Academic Art of Riding Squire
Member of IEP
R+ Classical Dressage Trainer
EET L3 Principles.
(3)
I am the first person in UK to pass the Academic Art of Riding by Bent Branderup ridden Squire Test.
“Two spirits who want to do what two bodies can”
and
“Spend time well”
are two Bent Branderup quotes epitomise for me what good horse training should look like. I am a Full Member of the International Equine Professionals and I train horses using Positive Reinforcement methods adhering to the L.
I.M.A. I pay close attention to accredited scientific research findings concerning equine behaviour and ethology and I choose to use science based animal training approaches. The Equine Touch has proved to be a very valuable skill to enable me to release and soften horses bodies from tensions that often arise. The Equine Touch is a non-diagnostic, non-invasive Equine Bodywork system which is an holistic soft tissue address, effecting mostly connective tissue – muscles and tendons, joint capsules and ligaments using a very specific move. I have also trained with Heather Moffett and I am a Level3 Enlightened Equitation Trainer. Heather is very good at analysing how to correct the riders’ seat and improving the timing of the aids. Private lessons £45 per lesson at Stonehaven, plus travel if at your yard.
So - what is the AAoR by Bent Branderup? Bent coined this name many years ago to describe the fact that it is necessary to study and to also put that study into practice in order to learn how to train horses and ride them well. He thinks of it as being similar to experimental archaeology
I’ve only just looked at the clinic photos of my own lessons with Uralita from Ylvie Fros visit here at end of August, 1st September.
It’s always a good idea to look at how things were going from another perspective such as a video or camera as it’s so hard to evaluate all aspects of the training sessions in the moment, in real time.
Invariably I see elements which were better than I expected and some which were less ideal.
I do find that a producing and business like “corporate attitude” adopted by many training styles destroys the art of riding and training, and far prefer a more evolutionary loose and less business like approach, and this is often harder to cultivate in a clinic setting.
Training horses needs emotional intelligence, accurate interpretation and heart combined with the horse and rider biomechanics of posture alignment and balance.
But in the end a water colour which is running slightly looks far better than an accurate painting by numbers artwork.
I was invited to make a demo at WestPoint Exeter Iberian horse show to demonstrate R+ & AAoR but I decided to pull out because I haven’t been able to help Uralita to relax sufficiently while travelling. Partly this is due to my lack of time devoted to trying to improve this.
She loads reliably very well but clearly still finds the journeys very stressful. She does not move, does not eat and almost seems like she’s holding her breath. She is a gentle soul with very little experience of the World.
Travelling for a short distance for say 1/2 hour or even perhaps 1 hour is probably not such an impact, but the 2 1/2 hours journey time followed by the big show and arena razzmatamzz, followed by the same length of journey home on the same day will stress her too much I feel.
Uralita arrived here to a buyer in U.K. as an unhandled and very frightened 6 year old pregnant mare, traumatised from being brought from Spain at very short notice with little prior handling possible and having to be hussled for 5 hours by her breeder to get her in the lorry with no opportunity to give her the advantage of slow and progressive habituation training for loading. This was no fault of the buyer or the breeder, but clearly wasn’t ideal for her.
I promised her that I would not force her to do things she didn’t want to do as unfortunately, I know how that feels all too well myself.
I also promised her I would not deliberately frighten her or use coercion or force to make her comply.
I felt terribly conflicted about letting the organiser down, letting my horse down and letting myself down, losing the opportunity to showcase the wonderful AAoR and the use of Positive Reinforcement, which I believe in so wholeheartedly.
I seriously considered making up a fake and vague “circumstances beyond my control” kind of excuse.
I considered fibbing about a vehicle breakdown.
I considered taking a different horse, (FloJo and Fiona are both amazing too) but I felt they too are quite unused to travelling and big show atmospheres. I’m sure lots of horses can cope fine with longer journeys and bigger atmospheres.
But I could not do those things.
If I could have found a person who had introduced their horse to using R+ or the AAoR already at the show, I could have delivered a demo lesson perhaps, but sadly that wasn’t possible either.
R+ and AAoR really needs building up gradually for human and horse, so first lessons can look very slow and would make dull viewing.
So I decided to be totally honest and state that I couldn’t put my horse through the travel and show stress just for the sake of my ego as keeping my promise to my horse is too high a priority.
