Chase the ball - Holistic Horse Handling Program Lesson Plan Preview

Trainability is a concept we discuss a lot at Equestrian Movement.

It refers to the learning capability of the horse, as well as that willingness to learn.

A way to increase that willingness is through variety, consent, confidence and leadership; which is why the concept of “Chase the ball” came up for a lesson plan.

“Chase the ball” expands on the Liberty training outlined in the Holistic Horse Handling Program, and makes our basic, day-to-day groundwork with our horses by including a moving target. Plus, it was just plain fun to teach!

This exercise plan is designed to create confidence in our horses, as we encourage them to investigate new things. It expands their training vocabulary, and helps our horses connect with us. It also removes all pressure in the learning phase, to help strengthen the bond and connection between horse and handler.

Follow my feet - a Holsitic Horse Handling Program Lesson Plan Preview

“Follow My Feet” is a great way to establish leadership and connection with your horse, and can be used to in a variety of different scenarios.

When a horse forces our feet to move, they are taking a role in leadership. When we move their feet, we take the leadership. Follow my feet allows you to expand on that leadership and turn it into a partnership.

This can be a good exercise for our pushy, bully type horses as we can be a bit more assertive when we have the halter on but is also a light, connective exercise for our more sensitive horse and when we get a break through with our bully type horses.

As with all Holistic Horse Handling Lesson Plans, it is groundwork, this time focusing on leadership and connection.

Who Should Move Their Feet?

One of the things we talk about at Equestrian Movement is showing up for your horse as a good leader.

Being a good leader means your horse can be a good follower and look to you when feeling challenged, uncomfortable or scared for direction rather than just reacting.

However, one of the big ways a horse will test you and challenge your leadership qualities is by trying to move you and push you around.

If your horse can move your feet, they are controlling where you are going so that makes them the leader. You are following their cues. However when you recognise that your horse is moving your feet and can firstly stand your ground and secondly step into them to move their feet, then you become the leader. They are following your cues.

This can feel like it’s easier said than down with some of our bold, pushy horses, but with consistency and follow through, over time it really does work.

Our favourite exercise for this is walk when I walk, stop when I stop, go when I go. This has been a huge game changer for many of my students and what we always go back to when we start to lose our horses engagement in their work. We go into a lot further detail about this in our Facebook group if you are having trouble implementing - feel free to join and ask questions (click here).

For some of our nervous horses, or horses that have experienced trauma, you may find that initially they aren’t trying to move your feet but are trying to get away from you.

If you start working on your relationship and establishing that connection, they WILL start to relax and bring their walls down around you. This is when they will start to challenge you as a leader, because they are becoming comfortable and confident with you.

This is also something that can happen when you just buy a horse. It will take them time to get used to the change and settle into the routine. I call this the honey moon period and they can be on their best behaviour. Normally by about 3 months they will start to relax and as they relax challenge you to see if you are effective enough to be a good leader or if they need to take over.

Are You Causing Your Horse To Shut Down?

Horses are natural flight animals - their first instinct is to run first, think later.

The old school mentality of breaking a horse is to break the horses spirit, so that it forfeits its’ life to you. Your horse is then more scared of you than anything else and so chooses to figure out what you want from it rather than run away.

A lot of breakers will say that your horse isn’t safe until you sack them out.

What they are talking about is desensitising. I have done desensitising and sacking out with plenty of horses and here is my problem. You are giving them no other option but to let you do scary things to them and in the process WE ARE GIVING THEM NO TOOLS TO DEAL WITH THEIR FEARS AND EMOTIONS. The ones that don’t thrive with this style of training are deemed mentally unsound and untrainable.

In this environment it is very easy to shut down your horse -especially if you are also using forceful techniques as well.

When a horse shuts down it stops reacting to stimuli all together. This doesn’t mean that your horse is calm and relaxed, understands what to do and isn’t scared. It doesn’t mean that your horse is brave and confident and trying to look after you. It DOES mean your horse has learnt that if it doesn’t move when the scary thing is there, the scary thing goes away.

The second problem with this is that you have to reteach it for EVERY SCARY OBJECT.

Just because you have taught your horse to stand still to drape the tarp over it, doesn’t mean that it knows to then stand still for the flappy bag or the umbrella or the pram and then all the new things it will experience when you take it out. You have to reteach it for every scary object that it reacts to, to stand still while you move it over there body.

For some horses, once you have touched them with the object that they are scared of this process works - they are no longer scared.

But a horse that has shut down has dissociated from the experience. It is overwhelmed by fear and knows to just stand still. So it stands tense and rigid. There is only so much this horse can cope with before it hits its breaking point and loses it, leaving the handler wondering “where the hell did that come from?”. This horse hasn’t learnt not to be scared - it has just learnt not to react.

In either case, both of these horses previously mentioned horses have not been taught how to process fear and emotion. Both of these horses haven’t learnt not to react to scary things. Both of these horses haven’t developed confidence and trust.

That is why at Equestrian Movement we teach CURIOSITY instead.

Teaching curiosity works for even the most timid and sensitive horses.

• It teaches them to trust us.

• It teaches them how to be brave and confident.

• It teaches them how to handle objects and situations that they are scared of without just trying to run away.

• It teaches them how to investigate things that are scary.

• Most importantly, eventually they learn how to look after their human.

Would you like to teach your horse to be curious? You can find this and so much more (including communication and leadership, critical to the building of trust in your horse) in our Holistic Horse Handling Program.

Click here for more information about the Program

Has Your Horse Shut Down?

What is a horse that has shut down?

A horse that has shut down has developed this behaviour as a coping mechanism for stress.

When a shut down horse explodes it can be seriously unexpected and dangerous.

In stubborn horses it can be seen as stubbornness but it also shows up in the more flighty horses where their brain disconnects from their body and is shut off to their experience. This kind of horse copes, copes, copes and then explodes and the rider is left asking where the heck did that come from?

A horse that has shut down emotionally is the end result of desensitisation gone wrong. They have been taught to react to nothing, rather than feeling, because feeling would include fear and anxiety and they are not allowed to react. Instead, they have just shut off emotionally.

While desensitising is important for our horses, relationship built on trust has more of an impact than any amount of desensitisation. If my horse is unsure of something I want it to be curious and investigate it, not just shut off to it. Being shut off to it is “safer” than the mad, hairy bolt away from it but eventually something will trigger your horse to react and it will be years of pent up anxiety behind it – and probably a thousand times more dangerous.

Some of these horses may also be shut down due to pain. If a horse is sore and made to work no matter what, the best way to go on for some of them is to just shut down. (Click here to read about the sacroiliac pain the quiet lameness)

Again we eventually get to the point where the pain is too much to bare and then they react (these horses are the most often to be called dangerous and unrideable because the novice rider, trainer or instructor didn’t see it coming and labels the horse as “unpredictable”).

We don’t want our horses internalising their pain or their emotions and just cope with being ridden. Firstly because that’s not a partnership and secondly they can only internalise so long before it all blows up in our face.

Our best chance for getting a good working relationship with our horse is to open up a two way conversation where our horse can tell us if its uncomfortable or unhappy (in ways other than bucking, rearing, bolting, biting, kicking) and with being there for them when they do feel stress and pressure. (Read here for getting our horses to relax and breath with us).