03/11/2024
How to Make a Horse Spookyš«
This photo was taken 10 years ago. While itās easy to pick apart what I clearly didnāt know at the time, one thing I can tell you is that I was very confidentšŖ.
If youād asked me to train that horse in any behaviour, I could. If I needed to get that horse to do something, I could. In that photo, I was skilled in training behaviours. I could get horses to do things, and I felt the power of that.
But this horse, Saxon, was spooky, and it took me a while to realise that, despite my confidence and skill, I had accidentally made him this way.
It was almost comicalāgoing from a nervous, inexperienced rider who was making her horse spooky, to a super-confident, skilled rider who was doing the same thing with a different horseš±!
By then, I was working with many horses who werenāt spooky, so why was this one?
How was this happening? What was I doing wrong?
There were a number of reasons, but the biggest one was that I was only seeing everything as behaviour. I didnāt realise that while I was riding him, I was also influencing how he feltā¦and I was making him feel pretty terrible.š
Why? Because I wanted perfect behaviour, and I was relentless. I was micromanaging him, flooding him with constant pressure, overworking both his mind and body.
From his perspective, I was making him feel threatened. When I was on his back, he felt alarmed. If something in the environment added to that sense of alarm, it would result in reactivity, as he couldnāt process his surroundings with an overloaded sensory system. So he would spookāor, at the very least, move with tension.
There were other things I was doing wrong. But this story shows how sensitive, spooky, nervous, tense, reactive horses are created in a variety of waysāand being confident or skilled doesnāt stop you from making mistakes.
Being skilled doesnāt mean youāre immune to ignoranceš”.
It also says something about me. In both extremesāthe nervous rider creeping around, trying to protect my horse from the world, versus the confident, hard-taskmaster micromanagerāI was trying to control uncertainty. Nervous-rider me was trying to control the environment, while confident me was trying to control the horse.
Now, I realise itās not control Iām seeking but influence, and itās more than just training. Itās about the decisions I make on what and how to train, where and how I do it, and basing each of those decisions on how the horse is feelingāall to build their trust and confidence.
This journey requires creativity, grounding, and humility to keep ego in check.
I released The Sensitive, Spooky, Nervous Horse Resource a few days ago. Its purpose is to raise awareness of the creative, strategic approach we need to build a partnership with a horseā¤ļø.
This process requires an understanding of the horse as a species. Saxon was just being a horse, and his responses are completely predictable to me today. It also requires self-awarenessāunderstanding that, regardless of what you think youāre doing, the horseās reactions may show it feels threatened, and you need to figure out why. Along the way, youāre bound to make mistakes that might seem logical at the time but arenāt.
But can it be worked out? Absolutely. Itās about understanding, awareness, and strategy so you can make the best decisions for your horseās welfareš¤.
Details are in the usual placeā¬ļø.
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ā”ļøIf anyone wants to find out more about me go to calmwillingconfidenthorses dot com dot au