As I get older, I am definitely getting softer and I don’t feel the need to prove anything to other humans.
I wish the show great success, and I suspect there are other very wonderful people who will extend their sessions to fill the gap in the show demos I created.
A revisit blast from the past. Just in case it was missed before.
Just in case there was confusion about what causes animals to decide to flee.
Horses are NOT flight animals.
If any species of animal becomes sufficiently afraid, it may chose to become a flight animal in order to survive the threat.
A small dog will often try to run away from a large aggressive dog.
A large dog may be afraid of a loud noise and try to escape.
An immature, small lion will flee a large mature lion.
A human will run from something they fear.
Self preservation causes flight, fight, or freeze responses in all animals.
Labelling the horses as “flight animals” says a lot about the humans using the labels.
Summer Academy 2024
This makes me very happy.
Rachel Denness has worked really hard for this with Brie, her feisty big warmblood mare who was certainly never planning to be a “dope on a rope” anytime soon.
The horse has had many physical and psychological problems from her past complex trauma presenting with arena environment anxiety as one of her symptoms.
Aggression used to make horses learn that they must “perform or else” is rife in the equine industry in various forms.
You only need to walk into any tack shop to see the lengths people are prepared go to in order to make the horses comply.
Controller headcollars, chiffneys, thin knotted rope headcollars, many kinds of lunging tie downs, chain mouthpiece bits, elevator bits, squeeze action hackamores - it’s all there in the tack shop and perfectly legal to buy and endorsed in plain sight having been designed to control horses using actual pain or threats of pain.
For example, once a horse has felt the pain of a thin knotted rope headcollars’ carefully positioned knots pressing into their facial nerves and the thin rope cutting into the head when they pull away while wearing it, the headcollar has served its purpose and every time it is worn it carries the threatening warning that there is a real possibility that this could easily happen again if they don’t meekly comply. Yet millions of these are sold and millions think it’s OK to use this threat and millions still think they can call their training, handling and husbandry using these devices a positive experience for the horses.
The art of riding and training has been dumbed down to mere dominance and force making a powerful and gentle mute animal submit to the will of the Ape.
To work with horses of any kind, at any level, love, kindness and respect for the horses is essential and there is no excuse for the deliberate use of inflicted or threatened pain.
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Academic Art of Riding trainer Ylvie Fros will be here next month.
She has been an AAoR trainer for nearly 20 years so she is super experienced.
Spectator spaces and 1 rider place is still available.
Contact me for details.
31st August/1st Sept weekend clinic with my friend and colleague, Ylvie Fros.
Ylvie is widely known in SW U.K. after many visits to Stonehaven for her skilled observations of movement patterns and she is very experienced teaching within the framework of the Academic Art of Riding by Bent Branderup and Sally Swifts’ Centred Riding.
Be aware: I will have to ask for your deposits to secure your horse/rider/liberty/groundwork places and full payment to be paid long before the clinic dates, as last years last minute let downs were costly for me.
I don’t host clinics for the 💷💶, I host them for the 🐴👩🎓📖🦄 opportunities, but I can’t afford to lose 💶💷.
Contact me if you would like to know be a spectator or take a ridden place.
I have just two rider places left…….
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Read my latest R+and AAoR Blog post via this link.
Click on the link for R+ & AAoR Blog at top of the web page linked here.
The blog this time is all about nippy horses when training using food rewards. It is a common problem, but it doesn't have to be so.
Usually nipping is caused by human error as using food rewards to train is easy, but it is not simple.
Jacqueline Billington 27/06/2024 Jacqueline Billington 27/06/2024 14 Reasons why horses get nippy using R+ Training Nippy, grumpy, ears back frustration is sometimes seen in R+ horses. Here are 14 reasons why:1. A previous history of undisciplined hand feeding is likely to cause nipping. Thi...
A colleague has this gorgeous La Selle saddle reluctantly for sale.
They are beautiful saddles made in Germany and since Brexit it is harder to import them, so it’s a huge advantage that this one is already in U.K.
A baroque dream.
La Selle saddle, L’Art flex 18inch in very good condition.
Built with a leather tree with metal arches front and back which can be unscrewed and taken out then adjusted by a blacksmith.
