Not too long ago I heard a very experienced dressage rider and judge giving an ear-bashing to her friend about what happened at a horsemanship clinic that she had recently attended. She had said that it wasn’t normally her thing to go to that type of trainer anyway, but she had heard about him and was curious enough to watch for a day. She said she knew it was a mistake when she saw all those horses being ridden around without ever asking for a contact and having to do hindquarter disengagement which for her was the antithesis of what riding should be about. But the final straw was when the clinician did a demonstration on how to teach a horse to bow. For the lady doing the talking, this was the ultimate indignity for a horse. Her view was that nothing showed more disrespect for a horse than to have them perform tricks for the amusement of people. 

This was not the first time I had heard this notion voiced. When I was a kid, Walt and Amos were always playing around with teaching tricks to horses.  

I remember one Sunday when the owner of the riding school had agreed to have a busload of kids from the local centre visit and pat horses. Walt offered to entertain the kids with a few tricks. I particularly remember Walt fumbling around with trying to saddle his horse Banger and fussing with putting the saddle pad on straight and then as he turned away to pick up the saddle, Banger would turn around and grab the corner of the pad in his teeth and tear it off his back and throw the pad on the ground. Walt would turn back to his horse ready to swing the saddle on and see what had happened. He’d put the saddle down in frustration and dust of the saddle pad and place it back on Banger’s back carefully. Banger would stand quietly without shifting, but as soon as Walt’s back was turned to get the saddle again Banger would whisk that pad off and throw it away. Walt would pretend he didn’t know what was happening and start again with his most frustrated expression. 

The next time he turned to collect the saddle, he would quickly swing back to stare at Banger who would be standing quietly and not even look at Walt. Walt would spin back to look at Banger two or three times as he went for the saddle, but Banger was just not moving. Then as Walt bent to pick up the saddle, around would come Banger’s teeth and throw that pad in the air to land four or five feet away. This would have the kids howling with laughter. 

Then Walt put his saddle back on the ground, picked up the pad and put it on Banger’s back again. He kept one hand on the pad as he tried to stretch for the saddle with his other hand. Of course, Walt made sure the saddle was out of reach. Walt would stretch and stretch until it was obvious that he had to let go of the saddle pad if he was going to pick up the saddle. Just as he took his hand off Banger’s back, Banger whipped around and pulled the pad off his back, dropped it on the ground and then stood on it with his left foreleg. Now Walt pretended to be mad and the kids were laughing so hard at him. He tried to pull the pad from under Banger’s hoof, but that didn’t work. He then heaved and pulled to get Banger to lift his leg, but that didn’t work either. Walt was hopping mad now and threw his hat on the ground and said all sorts of naughty things about his horse. 

Finally, Walt has arrange for one of the kids (about ten years old) that boarded her horse at the riding school pick up Banger’s foot, put the saddle pad on Banger’s back and then picked up the saddle and finished saddling Walt’s horse. Those kids from the centre were screaming with delight and thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen and Banger was the world’s smartest horse. It was as good as any Buster Keaton routine (an old silent movie star).

While I was watching the performance of Walt and Banger I stood near a couple of the teachers from the centre. Towards the end of the show, I overheard one teacher say to the other, “Look at that poor horse. He is such a nice fellow, but those tricks are so undignified. I don’t like it when horses get treated like toys.”

This statement took me aback somewhat because I knew Walt would be the last person on earth to treat a horse without respect. He often had more respect for horses than he did for most humans. It made me wonder why the teacher would think such a thing. And it occurred to me a little later that people equate teaching tricks with circus training or caged animals. They often associate trick training of an animal with bears tethered on chains or lions housed in cages little bigger than an office desk. 

But I think with horses it is different. Although, I know there are some pretty cruel approaches to training trick horses (I’ve seen some), the approach to teaching tricks to horses is generally no different than that used to train for dressage, jumping, harness, etc. Even the less desirable methods to trick training are no different from the less desirable methods used in other disciplines. And if you look at it from a horse’s point of view there is no reason why he would think that learning to bow is less dignified than learning to half pass. A horse does not weigh up which training is more worthy of his time and effort than another. It’s all the same to him. It is only humans putting human values on such things that denote one form of horse training to have more worth than any other.

The other question that begs for an answer is what is a trick?. For me, a trick can be defined as anything we get a horse to do that he doesn’t feel ok about. I have talked before about horses learning a job. They do what they do because they have learned that is their lot in life. It can be an everyday task like being caught or learned movements like jumping a fence. These can all be trained in a way they make them a trick and not something that the horse is a willing participant. If you accept this broad definition of what is a trick, then you are going to have to accept that every horse is a trick horse.

When you see horses competing in dressage, jumping, western pleasure, halter classes, racing, you see trick horses. When you see horses run to the gate to be caught, standing still to be saddled and mounted, ridden through a puddle and accept to be tied to a post, you mostly see trick horses. When you see a horse being broken in by a trainer, accept a bridle to be mouthed and go into a trailer to go home, you mostly see a trick horse. Trick horses are everywhere in every discipline.

It is pretty rare to see a horse doing dressage, eventing, trail, showing, etc, that is not just doing the job they know how to do but with little investment or effort into what they are doing. You see it sometimes, but not as much as you should – even at the top.

I think one of the biggest sleight-of-hand illusions or misconceptions that people can have is to see a horse being worked with no ropes, halters, bridles, etc., and think they the horse is a willing, happy partner because they think it always has the option to run away if he doesn’t like it. For many (not all, but many) the horse has been trained to feel just as confined and trapped with no halter or bridle as he would if he was wearing a halter or bridle. He has learned he is subject to the human’s will, not his own will. The liberty work becomes a trick.

The thing that makes a horse a trick horse is the lack of a soft and willing partnership. It’s not the exercise or movement that defines a trick horse, but the feelings the horse carries about performing the exercise or movement. A reining spin can be just as much a trick as a horse standing with all four feet on a tiny pedestal. If their insides are churning over or their minds are tuning out while their outside appears to be polite and obedient, it’s a trick. Anytime we ask something of a horse that they don’t give willingly, we are training them to perform a trick. The better we get at recognizing the difference, the better the performance and partnership we get from our horses.