06/02/2024
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should...
Going back almost 15 years and as far as I’m aware, I didn’t have a bad reputation in the horse industry. I backed horses calmly and quietly. I would ‘bit’ them, put tack on, lunge them, long rein and lay over them, all before quietly getting onboard.
When schooling, I could get a horse in a frame and hold it together with relative ease and I could sit a bronc or a rear if needed. I was pretty fearless. I rode some horses in draw reins if they didn’t soften to my hand or were inconsistent in the mouth. My whip was for correcting behaviour and I certainly wasn’t afraid to use it if I thought it was necessary (or if I ran out of ideas or patience).
I took on problem horses and had a really good success rate at dealing with those problems.
Only I didn’t.
Looking back, I think it’s likely that I only dealt with the symptoms of the problems. For example, the horse that didn’t want to stand at the mounting block; I trained him easily by using ‘pressure and release’ with a well timed reward and he soon learned to go to the mounting block. What I probably didn’t see were the tight, sore, angry muscles. The stiff back, the poor posture. The atrophy under the saddle. The compromised gait. All of which contributed to his lack of willingness to be mounted.
The horses with poor mouths that I lunged in training aids, side reins, rode in draw reins, all learned that they couldn’t escape the persistence of my rein and began to comply. Eventually they learned to compensate elsewhere in their bodies, likely becoming shut down in the process.
Over the last 15 years, I have watched countless hours of horses moving. I have studied their gaits, I have felt their musculature. I have picked up hundreds of limbs, palpated countless tendons, lesions and effusions, and I have witnessed the damage caused by doing things the way that I amongst others used to do them. I can say with a degree of certainty that if you are having a problem with your horse - no matter what the symptoms are - your problem lies with a lack of one or more of the following:
(Ambi)dexterity/straightness
Strength/fitness
Balance
Coordination
Comfort
Confidence/trust
Communication
Resilience
Treating the symptoms without addressing the cause will usually mean that the human’s needs are met and the horse’s needs aren’t.
Like many trainers, I am aware of the signals a horse gives to express how it feels: whether it is threatened or whether it feels safe. I am able to quit right before I pass a threshold. I instinctively use approach and retreat techniques to foster anything from confidence through to suppleness. All of this gives me an ability to help a horse to overcome a problem very quickly, but it also gives me the ability to bend the horse to my will - a fact we must treat with great care and respect.
I could probably load a ‘problem loader’ in half the time I take, if I only used ‘pressure and release’. If only I wasn’t so aware of the delicate structures around the horse’s head and face and the potential psychological issues I could cause by forcing the horse to load without understanding it’s side of the story.
Nowadays I do things very differently. I can hear what the horse is saying through his actions. I can feel what his body tells me when I ride him, through my seat and down the rein. Which parts move well and which parts don’t. I constantly observe the entire picture. His breathing, gait, demeanour, muscle tone and posture. I read his actions and I learn from his reactions. I take everything on board and work in the most physically and mentally appropriate way for that moment. I condition his body whilst gently conditioning his mind. As a result I can desensitise a sensitive horse without waving objects like flags and tarpaulins around and I can prepare a horse for saddling without the need to send it broncing around an arena aimlessly.
Nowadays, despite having the ability to back your horse in days, I won’t. Because I know that in the long run I would’ve done your horse a disservice and any trust he placed in humans would likely start to falter when his body started to ache and his brain started to fry through being ill prepared.
I could train your horse to approach the mounting block, but only once I’m confident that his reasons for resisting mounting have been heard and his needs have been met.
Horses are the most fantastic animals. Sure, they do stupid stuff sometimes and they aren’t always the most logical(!). But they are unbelievably generous and forgiving. They are adaptable, malleable and trainable. Therefore, we owe it to them to make sure that their needs are met when we are ‘problem solving’.
They will give and give, which puts us in a position to take and take.
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
