Most of us appreciate that all horses are different. When training, what works for one horse may not be the best approach for another. The almost infinite variations of a horse’s nature combined with their varied experiences (nature plus nurture) mean the chance is almost zero in finding two horses responding identically to identical training.
But to complicate the training process even further, it may surprise you to know that there are at least two sides to each horse. Not only are horses different from each other, but there are different sides to each horse that require a different approach to training - a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome. Well, that’s not completely true, but it can appear that way.
What to do?
What I am talking about is the side of the horse we see when we try to teach it something for the first time versus the horse we have when it already knows what we are asking but the effort it puts into making it work is pretty poor.
To clarify what I mean, let me give you an example.
I’m sure many of you have ridden horses that are sluggish to move forward from the rider’s leg. A slight squeeze of the leg hardly gets noticed on the horse’s radar and it is not until the rider thumps the sides of the horse hard enough to almost crack a rib that the horse reluctantly walks forward. Now, in frustration or exhaustion, the rider finally succumbs to carrying a whip. Suddenly, without even using the whip, the horse is bright-eyed and alert and ready to respond to the slightest touch from the rider’s leg. You know the horse still understands how to respond to the rider’s leg because the whip didn’t even have to be used. The rider’s legs had not lost their meaning, they had simply lost their importance. It was only the threat of the whip that gave the leg more importance.
That horse understands that when a rider applies the leg aid, it is being asked to go forward. When it was first started under saddle, somebody taught it that the feel of the leg means “go”. No doubt, the horse learned the proper response through patient, slow and steady increments. If the trainer knew what they were doing the horse would have learned to respond to slight pressure from the rider. There would have been no mixed message or confusion. It would have been clear that leg means forward. But now, some months or years later, the responsiveness to the rider’s leg has almost vanished. The horse knows what is being asked, but the response has become dull. The care factor has been lost.
This is not the horse’s fault. I expect the trainer who started the horse did a good job and clarifying the meaning of a gentle feel from a rider’s legs. But somewhere along the line, the subsequent training has killed the care factor and taught the horse to be dull and unresponsive.
To fix the problem and help the horse understand once again to be responsive to the rider’s leg, do you go back to the beginning and repeat what the first trainer did, OR do you try a different approach?
Remember, at the start of teaching the horse what the rider’s leg means the horse did not know the answer. However, later the horse did know but didn’t care.
This is just one example, but it occurs in almost everything we do. I see horses that use to load well into a trailer, but no longer do. I see horses that use to stand still to be mounted, but now fidget. I see horses that use to be great to catch, but the owner now needs a bucket of carrots. What the horse once knew and understand has been damaged.
It’s the same horse and the same task, but different problem. One horse, one task, two sides.
What do you do when the damage is done and you want it better? Do you go back to the beginning and start again since it worked pretty well when the lesson was first taught or do you come at the issue from a different direction?