“Every second, you’re either schooling or un-schooling your horse. There’s no in-between.” – George Morris 2013

This is a quote that was posted on a FB forum. For those that don’t know Mr Morris, he is a famous American show jumper, a trainer and clinician, often thought of as the father of modern American show jumping. In any case, he is an icon of the sport.

It is not a quote that I can agree with. I presume the quote intended to convey the notion that horses learn from everything we do and, therefore, we should be aware that in everything we do we are either schooling them in the things we want them to know or don’t want them to know. It’s one or the other.

My problem with the quote is the term ‘un-schooling.’ It infers that a horse can unlearn something. It literally states the way we school a horse has the potential to eradicate what we have previously schooled. From the comments of people on FB, I know that many of them think a horse can un-learn, as well as learn. But I believe this is not true.

Has any of you tried to unlearn something that you previously learned? I have been using calculators for decades, but I have not un-learned how to use logarithmic tables or add numbers in my head. I haven’t played soccer since I was a teenager, but despite being a little rusty, the basic skills have stayed with me much more than  if I had never learned soccer skills. Many people learn other languages without un-learning a language they already speak.

We also don’t forget things; we just don’t always recall them. That’s not a contradiction. Memories are rarely eliminated from the brain. They remain part of our central database. Our trouble with memory is that sometimes we fail to be able to access those memories. They exist, we just don’t know where or how to find them.

Memory can be like going to a huge library to look up Boyle’s Law for the behaviour of a perfect gas (PV=k; P is pressure, V is volume and k is a constant) and not knowing how to search the library database. Often you’ll give up your search before finding the equation to Boyle’s Law. But the information is still there; you just don’t know how to find it.

How many times have you been reminded of something, that you thought was long forgotten, by hearing a tune or somebody retelling a story or looking at an old photo?

When we teach a horse something and they learn it, it is never forgotten or un-learned. It is always there to be accessed when needed. We just need to know how to access it.

This works for us and against us. It means that a behaviour is never eliminated. If we train a horse to stop bucking or pulling on the reins, we don’t fix it by eliminating the behaviour. Rather, we shape a new behaviour over the top, where those things don’t occur. Nevertheless, we have not eradicated the bucking or the pulling on the reins. They still exist. The only thing we have achieved is to teach a new way to respond by changing the thoughts of the horse. The moment the feelings re-surface that caused the old thoughts to come back, the horse will begin to buck or pull on the reins once again.

However, there is another side to this phenomenon. It means that if we instil some good responses in our horse (like being soft to the reins or not bucking) and then somebody comes along and screws it up for us, we are never too far from having our ideal horse back again if we work it right.

I think this underlines the importance of ensuring we do our best with our horses from the start. If the first thing we teach a horse is the way we always want things to be, then no matter how much rubbish is taught to the horse later, it is not impossible to re-tap into the brilliance we once had. It’s still always there waiting to emerge once again with the right help.

In my experience, the opposite is not so easy. When a horse has been taught negative behaviours early in its experiences with people, those lessons learned remain inside the horse no matter how much skill and time has been devoted to altering them. The new schooling covers over the old schooling but does not eliminate it. It requires vigilance to guard against the early negative behaviours surfacing again. It’s always an ongoing responsibility.

I believe what Morris was trying to say is that every interaction we have with a horse is a learning experience for them (and us) and we need to be aware of this to make sure the lessons learned are ones we want them to learn. However, people need to understand that by teaching a horse one thing does not mean we have un-taught the thing that came before.