Why you should play with your horse (and 14 games to play)

All work and no play makes Doris a dull girl – and it’s just as true for your horse as it is for you!

Building a little bit of play into your routine has significant benefits, including:

• Improving the bond between you and your horse

• Improving your horses work ethic (and your own work ethic as well)

• Increasing training techniques for you and your horse

• Improving the physical, mental and emotional well-being of you both

Playing with your horse doesn’t have to be complex or difficult, nor does it have to eat into your training time. But given the benefits of playtime, is it not worth 10-15 minutes?

How to play with your horse

Here are just a few suggestions of games you can play with your horse.

On the ground

1. Come – teach your horse to respond to the command “come” by taking a step towards you (immediately reward the effort to step towards you). You may initially need to start this on a lead rope then progress without it. Once your horse is taking a few steps voluntarily, extend the distance and eventually you can begin to cue with other signals, such as raising both arms. Remember, your horse is motivated by a release in pressure, so always reward a small give towards you. (It could also help you with the uncatchable horse, but perhaps start in a smaller enclosed area if they are).

2. Fetch – this is a great fun game where you drop an item and ask your horse to pick it up for you. A great game that will help avoid dismounting if you drop your crop!

3. Follow the leader/Tag – These games are an extension of the come command.

4. Hug – a hug from a loved one is an amazing feeling, so why not teach your horse to hug you! Have you horse stretch his neck around your body.

5. Soccer – many horses love to play with inanimate objects! You can teach your horse to play with a ball with you if they are inclined to play with objects. Start with proper horse balls – these have handles and are larger but still light so as your horse nuzzles the ball it will move. The handles also drive the inquisitive mind to grab them and also make the ball move in unpredictable directions.

In the saddle

1. Hack it out! Go for a trail ride, explore the paddock – whatever you do, just get out of that arena!

2. Ride a different discipline – if you are training dressage, why not set up a small jump course, or some barrels, and have a burl. Get some friends together and compete in your own at home pony club session! (Make it even more fun by handing out some cheeky mock awards, such as shiniest bum or widest turn).

3. Go to a show – just for fun – What if you just went to a show with no intentions of winning? The stimulation of the show along with the fact that you will be much more relaxed will not only be good practice for you both, but break up the monotony of work. Don’t think you are ready to show? Who cares? