What is trick training?

Most of us think of trick training as teaching circus-like movements like bowing or rearing. A trick can also be cute little activities like a horse nodding its head to say ‘No” or twirling a rope in its teeth. I once taught a horse to pull the saddle blanket off when I turned to reach for the saddle as a fun way to amuse a group of kids at a riding club. They screamed with laughter.

Those are the types of behaviour we think of when talking about training a horse to perform tricks. We see tricks as amusement with no real practical benefit. We also look down on trick training as being less noble than other pursuits or disciplines. Training a horse to perform tricks is something we do as a distraction from the serious business of horse training.

But what about the horse’s view of trick training? If we look at it from their perspective, I find it hard to believe they see being asked to lay down as any different to being asked to perform shoulder-in. Do horses have a snobbery gene that tells them a canter pirouette is more worthy of their time and effort than jumping through a ring of fire?

If tricks are not as noble as ‘pure’ training, I think we need a better definition of what is a trick than simply something we teaching for amusement without practical benefit - since most training of any kind is for our amusement without practical benefit.

My definition of a trick is a bit more complex and encompassing.

“Trick training is any training where we fail to train our horse to willingly change its idea when performing a task”

If you accept this definition, then most dressage, eventing, polo, reining, plowing, trail riding, team roping, barrel racing, carriage driving, show jumping, fox hunting, etc is trick training. Any training that is about creating the movement before changing the thought is trick training. Whether chasing a ball or performing piaffe - it does not matter.

Boom!

In just 21 words I have questioned 90+% of the training we do with our horses in any discipline.

Anytime we fail to inspire a horse to willingly change its thought before performing a task or movement, we are training it to do a trick.