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Training
~ Expectations ("Printer
Friendly" version of this page)
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If you were trail riding your horse in the forest or open range land, dismounted and took the bridle off your horse what would happen? What is your expectation of the horse’s behavior in this situation? Many of you would say that this would be the last time that you ever saw your horse alive. My expectation would be that my horse would stand quietly until I asked for something else to happen. These are my expectations. I have been in the middle of open rangeland and dismounted only to have my horse startled by an aggressive dog. My horse made a large circle around me (round penning), and I was able to yield her and get her to hook on and come back. All of this from body language without me having to move. This was with a three year old horse that had six months of training. You and your horse can get to this point too. When a horse is afraid or startled, you want their first reaction to be to look to you for what to do, this is the concept of support. You don’t want them to run into you or through you to flee from whatever "spooked" them. If a horse has your "respect" and looks to you for support, they will first look to see if the noise or movement creates a reaction in you – if you are calm they will be calm. If your first reaction is to get "big", grab the lead rope or rein and expect that the horse will over-react – it probably will. You must build the relationship with the horse before you can gain their respect. It’s real easy to train a horse that whenever a loud noise occurs they should get nervous, throw their head up in the air, spin and flee the area. It’s equally easy to teach that same horse to remain calm when a new situation arises. If you project a catastrophe when a new situation arises that’s what you’ll get.
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We
have done clinics where we ask people to stand next to their horse in an arena.
We put a metal garbage can in the middle of the arena and set off fireworks
inside it. The goal of this exercise is to have your horse stand quiet next
to you while the fireworks go off. Most horses can’t do this without a
lot of groundwork. But, after exposure to this and proper communication with
the horse most people are able to do this exercise while on their horse in a
relaxed posture. As they say on TV "Professional Horse Trainer – do
not try this at home".