Please contact Yvonne Luscombe on 07958 089444 thank you .
Location Ringwood Hampshire
£3,150
https://www.jacquiebillingtonart.co.uk
Horses and Art.Academic Art of Riding by Bent Branderup SquireSociety of Equestrian Artists Associate MemberInternational Equine Professionals Full Member UK Sales Partner for Barock Flair Bent Branderup ProductsPlease Contact me for details
Having now completed this very interesting and in depth course, I am pleased and proud to announce that I passed with my essay and case study with an "Excellent" pass grade.
The thing that’s on my mind is this.
People say:
Oh, he’s always been like that.
Oh, she’s always had those.
Oh, he’s such a pain with this.
Oh, she’s always been grumpy.
Oh, he’s just difficult.
Oh, she’s just stroppy.
Oh, you can’t use food rewards to train.
Now sometimes it is behavioural.
Now sometimes it is caused by us.
But sometimes it is undiagnosed pain.
.
After a week away on the GreenaEco bat research trip to Ikaria, Greece, it’s lovely to get back to meet the newest member of my family, cuddle the dogs and gently pick up with the horses where we left off.
The horses are a teeny bit feral, but are relaxed, soft and enthusiastic to show me how wonderful they all are.
𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙘 𝙀𝙮𝙚
𝘽𝙮 𝙆𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙨𝙚 - 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙏𝙤𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙄𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧, 𝙎𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 2024
In horsemanship people often talk about “reading the eye”. Seeing the difference between the staring, vacant eye and the hard, steely eye allows you to have a window into the thoughts and emotions of the horse. Working with a horse in a place where they keep that lovely soft eye is often the secret to success, and most ET students have witnessed that softening of the eye perhaps before the horse slips further into deep internal processing.
Well, over the last few years I have had to make a point to studying the eye of my mare with regard to her metabolic state. Diagnosed with Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS), I must be extremely careful about her weight and condition as this frustrating syndrome is one of the most common causes of that cruel disease of the hoof, laminitis. A little similar to Type 2 diabetes in humans, I must manage this horse very closely with diet and exercise to keep her insulin levels healthy to avoid laminitis.
High insulin levels can trigger laminitis, insulin is released in the body to process glucose in the blood and blood sugar levels rise after consuming sugar and starch filled foods, like grass! I wanted another tool to assess her condition day by day and to know whether it was likely to be safe to give her grazing or not. The potency of the grass changes with the seasons and daily with the weather so maybe one day it is fine and the next it is not. Knowing when to change your management regime from a more relaxed winter routine to a restricted spring and summer one, and then assessing whether you can give any grass at all or not, can hopefully prevent that slide into trouble.
EMS is a lifestyle disease directed by her genetics and her environment and I hope to be able to give her the best chance of good health by keeping her on the right side of trouble by controlling her diet and maximising her exercise. Exercise for her is also tricky as she is one of the unfortunate ones with a rather broken body which cannot tolerate hard exercise, but that is another story.
Through the winter months when she was not carrying excess weight and the sugars on the grass were low, I got to know her “lean” body shape and eye. I memorised the shape and texture of the fat pad areas I know she has a tendency to display – tail head, behind shoulder and crest mostly for her. (Other horses may put fat in other places like along the line of the rib shelf). I looked at her eye, the lids in particular, as well as the orbital depression, everyday to become so familiar with it I would spot any changes.
Even as early as February, way before the grass appears to start growing, I have noticed her body shape start to change slightly and that is the first sign that I have to take action. Previously in Essex when I was on a livery yard, I would fence off the centre of the paddock to make a track around the outside – limit access to grass but keep them moving. If I had to stop all grass, say when it was frosty, I had to stable her during the day. Now in Norfolk, I have an area of hardstanding and a sacrifice paddock that I can use to keep her out but limit the grass. It is important to give them hay or other forage as an alternative as it is not about starving them, but about giving sufficient low sugar, appropriate food. If you do not know the sugar content of your hay via analysis, it is probably safer to soak it to remove a higher sugar load (research implies that even an hour can remove a good portion of the soluble sugars). Every day I study her eyes, palpate her rump, squeeze and wiggle her crest, testing the size (particularly the width) and texture. If I am concerned, I feel for a digital pulse and hope not to find one.
