punishing spooks and startles, particularly in one area of the school is not going to give you a calm receptive horse. He is going to become more reactive and less attentive by the day; no amount of draw reins or aversives is going to win his concentration. Consequently when these methods are employed they only lead to sore and tired muscles that become prone to further damage through the build up of toxins and lactic acids throughout the muscle system.
The only way to correct a frightened horse is to develop your seat, thereby strengthening your abilities to sit through spooks and bucks. Your horse should not feel more constrained as a result of his fears and worries. Remember this is instinctive and hard wired into your horse; it is not something he does to wind you up.
Without trust we cannot train a horse to become stronger and straighter, we cannot access the movements and patterns that he so desperately needs to build into a correct and efficient outline. Tension prevents forward movement; it also breeds inconsistency and worry. Horses can become sharp and tricky rides very easily through unnecessary punishment, and will never develop the confidence and free movement that is so highly prized in all spheres of equestrianism.
The correction for a horse that spooks should be administered through harmonious riding; when your horse is spooked and worried by the wind sit through the disturbances, try not to grab hold of the bit; corrections should not be through his mouth via the reins because you are punishing fear. A sharp pain in the mouth as he shies is just that...it has absolutely no calming effect on your horse whatsoever. Try to sit quietly and reward him frequently both with words and through strokes on his neck. Teach him to trust you so that wind, rain and noises behind hedges are nothing to worry about, take the lead and train him through his problems.
The more you ask him to work on his circles, turns, transitions and lateral work the easier he will find it. If one area of the school is especially difficult and causes him to fuss, leave that to another day. Do not treat this as disobedience, if you insist on schooling in a scary area you will cause problems, not avoid them. This will not be your horses fault; it will be yours.
Be a fair rider and take your horse’s true nature into consideration before you administer punitive aids. By taking the role of riding seriously you will earn your horses trust.
For help with nervy and over reactive horses please contact Pennie Clayton 07910 720961
