Welcome back to instalment number 2 of my young horse series …
As promised we are going to look at successful leading, the picking up hind feet may have to roll to another time or this would read like war and peace not a light hearted informative blog…
But before we get stuck in to this I want to put out a ‘be kind’ notice .. the training methods I use are based in the school of Equine Learning Theory, and I also combine some R+, reward based, approach. I’m by no means a purist, but I have found (in my opinion) a balance of how to train my horses without having to ‘flood’ them, forcing them, shutting them down, but giving them options to respond and still have choices and personality in the ‘game’ we are playing,
Let’s get started …
The key to successful training is consistency of approach, clarity of the question and allowing a response from the horse to find the answer (seems simple right!). When asking a question you need to have prepared the situation so you are around 80% sure the horse will give you something close to what you wanted. When you are working with a horse it has to be a 2 way conversation, and if the horse has no foundations (as discussed in my previous blog) we have nothing to return to as a comfortable place when things get tough.
In my experience most training blips are as a result of a lack of consistent approach, no clarity or asking questions that the horse has no possible (desirable) answer to, and no ‘safe’ place in the training to revert back to for the horse and handler when things get tricky.
Let’s dive in to Mabel’s leading issues …
Mabel’s first default was to run, fast and froward; leading the dance of doom by loading her body in to her right shoulder , if she didn’t know how to cope. Pretty sensible if you ask me; horses are flight animals .. they are hard wired to get out of there, fast, if things aren’t working out for them ! It’s kept them alive for hundreds of thousands of years. However less disable when you have a small human leading you to a field and you get scared of leaves rustling or birds falling out of trees ( and yes we have lots of pheasants around us and they regularly just fall out of hedges 🤦🏼)
I can hear the calls in the back row, lead her in a bridal, a control head collar or chiffny … my answer is no thanks, while control head collars have their place and so do bridals; however, in my opinion in this situation, I couldn’t think of anything worse at this stage in Mabel’s education than putting a bit in this young horse’s mouth, so if she decided to ‘do the do’ and ‘leg it’ all the pressure would be in her mouth … to me this feels like a recipe for disaster (if not now then longer term).
So where to start …
We had to teach stop, and stop is essentially back, but you stop, stopping before you get back (bear with me😂) …
Supper simple approach here, closing your fingers on the reins for riding (either bitted or bitless) is stop .. you close your hands on the reins while riding the expectation is the horse slows down and ultimately stops. The next option of this aid would be step back. Remembering that the aid must be elastic and have a definite release - by no means is this a ‘pull to a solid force’
So I sent about to teach Mabel a back cue while stood stationary; there are many ways to do this but I always use pressure on the head collar/ halter / reins and either a touch on the chest or the front legs.
1st up .. safety … gloves, hat, and appropriate horse safe boots- this lovely young horse awareness of her limbs was limited (proprioception- self aware of your body in space), I got walked in to stood on a lot for a couple of weeks !
We started in a small ‘safe’ area, the yard worked for us, but a stable is also fine. With Mabel standing stationary I apply gentle pressure in a backward way to the head-collar, touch her chest or front legs, and mark and release on the desired result. I use a verbal mark of ‘yes’. Important to note, the desired result initially was quite small, obviously the goal was step back but initially a wight shift backwards (minimal response) can be accepted, and then built up to the step back. I use a sick/whip to do the touch to the chest or legs but you could use your hand on the chest.
*Note the whip is used as an extension of my arm/ hand to touch areas of the horse a bit like ‘pressing a button’.
Progressing to stepping back, until you get a clean step back from a light response .. we now had the starting of a ‘stop’ cue.
After practicing for a bit we then transferred this to walking on, and then stop, using the same head collar pressure and chest / front leg touch, mark and release; we used for the back to now get Mabel to stop (later progressed to walk on, stop rein back - an amazing exercise but it was one for the future !)
In reality this happened very quickly - within 2 days .. doing a few minutes x2 times a day when bringing her in and out of the field, we then transferred this to walking the farm tracks to practice the new ‘stop’.
The value of this foundation skill has been our saving grace and helped at each stage of our journey. It’s also set a question that is answered very simply for Mabel at anytime she may feel nervous or her energy is slightly more external than one would like! Including off loading from the trailer where Mabel found this super exciting initially - we had the answer to slow the feet !
Further progression of this was to then teach walk on from a cue and ultimately underpinned the journey to teaching a range of lateral work from the ground.
For more information about my ground work coaching get in touch ….
If you want to follow an online training programme ( that can be supported by in person coaching to) check out the ground work certification course on www.dressagetraining.tv
Next time I'll share my journey with Ride With Your Mind and why biomechanics, and effective teaching is the missing link in riding and coaching ( I’ll keep that one short I promise 😂🤦🏼)
For now ‘Njoy your horses …
It never gets easier .., you just get more equipped !
Picture of the beauty herself
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