My friend
was expressing frustration the other day. Her horse had
developed a pattern of behavior that was stalling his training.
Every time a certain situation came up -- in this case,
jogging slowly – the horse made the same mistake.
And, every time, the rider made the same correction. The
correction that my friend was using had been taught her
by her instructor, and so she was certain that this was
the way to deal with the problem. Except it wasn’t
working.
There
is no one right way to train a horse. Each horse is an individual,
and each of us are too. Even something that works well for
one rider might not for another. There are just too many
variables to prescribe “one correct way” to
do something.
Training
a horse requires us to think about what we are doing and
how we are doing it. When encountering a problem, one of
the first things to recognize is if the problem occurs consistently,
then to evaluate our reactions. Are we teaching the horse
to repeat the problem behavior? If so, what else can we
do to train in a different behavior? This requires a rider
who is willing to analyze her own reactions, and be willing
to try something different.
I
personally practiced this a lot when I was retraining Thoroughbred
race horses. On the track, taking hold of the reins and
pulling means to speed up – not the reaction that
most of us want or expect from our saddle horses! When I
insisted on pulling the reins if I wanted to slow down,
I spent a great deal of time zooming around the arena! It
doesn’t matter that the traditional school of thought
is that horses should slow down when we take up the reins
(and in truth, many do not). If I wanted the ex-race horses
I was riding to have a nice soft canter, I was going to
have to get it another way.
I started
by suppling at the trot so that I could pick up one rein
and get the horse to give in his neck and poll. Then I added
in a seat cue – sitting down deeper and slowing my
seat -- and rewarding the horse if he slowed in the slightest.
When the horse understood the cue at the trot, we progressed
to the canter. The tricky part was trusting that, given
time, the horse would actually slow on my suppling and seat
cue. The desire to pick up those reins was hard to resist
when we were galloping around but eventually the colt would
slow a bit, and I’d reward him, and we’d slowly
achieve the original goal of a controlled canter. Are there
other ways to retrain a race horse? I’m sure there
are. But if I’d insisted on using the “correct
way” I’d learned as a child, I’d still
be flying around out of control (and my Thoroughbreds would
not have gone on to compete successfully in Pleasure and
Trail).
So,
my advice for my frustrated friend was to try something
different. The correction she was issuing when her horse
jogged too fast wasn’t having the desired effect,
but something else might. And certainly she shouldn’t
go along repeating the same mistake until both she and her
horse were ready to explode.
Doris Eraldi of Eraldi Training in Potter Valley specializes
in Pleasure and Equitation horses. She can be contacted
at 707-743-1337, or by e-mail dyan@eraldi.net.
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