By keeping a close watch I am now aware if those fat pads are growing. The horse may not look fat or overweight, maybe even the weigh tape is not telling you that they are bigger, but if these regions start to change shape, it is an early indication that the horse is heading into a danger place.
𝙍𝙪𝙡𝙚 #1. I now regard those fat pads as a polluting factory for making poison (it helps me to stick to the rules!). The fat in the fat pads secrete toxic hormones which make the horse more likely to get laminitis, therefore you need to minimise that fat.
𝙍𝙪𝙡𝙚 #2. As the horse gets into an unhealthy state with high blood sugar and high insulin, those fat pads can become hard. Be very alarmed if those fat pads become hard! If it is happening in the fat of the tailhead, crest, and the eyes with puffy eyelids, it is probably also happening in the feet too. 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙚. As a minimum stop giving them what is making them sick - 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙤𝙛𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙨!
Get them off the grass long enough for these body parts to return to normal. If the horse has raised digital pulses and is already suffering foot discomfort, sometimes only noticed when turning on a circle, there are other First Aid measures you can take to try to minimise the damage already happening in the hoof whilst you wait for Veterinary assistance. The simplest, which I have used is to get the horse off the grass, onto soft footing and apply a frog support to pack the foot and reduce the amount of pull on the damaged laminae. I have two foam supports that match the shape of the frog in my Vet Box. You can stick these over the frog with tape or bandage and maybe a boot that help to provide pressure at the back of the foot. If you do not have frog supports a small, rolled bandage can do the same job until the Vet can fit a supportive pad to the bottom of the hoof. Cold therapy and some nutritional support are also said to help. Keeping the foot in iced water to lower the temperature of the hoof tissues can apparently halt the damage of laminitis, but this is recent research and requires special boots, so again contact your vet sooner rather than later.
𝙍𝙪𝙡𝙚 #3. So, what about the eye. The “grass eye” looks fat and puffy. If your horse’s face looks “different” it could well be the eye and 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. In my experience the lower lid is the first part of the eye to change and the bottom lid can become fuller and thicker. The top lid can also get fuller and begin to look hooded. The dip above the eye, the orbit, can also fill in. The puffy lids can give the impression that the horse is wearing goggles. These eye changes can sometimes be quite subtle but if you consider them in combination with the size and state of the crest and the current weather conditions, you get a pretty clear indicator of whether your horse is becoming inflamed. As we know from human medicine, chronic inflammation, with sugar being one of the biggest culprits, is at the root of many modern lifestyle diseases, so it is not a good state for your horse to be either.
Often in early Spring we have bright sunny days and cold nights. If you understand how grass grows, you will know this is red alarm weather for laminitics. At any time of the year, grass photosynthesises with sunlight during the day to make sugars which the plant will use to grow. However, if it is too cold overnight, roughly below 5 degrees c, the UKs cool season grasses will not grow and just stores the sugar until it warms up and can grow again. So the young grass gets richer. Bright, frosty morning grass is the most dangerous because it is storing the sugar the sun generates until it gets warm enough to grow and use it up. Later in the year when it is warmer overnight, the grass grows overnight using up the sugars from the previous day, so the morning grass is less rich than the afternoon grass which has had all day photosynthesising. This is why on a long, hot summers day, the grass will be more sugary in the late afternoon than the morning, just when may owners want to put their horse out when they get home from work, for a night in the cool paddock. So I watch the eye closely to see if my horse is getting inflamed. The good news is, if I take her off the grass for a day, you can usually see the puffiness go away as she deflates.
It is worth researching more about the sugar in grass after a frost. Even in winter it seems that research indicates that it can take 2 𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨 for the grass to return to normal 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 the temperature has come above freezing. That could be a week! It is not just a case of put the horse out on the grass once the frost has melted. The Laminitis App on your phone can help to show what the current grass sugar level is but those of us with a metabolic horse in our care need all the help we can get to keep them safe.
EMS horses are more prone to high insulin levels and therefore have a high risk of laminitis, but I have known several non-EMS horses who have sadly suffered from laminitis and their owners have said with hindsight, that these signs in the body were all there. Ivana, our Founder of The Equine Touch, warned me about puffy eyes years ago but until you see it and know what to look for you can still get caught out, as I have been. Study your horse, take pictures in the winter of their body shape and a close up of the eye, and imprint it on your memory. Some horses never seem to get a puffy eye and are a useful comparison to the more susceptible ones.
