My mare Bella is an example of the effectiveness of this approach.  The other day I was grooming her in her stall and a noise outside the barn spooked her. (She has a sensitive/anxious personality so her spooks can be big.)  I felt her foot touch the top of my foot as she was coming my way, but before she applied enough pressure for me to feel discomfort she was back moving the opposite direction.  The spook ended with her standing in exactly the same spot she started, and a little scuff of mud on the top of my boot from where her hoof had been. (And my heart pounding in my chest a little.  She is not really a “look out for your rider” kind of horse, and not so long ago she would have gone right over top of me.)

I find that it works so much better to approach training problems this way.  I break the problem behavior down to its simplest form.  I then find the easiest ways I can come up with to work on it and I do those first, gradually increasing the difficulty as they improve.  I set myself up for success that way, because the horse learns better when they are calm, and I don’t find myself in a physical battle with a frightened horse that I am bound to lose.

 I was lucky, being a beginning rider with a young green horse, that she was very laid back. I had tied her one day with her rope too long and she got tangled. She just laid down and waited for me to come untangle her. She almost never spooked, and she never ran without being asked(except the day she backed us into the electric fence and the day we were chased down the road by a guy on a motorcycle… story for another day). I remember watching her lay flat on the ground in the yard, where we would turn her loose to graze, but instead of dozing she was picking at grass with the side of her mouth.

 We had some struggles as all beginning riders and horses do, mostly because she was lazy. I remember my mom having to grab her bridle and pony her down the road.just so we could make it past the edge of the yard. I showed her in 4-h and at practices we were expected to walk trot and canter around the rail. We did walk/trot, but she wouldn’t canter. One practice I had 3 leaders trying to chase my horse into a canter with ropes and whips, and she still wouldn’t go. Two of them got on and tried to make her go themselves and she wouldn’t go for them either. We eventually came to an understanding, and I could get her to go, but it still wasn’t always in the most controlled fashion, and I usually had to have spurs, a whip, and an adult on the ground to make it happen.

 I showed her in 4-h shows and at the local fair for 3 years. We were awesome at egg and spoon, and we did well in costume class and halter, but we weren’t that great at the rest of it. She was pretty much a left lead only horse, although if I got her going really fast I could get her to switch to her right. Every once in a while she would just take off on her own (like the day she cut sideways across the arena and kicked out at the judge on the way by…)

 The third year while we were at fair things seemed to get really bad. Her behavior actually got scary which had never really happened before. I remember crying and debating whether I should scratch my classes because she was wanting to buck, and I felt like my quiet horse had turned into a monster. Fair was 3 days long, and on the third day we noticed swelling around her cannon bones, both front legs, although the left was worse. We took her home and watched her but the swelling didn’t go down. She was diagnosed with degenerative joint disease, and had pretty significant arthritis for a horse her age. (She was 5 at this time.) The swelling lasted for 2 months, and would return periodically. I was told she was not going to be sound enough for me to ride anymore. I was 15 at the time, and while that news was hard to hear, I think the hardest part was realizing all of the spurring, whipping, chasing, yelling that we had done to try to fix her “bad behavior”, and the entire time she was in pain. We hadn’t listened to what she was trying to say, we just called her lazy and kept pushing. Eventually it got to be too much, and she started acting out.

 Sonny gave so much of herself to me. She taught me so much, and she worked pretty hard since I rode every chance I got. My ignorance of the symptoms of lameness in a horse caused her so much hardship. Then to add to that I also allowed myself to be pressured into some very harsh methods to get her to perform. At the time I was very uncomfortable with it, and for good reason. I will always regret some of the things I did in the name of “making her behave” or “earning her respect”.

 Sonny died almost 9 years ago. Next week would have been her 20^th birthday. As I remember our bareback sunset rides, lazy Sunday trail rides and countless hours spent trying to coax her down the road I will always remember the valuable lessons she taught me, and I will not allow her suffering to be in vain.

He had a rule for everything. There was a way to hold a rope, a way to walk a horse into a stall, a way to take off a halter, a way to put on a halter, a way to lead a horse… you get the idea. It took a while to learn these rules and make them a habit, and until those habits were formed he was there to remind me. He never explained his reasons (I don’t ever remember asking either…), but I assumed he had one, it just didn’t mean it was a good enough reason for me ( I might have been a bit cocky I suppose).

That said, he was teaching me a lot about riding and horsemanship, and I knew he knew his stuff. We did a lot of lunge line lessons to work on my seat, and a lot of ground work to teach me how to be more consistent, disciplined, basically to be a better trainer.

