You may have heard the saying “reward the smallest try”. It is a great concept and works well in training. However, the effectiveness of this concept depends on people being able to recognize a “try”.
There are a lot of different clues that a horse gives off to indicate their ever-changing focus. The most common and easily identifiable are the eyes and the ears. But others include posture, movements of feet, flexion, etc.
It really is just common sense that we should do our best to prepare a horse for what is ahead. I don’t understand the dogma of leaving horses virtually untouched until we are ready to put them to work. We send our children to school before we send them into the workforce.
If a lesson ends with no more clarity than it began, not only has the horse learned nothing positive, but we also run the risk of making things worse. Doing nothing is usually a better option than doing something badly