I hope that the benefit of my experience can help you navigate this minefield of keeping your horse safe year round but especially in spring and early autumn which are the peak times for laminitis cases. Be mindful of what goes in his mouth and keep up regular exercise with sessions intense enough to increase pulse and respiration at the top of your list.
The horses brain used to be described as being the size of a walnut.
I’ve never ever seen a walnut that is this big!
The equine brain debate!
Over the years I’ve heard many descriptions of a horses walnut sized brain for the humans lack of understanding of the horse.
So to set the story straight, here is my regular lady sized hand beside a 15hh horses brain. We are looking at the ventral side(underneath) with the cerebellum and spinal cord attached.
Another reason to be very careful about what you choose to put on your horses face, and be consciously aware of how you use your hands’ on the reins.
Better to go a bit slower and be gentle.
Be soft in touch.
Why are people campaigning for welfare reforms in dressage for nosebands?
I believe that dissection work can bridge the gap between the people who are campaigning and the people who don’t realise they need to know. Dissection is pretty confronting, it forces us to reevaluate what we thought was under the skin. One thing that people are always shocked by is how many of the facial nerves are directly under the skin. The largest bundle of nerves lays under the nose band and goes straight to the brain.
This again is an important message in the face of tight nose bands taking centre stage in international competition.
The AAoR approaches will help to teach a young horse to learn the human/horse language that will be needed throughout the horse life. This is achieved slowly and without force, fear or gadgets. The language taught is tailored to be suitable preparation for ridden work, driving, or libe
Using food rewards during training when the horse is becoming over excited by the food.
Make sure the horses understands when a training session is beginning.
Make sure you understand the food is not a “treat” it is a reward for a requested behaviour.
Make sure the horse isn’t still recovering from being undernourished before training starts.
Make sure the horse feels safe in the training environment.
Make sure you use big generous handfuls of low value long chew food for each reward.
Make sure you are totally clear with precise timing when marking desired behaviours.
Make sure you train the horse in “anti mugging’ look away behaviours.
Make sure you are totally present, focussed, aware and ready for the horses’ responses.
Make sure you use a high reinforcement rate.
Make sure you do not withhold food rewards too often or for too long.
Make the steps of training a new behaviour very easy small doable little steps.
Make sure you mark the behaviours and deliver the food reward to the horse very precisely.
Make sure you also understand how to deliver food in different non-oral ways.
Make sure you use food rewards sometimes at informal times too (variable schedule).
Make sure you BOTH feel safe – protected contact works both ways!
Make sure you start training after the horse has just eaten well and isn’t hungry.
Make sure there is other food available for free access while training.
Make sure there is fresh clean water available during or soon after training.
Make sure you reward for the failed tries as well as the successes.
Make sure you reward the horse for “no thanks, not now” as well as rewarding “yes”
Make sure you end with a nice big jackpot pile freebie.
If you want to know more about my style of R+ & AAoR training please contact me for private lessons.
“Going the extra mile”.
But which type of mile - English, Swedish or Nautical!
This came up in my lesson today with Bent, which I took on my sweet, kind much loved PRE mare Rancar Fiona.
She is naturally high energy, sensitive and easily frightened and can bubble over like a shaken bottle of Moet. Hotter than hot by nature, but oh so sweet and loving.
I adore riding her as she is so sensitive and responsive, but it always worried me that her ability to relax and soften is limited by her anxiety causing the short tense striding which probably helped establish her 3 year old horse status as being a part bred upside downsie, undernecky droppy backy pretty Camel x Llama, with added lateral and vertical ironing board stiffness and snorty stampiness for good measure. Flo - my daughter, rode her a few times a long time ago, but other than an odd pony ride nobody else but me has ridden her. She is all my own work, and all my own failures.
Hacking her was impossible when she was younger as she got too excited, inverted, did stampy hectic quasi piaffe and made herself lame for 2 weeks.
Ridden work in the arena created upside downsie hectic undernecky quasi piaffe again, boingy terre a terre or frantic leapiness.
Lunging just frightened her to pieces as she couldn’t bend or balance.