One of his biggest rules was that if you are going to quit riding the horse, you need to get off. I was never allowed to get out of the proper riding position while I was sitting on the horse, no matter what we were doing. If I asked the horse to stand still for an hour, I sat still for an hour. If I wanted to move, take my feet out of the stirrups, turn around to talk to someone, I got off.

One day we were in the round pen, it was summertime, so it was warm and breezy, a very nice day to ride. I was in his dressage saddle with the stirrups removed practicing my sitting trot. He was explaining how each stride when the horse pushes you up and out of the saddle, they are not really moving just up and down. They are moving diagonally up and forward. By focusing on that forward motion rather than the upward motion you can begin to find the movement necessary to ride the trot without catching air. As he was standing in the middle explaining this, he suddenly broke his train of thought and said, “Do you need me to take care of that for you?” I said, “What?” He said, “Should I cut that off for you? If it is going to be that much of a distraction you should cut it off.” I said, “Huh?” I had NO IDEA what he was talking about. We were talking about sitting trot, and all of a sudden he wants to cut something… I start looking for a loose piece of something, on my tack, on my clothing… I don’t see anything, so I say again, “What are you talking about???” He says, “Your hair. You keep tucking it behind your ears…” I thought maybe he was joking, so I watched for his expression to change, but it never did.  He was very serious.  REALLY?? My hair! He wants to cut off my hair just because I am tucking it behind my ears??!! It is windy, I have it in a pony tail… Anyway, since I didn’t notice it, I figured it wasn’t really a distraction like he thought, so I explained that to him. That didn’t go over well, and again I was shocked. Why did it matter so much to him what happened with my hair. It is none of his business what my hair does!!

We had a lot of these moments, so I expected to file it away in the back of my mind as one of those things that was frustrating about working with Charles, but that I knew probably had some important meaning if I could ever figure it out. 

This, however, was one of the few things that he explained. Never ask something of your horse that you are not willing to give. We ask the horse to tolerate a lot of things that are out of their nature to tolerate. We expect them to focus 100% on what we ask, to be ready to move at a moments notice, meanwhile ignoring things that are causing them anxiety, fear, discomfort, sometimes even pain. I am asking these things of my horse every time I work with them, and they do it willingly, but I can’t even tolerate my hair blowing in my face. I can’t even be aware of my surroundings enough to realize I am removing my hands from the task of guiding the horse to pull my hair from my face. I am not spending as much effort in protecting and guiding the horse as the horse is giving in carrying me around…  

That was the beginning of a whole new thought process for me in the way that I work with a horse. I made a commitment that day to ask more of myself than I do of my horse. I am glad that I did, the results are well worth it. By changing myself I become a better partner for my horse, and horses respond to that in amazing ways!

Being the mother of a 8 month old son has me scrambling to learn time management. Between housework, taking care of the boy, barn paperwork and training I don’t have much left for things like sleeping, or sitting… I know I am not alone.    

Something keeps coming to mind that Charles, my former trainer/mentor, taught me. He was always talking about time.  Time is important when you are training.  It takes time to train a horse.  People don’t make enough time… He said it in so many ways and in so many situations, I couldn’t help but remember.  I don’t think he was criticizing people who can’t ride every day, I know that really isn’t realistic; however it is very important that expectations match the amount of time that is put in.   

Horses need experience to become that well broke finished horse we all dream about. The only way to gain that experience is through a lot of hours. Hours of focused work, fun and games, new places, other horses, intimidating situations, and relaxed down time. Without all of these a horse will not be well rounded, and it takes a lot of time to expose and accustom the horse to all of these different situations. Many people hope they can put 30-60 days on a horse and have it come home “broke.” This is unrealistic. It can gain a great foundation in that time, but if it is not followed with a lot more it will always be unpredictable, and unreliable. 

Horses also need a certain amount of time to get in shape. It is unfair to the horse to ride them infrequently, and then ride them long and hard. They will become sore. A horse who is often worked in this way will become sour, reluctant to work, reluctant to be caught, etc. A physically unfit horse is also more prone to injury, same as we are.

Besides the benefit to the horse, there is a benefit to the rider in being prepared to take their time. It allows the rider to take one step at a time, step back when necessary, and enjoy the process. This makes it less likely that the horse will be stressed by being pushed too hard, and more likely that there will be a healthy working partnership between horse and rider.