I was asked a question during the week that might be relevant to other readers.
“I would like to talk to you about how to get a horse happy with other riders. It seems for you to have a good ride the horse had to hear what you are asking then someone else gets on and they don't have that same relationship to get the same willingness and the horse gets confused. How do you get these horses more comfortable without shutting them down?”
It’s a big question and one that affects virtually every horse at some time. Very few horses only ever have one rider for the duration of their life. Some horses have many riders each day, such as riding school horses or dude ranch horses. Others have a few different riders as they get passed from person to person.
Before we can even attempt to answer how to have a horse feel okay with different riders, it’s worth asking if it is even possible.
I believe a horse can feel okay with different riders, but there are conditions attached. For a horse to feel okay even when only ridden by one person there has to be clarity and understanding between the horse and the rider. The horse has to be very confident that when a rider asks a question, it knows the answer. This means the question and the way it is asked has to be clear and the way to answer it has to be clear. A horse can’t feel okay if it has to guess either what the question was or what the right response is. So clarity is the key to a horse feeling okay when there is only one rider. Likewise, for a horse to feel comfortable with different riders, there has to be the same degree of clarity with the different riders.
This does not necessarily mean that each rider has to present a carbon copy of another rider. It can help, but it isn’t necessary.
The less experienced a horse is, the more similar riders have to be for a horse to feel equally okay. But a horse with considerable experience at feeling comfortable with good riding can carry that okay-ness over to riders who present very differently. For example, my wife and I can ride each other's horses and create similar outcomes, but none of our horses would be fooled into thinking we were the same rider. The confidence in what is expected from them is strong enough to allow them to feel very comfortable with either of us riding them. However, it is important to remember that we both present a high degree of clarity to our horses. Without that clarity, the outcomes and the okay-ness would be very different.
So two important factor in helping a feel unconcerned by different riders is the level of experience of a horse and the ability of the riders to be clear in how they ask a horse to do something. If the clarity is missing, a horse can still be perfectly obedient, but the inner okay-ness is missing. These horses are on their way to becoming shut down. Everyday examples of this are the safe little kids' ponies. Their life is full of rider-induced confusion and the best way to cope is to shut out all the confusion and just go through the motions. Those ponies are great for kids to learn to ride, but you’ll rarely see one that is soft and responsive because they put up a wall between them and the rider, which kills the ‘try’.
One thing I want to add before I finish is that I have never learned how to make a horse feel okay about bad riding. I don’t know if it is possible for a horse to feel comfortable when carrying a bad rider. When I say “bad rider’ I’m not referring to somebody who sits badly on a horse (although that can be part of it). I am thinking more about a rider who offers contradictory signals, has a very poor feel, little sense of timing, and no clear intent in what they are trying to achieve. We have all gone through this stage at some point in our careers. However, it is riding like this that makes it impossible for a horse not to feel troubled. A horse can learn to tolerate bad riding, but I don’t know how to help it feel okay.
For the past two years, I have taught at a clinic at a resort that offers trail riding as part of their service. The majority of riders have very little experience or knowledge. The guides do their best to help the horses feel better by instructing the clients and working with the horses in between their duties of carrying customers into the mountains. Nevertheless, they are fighting a losing battle of trying to have “happy” horses that at the same time can perform the job of carrying novices every day on the trails. To have the horses feeling okay means having them awake and responsive, which puts novice riders at risk. On the other hand, to keep the customers as safe as possible the horses have to stay shut down and perform their routine each day on the trails. It is not possible to have it both ways with such an arrangement.
I believe a horse can feel okay with two or more riders that know what they are doing and have excellent feel and clarity. The more experience a horse has had with good riding and good feelings and good clarity, the easier it becomes. However, I know nothing that can be done for a horse that has to suffer bad riding and is expected to still feel emotionally comfortable and engaged in the work. We need those horses because they are the horses that in the beginning teach us how to ride, but it is sad.
How does a horse cope with different riders? This is pushing the limits.