She was afraid of every pigeon rustling in the hedge as a young horse but she is as brave as a Viking Shield Maiden now, and will face all manner of mean and nasty, ugly things, except funnily marked whitish Friesian cows, or enormous Longhorn Bulls, but nobody likes those do they?
Vet checks performed at intervals over the years showed no obvious pain related causes, but she has needed a lot of remedial hoof care.
The only way forwards for a really long time was to patiently work her “slowly, slowly, very very slowly” in work hand, short line long reining and in Academic Groundwork, stopping and rewarding her well for remaining calm.
So, - Bent hasn’t seen her at all before today, and I hoped I could get some helpful advice about the way forwards, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure what he would make of her!
I’m very happy to say that despite it being freezing cold and very windy during our early lesson today, he liked her a lot and she clearly knows the ridden seat aids and the message was really positive from him to keep on doing what I’m doing. 🥰
Funnily enough, her saving grace for the last 3 or 4 years has become long hacks up to the wild, wild woods, where she can have a straight line uphill canter and she often takes long stretching forwards correct walk sequence strides. At the start of last year I found using low level working equitation obstacles in the arena helped her a lot - perhaps because of the greater sense of purpose and focus relaxing her.
Sadly opportunities to do either of these things as often as I would have liked have been limited because of relentless floods and ghastly wet and windy weather we’ve been having here in U.K. this winter.
Bent asked if she had bullfighting bloodlines, but to be honest, although I know her breeding, having bought her from her breeder in England, I don’t know enough about PRE bloodlines to answer his question.
I do know that no really bad things have ever happened to her, unless you count accidentally feeding her a mouldy carrot. I think it’s easy to imagine that all “hot” behaviours are due to a past bad experience, when actually it’s genetic.
So, I think over my time with Fiona we have definitely gone the extra mile together. She has made me think carefully about how best to train her, and I’ve really enjoyed the process taking my time and providing plenty of grass nut biscuit rewards while slowly devising ways to help her with balance, coordination, confidence and relaxation. Hopefully she’s enjoyed working on those things with me too.
It might even have been an extra Swedish mile we have travelled together I think.
1 x Swedish mile = 10 kilometres.
1 x Nautical mile = 1.158 English miles.
1 x English mile = 1.609 Kilometres.
Before you begin to train, you must keep your horses eco environment healthy.
Before you look at the environment, you must take care of your grass.
Before you look at your grass, you must look at the soil quality.
📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://www.adamlikhan.com/2019/11/literally-saving-earth-by-regenerating.html?fbclid=IwAR2bVptnlUhhR6Y643Ya3VgksZ3uBCpgVJu5yJsERYx9SjDyyeQ_VQYuXkg_aem_AcL39_qy_XBiH2ht-OYtx1Fycn8rj6cngwPe4rKKzMtDXCIX4wTFHPUG9n4WfxtW298&m=1
Grassland is the largest ecosystem on land, so what happens to grassland is important. And today, 70% of grasslands on earth have either tu...
Dropping and over arousal while clicker training is not uncommon with geldings and stallions during their training. Mares sometimes show a similar emotional response represented as deep and fruity intense nickering sounds.
Dopamine is produced when the horse understands that there are no threats and no unpleasant consequences likely in this new style of training situation and this dopamine release causes the neural reward system to become activated, or maybe in some cases over-activated.
This is especially noticeable in horses who are new to R+ especially when the horse has a strong R- (Negative Reinforcement/Pressure & Release) training background. When trained with strong R-/ Pressure&Release, horses either show angry and defensive behaviours, or depressed shut down behaviours (which looks like dull eyed flat obedience) and it is important to remember that it is the horses themselves who determine what constitutes “strong” R-.
During positive reinforcement training, the horses are given a “voice” and are allowed to openly say “no thanks, not now” and be respected for that decision, when previously that was not allowed and really seeing the horse, handing over control, giving decision making back to the horse, is a very pleasant experience for all learners.
Training a horse is the study of one, but it needs an overlay of equine ethology and psychology, breed genetic types and the individuals histories.
It is not anthropomorphic to describe emotional states relatable to our own emotions, as mammalian brains have more similarities than differences, all using the affective emotional responses (emotional states) of SEEKING, PLAY, CARE, GRIEF, RAGE, FEAR and LUST. These definitions are as described by neuroscience studies, much of which was conducted by the late Jaak Panksepp in his Affective Neurosicience works.
