MAKING HORSES FEEL BETTER BY HELPING THEM FEEL SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE

MAKING HORSES FEEL BETTER BY HELPING THEM FEEL SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE

I just got home from a great clinic in Victoria, Australia. I really enjoy showing people how easy it is to make most horses feel better. It is not complicated. You don’t need to be an animal communicator that channels spirit guides. You also don’t have wait for your horse to yawn, lay down or “switch” into the parasympathetic nervous system.

It is simple. You ask for basic responses to the halter, reins/bit and legs aids and you let the horse tell you if it UNDERSTANDS and how it FEELS about being asked that response. Then once you LISTEN to them you set about helping them understand better and in doing so, help them feel better! That is it!

The shear majority of horses that have some issue such as anxiety, aggression, laziness, heavy in the hands, tension, spooking, bucking, rearing, or any type of inconsistent performance…are like the way they are as they are not feeling successful at navigating the pressure we are applying to them we work with them. This means the horse is perceiving unrelenting or inescapable pressure and it upsets them greatly.

When this occurs two things happen. Firstly, they don’t associate being ridden or handled in a positive way because they experience discomfort. This makes them feel very negatively towards what you are asking them to do and they get motivated to work out how to avoid working with you or places or situations they associate with experiencing discomfort. Secondly, they can develop a training neurosis or learned helplessness which can present as worry/anxiety, aggression or shutdown behaviour. Whether you have a horse with a negative association or training neurosis or learned helplessness the solution is always the same – MOTIVATE and TEACH them HOW to navigate what we ask of them and HELP them feel SUCCESSFUL! This will profoundly change the horse and they can start to build confidence and trust in you.

Here is a video of a gorgeous participant and her horse at my last clinic. The horse could be difficult and distracted to ride and would either be rushing and tense or refusing to move. So, we started to ask the horse questions so he could tell us what was going on. This video shows us assessing the horse’s response to the bit pressure in the mouth and seeing how well the horse followed the rein aid (i.e. how well it followed the feel of the bit/reins). The horse told us loud and clear that when he feels bit pressure, he braces his jaw and locks his neck. With lots of strength we could bend his neck around! Therefore, to steer and guide this horse around he has been enduring a lot of pressure on his mouth. You should NOT need your muscles to steer a horse, you apply a gentle cue and they should soften and position their neck and body where you want them to go. We don’t have to physically manipulate them, we just communicate what we want THEM to do whether that be direction, flexion, body position/posture, gait etc.

But there is more, the bracing he engaged to protect himself from the pressure would have consequences right through his entire body which has ramifications to his biomechanics and comfort. Therefore, in just this first question we asked, the horse has revealed a major lack of understanding. This lack of understanding is causing the horse to endure a lot of unnecessary pressure and it is responding by trying to protect itself by bracing.

What is brilliant about this footage is that it shows how easy it is to help this horse. In just 15 minutes the horse is following the lateral response to the reins is improving, the brace is not being triggered and the horse is learning to wait. There is no longer any need for strength to bend him and he is experiencing way less pressure in his mouth and through his body. He is learning how to successfully navigate the bit, follow the reins and CONTROL what he is enduring.

The only horses that I have found that do not have a consistent response to this approach have all had soundness issues. This is because just being worked created discomfort.

The more you work with horses the more you appreciate how gentle, kind, accepting and incredibly trainable they are. They just get confused and uncomfortable and this messes with their perceptions, motivations and mental health. Training them in a way that makes them feel successful in navigating you is the key.