One
of the things that separates the riders from the horsemen,
is how they handle the unexpected – the spooks, jumps,
bucks and startles of dealing with an animal who’s
whole being is based on Fight or Flight. It is safe to say
that anyone who rides regularly will experience these events.
How one handles themselves, and therefore their horse, depends
on the rider’s experience and preparation, especially
on her mental preparation – her plan of behavior.
As a
very young horse-lover, I remember watching my Uncle Bill
on his colt. I was riding along on the elderly gelding and
“leading the way” on one of the colt’s
first trail rides. Of course the colt didn’t go in
a straight line down the trail; he spooked sideways, leaped
suddenly forward, jumped over imaginary Grand Canyons on
the trail … and through it all Bill sat as if nothing
unusual was happening. He’s straighten the colt out,
or slow him down if needed, but he gave barely any reaction
to the sudden movements of the colt. I was impressed, and
even more impressed when an hour later the colt was walking
more-or-less quietly behind my old gelding, with only the
very occasional small spook.
I decided
right then that I wanted to have that serene, calm-in-the-face-of-danger
appearance when riding and I tried to copy Uncle Bill, but
it was many years later before I actually understood what
he was doing and how he did it.
It’s
simply human nature to react when something frightening
happens to us. Our horse moving unexpectedly usually brings
on our own flight or fight response, and we grab the saddle
horn or mane, clutch with our legs to stay on and sometimes
let out a yell or gasp. Once we get over being scared, riders
often become angry and want to punish the horse for frightening
us – and so yanking on the reins, spurring and jerking
the horse in small circles are common rider reactions to
a spooking horse. I don’t need to tell you that this
is 99% of the time a poor choice. Most horses spook because
they are scared, and having the rider join in the fear reaction
does nothing to reassure the horse and teach him that there
is nothing to worry about.
Unexpected
events on horseback are best met with a planned, practiced
response -- the kind of response that my Uncle Bill was
demonstrating. While it appeared to me at the time that
he was doing “nothing,” he was actually doing
the correct thing: responding to the colt’s actions
with feedback that was valuable to the colt, reassuring
him that Bill had everything under control, and lessening
the horse’s natural fear reaction while at the same
time building trust. It took years of riding for Bill to
develop these reactions in himself (just as it took me years
to learn the same thing even with his example) but it also
took more – he had to think about the unexpected before
it happened and have a plan of action.
Let’s
assume the problem is spooking and form a plan to deal with
that. The first part of this plan is to recognize that horses
spook – some more than others but I have never met
a horse yet that was never startled. Admit to yourself that
the horse is not spooking just to make you scared or angry.
Horses spook from fear, sometimes for fun, sometimes because
they have been trained to spook, but not just to scare the
rider and if they did it would be very simple to fix the
problem … don’t act scared. Now set a positive
goal such as “going on down the trail” or “trotting
around the arena.” Negative goals (“make the
horse not spook anymore”) don’t work. Plan your
actions to gain that goal, for example “I am going
to use my hands and legs to encourage my horse to go forward
down the trail.” Think this through until you are
sure that is going to be your reaction. If the horse spooks
sideways, you will replace the negative thought and reaction
(“he’s scaring me!”) with the positive
action of focusing your attention on sending the horse ahead.
You will be calm and in control.
This
is a very simple example. Sometimes your plan will have
to address a more basic training problem. You cannot, for
example, use your aids to send you colt forward if he does
not understand going forward. Still, all good training has
a plan and goals – they are the stepping stones to
a trained horse.
Next
month: Plans for other behaviors; bolting, bucking, or rearing.