When the horses opinions are noticed and respected, at first there can be a backlash phase which might look like “what if I say no to that”? This period will usually pass quite fast with a consistently high reward rate, rewarding the yes answers and the no’s too in order to reduce coercion risks, maintain engagement and avoid putting the horse in a situation where they must choose between a rock and a hard place.
A new more optimistic outlook and improved motivation, resilience to mistakes and a more optimistic mood will pervade during training times and human-centred or husbandry activities. It’s important to remember that our interpretations of intentions may not match what the horse thinks our intentions might be.
With sufficiently high rates of low value reinforcement, the horse becomes less and less over aroused by the pleasant training time, but for many geldings the “dropping” evidence never quite goes away. Horses, like elephants never forget, but provided training interactions stay pleasant for the horse, the memories will be buried more and more deeply as time passes.
The longer and more deeply the horse has experienced being over controlled, the longer it seems to take to resolve the problems surrounding dropping and over arousal.
Similar emotions which expressed repeatedly over time are then described as moods and ideally we would want our horses mood during training to be optimistic rather than pessimistic. Emotions and the longer term moods are triggered by memories, current human activities, the wider immediate environment, a tendency for optimism or pessimism, with living arrangements, diet, and presence of pain as underlying factors changing perceptions of all other things going on.
If horses have felt silenced in the past, feeling safe to voice fears or preferences can be very empowering and may feel like an almost intoxicating experience of joy for some who have previously felt strongly oppressed. The Genie is being let out of the Lamp and this may feel like a challenging time for the human.
Over control and fear inducing event setting incidents may have occurred very early in the horses life and may have been inadvertent or seemingly mild and insignificant at the time. Behaviours learned in very early life will have the most long lasting effect, and are likely to be carried through into maturity if not addressed adequately.
In the end, the training of the horses needs the hearts of the humans to be wanting the very best for their horses. The language, scientific terms and academic knowledge are not unimportant, but the delivery of the training is what really counts and some people are naturally good at this “Horse Training Art” despite them having relatively little knowledge of the academic aspects underpinning what they are doing, but of course, the Academic Scientific knowledge always helps.
Positive Reinforcement Training isn’t a Woowoo training approach, or made up by one individual or another, it is based on tested scientific facts, but it is still very possible to apply R+ training concepts badly and also possible to apply them really well.
There are a lot of people professing to teach forms of Positive Reinforcement, but it is wise to choose help from someone who has been out there doing it rather than just talking about it, or with limited experience with few horses. If the teacher is always correcting and controlling, this is always going to be off putting for the learner, whether horse or human. If the trainer advertises on videos claiming to be an R+ trainer, but reveals by the horses body language and tools involved to be actually using strong R- or Pressure/Release more than they’re using R+, then it may not be as positive an experience as they are suggesting for the horse. Watch with the sound off to get a clearer picture of the horses responses, (and the only important thing is the horses emotional responses to the trainers’ stimuli) rather than listening to the trainers words or nice music.
We don’t have to clone ourselves to become like any particular trainer, we can still be ourselves, and I choose to apply my own imperfect version of R+ to the AAoR by Bent Branderup, applying all L.I.M.A Principles as I find it a perfect fit, with the AAoR already being a non-forceful gentle, gradual way to enhance the horses physical abilities, equally suitable for old or young, large or small horses destined for any role in life, whether ridden, driven or unridden.
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I’ve only just looked at the clinic photos of my own lessons with Uralita from Ylvie Fros visit here at end of August, 1st September. It’s always a good idea to look at how things were going from another perspective such as a video or camera as it’s so hard to evaluate all aspects of the training sessions in the moment, in real time. Invariably I see elements which were better than I expected and some which were less ideal. I do find that a producing and business like “corporate attitude” adopted by many training styles destroys the art of riding and training, and far prefer a more evolutionary loose and less business like approach, and this is often harder to cultivate in a clinic setting. Training horses needs emotional intelligence, accurate interpretation and heart combined with the horse and rider biomechanics of posture alignment and balance. But in the end a water colour which is running slightly looks far better than an accurate painting by numbers artwork.
