05/22/2024
An excerpt from The BOOK; The WAY We Work with Mustangs (and Horses).
".............Iām reminded of that void with an incident in 2016.
We were at a clinic put on by a Trainer that I knew. She was going to āuseā our gray Gamble, our young Morab (part Morgan, part Arabian) for some of horse training demonstration.
Gamble was a people horse (Gamble has since moved on but I see him occasionally because he is local. Heās a jumper, runs barrels and poles, part of an equestrian drill team and just an all-round good horse and companion). He loves people. Has all the traits of an Arabian and the Morgan. He had competed in Endurance, an easy keeper and for the most part well behaved!
Anyways, at the clinic, the Trainer decided to demonstrate her method of teaching a horse to back up.
Her technique, typically pressure and release. Standing in front of Gamble, she aggressively almost violently shook the lead rope which transferred up the lead rope up to the clip to the halter. Gamble immediately raised his head trying to avoid the banging of the clip against his chin! The more she shook that lead rope, the more the clip hit his chin, the higher his head went, WITHOUT TAKING A SINGLE STEP BACKWARDS! This went on for a full 3-4 minutes with not a single step backwards.
Taking a brief break, the Trainer went at it again for another 3-4 minutes with the same result!
Gamble was simply confused! He could not understand what she was asking him to do and his focus was to try and avoid the uncomfortable situation by simply raising his head. Needless to say, Gamble never did back up and the Trainer explained and declared Gamble was stubborn and needed more work!
It was a little bit of the light bulb going on for me. It wasnāt about Pressure and Release; it was about helping the horse understand what Iām asking them to do. It was about the mental approach in place of pressure.
Throughout this book weāll refer to the mustang but 90% of what is being provided can be applicable to the domestic horse.
Frequently we will interchange those two termsā¦ā¦ horse and mustang. This is with purpose as a reminder that the mustang is very much different than the domestic horse. It also is a reminder that we are definitely dealing with two different animals but with commonalities that can be, and are similar but still can be quite different.
The major difference is the mustangās higher awareness of its surroundings and environment necessary for its survival. The mustangās acute awareness for the need of the 3Fsā¦ā¦ Fear, Freeze, Flight......................"