Behaviour which looks spectacular during a training session is usually fear driven. 🙀 Good training looks calm, and quiet because it avoids pushing animals over their emotional or physical thresholds. 😌 This does NOT mean progress is slow! 🚫 It starts slow at first 🐌 with a new behaviour or new horsey recruit, but rapidly picks up pace ⚡️and then it snowballs, ⛄️ positively affecting all future unrelated training scenarios, 🥰 making horses become more optimistic 🤗 about new situations and challenges and so optimism triumphs over pessimism. 😎🦄❤️
Concentration face or Pain face? My dad was a classical concert pianist and organist. I grew up seeing him practicing and I sat beside him on the organ stool when I was very young. At times, he looked tense, had a clenched jaw, tight lips, frowning, furrowed brow and hard focussed eyes, which was his concentration face, especially seen when he worked through the trickiest few bars. He practiced the difficult passages many times until he was happy with them and when he stopped practicing, he looked up, swung round on the stool, grinning broadly, his eyes twinkling and asked how it sounded. Proficient musicians learn to mask their concentration faces during performances or they may need them less once proficient, but during the learning process, acquiring the mechanical muscle memory, accuracy and confidence to perform reliably, the face reflects the effort and focus required. A horse of course, is not signing up to learning powerful gymnastic movements in the same way a human musician might be, though young children are often signed up to learn instruments by their parents. I think for some horses while they’re first learning how to coordinate and balance a tricky new movement, the concentration face may be seen. After time, their confidence builds and the concentration face reduces or disappears. The horses face must be carefully observed, monitoring how it changes with different movements while training. If the horses face reverts back to a soft and relaxed, especially the immediate softening of the eye when the effort stops, it tells us that this particular movement was very difficult for the horse and it must be either reduced in difficulty, lessened in duration or limited in repetitions of the movement or perhaps training that movement in that form, at that location must be stopped completely. Dressage training is like power lifting, combined with a non combative martial art, yoga, gymnastics and dance, and it’s supposed to be “for the horse,
The R+ AAoR (and more) Discussion Group. A supportive group of people meeting to discuss horsey challenges and mysteries in a safe space. Once a month at Stonehaven. My own horses will provide a demo some weeks. £10 per person. First meeting will be: 11.30 - 2.30 Saturday 12th November Private message me to let me know you’re coming please.
Foxy is working on lifting his chest up more and practicing gentle school halts. Less is definitely more with Fox. He enjoys this softer style of work so much that he wants to go in and work rather than walk past the gate and go to his field. #kindhorsetrainer #academicartofridingbybentbranderup #academicartofriding
Puppagility. Swap grass nuggets for chicken, hooves for paws and it all comes together quite nicely. This puppy training has really shown up even more clearly how the dog training world is 100 million years ahead of the horse training world.
The herd being led in by me and Rafago this morning. #kindhorsetrainer
There’s something so lovely about walking up with the herd. Rafago leads us, faithful Uralita stays by my side, and Storm walks at his own pace. Training but not training. #positivereinforcementtraining #academicartofriding
Today I was re-visiting some training from last summer. Nothing wrong with Felixs’ memory!
I’ve really enjoyed working on restoring this horses confidence and becoming happy to take a bridle and bit again. She’s a Tigger horse who leaps into doing new things with all 4 feet, then realises she’s got herself into something she isn’t happy about and becomes sour, angry or averse to doing that thing. She needs to slow down. Learn patience. I will continue working with her and her owner at her home after spending an intensive few weeks of training here at Stonehaven.
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I am a student of The Academic Art of Riding Bent Branderup and the first person in UK to have passed the Academic Art of Riding by Bent Branderup Longing and Groundwork test.
I am an EET Level 3 (Enlightened Equitation Teacher, Heather Moffet) for rider seat, balance, and correct timing and application of aids and lateral work.
I train our horses using Positive Reinforcement methods and I have studied directly with Ben Hart, Shawna Karrasch and Karolina Westlund-Friman, recently completing her ILLIS ABC Advanced Animal Training course. I am a member of the International Association of Animal Behaviour Consultants.
I have studied The Equine Touch to Level 3 and use this to good effect with all horse in my care Private lessons £45 per lesson at my yard, or £45 per lesson plus travelling time
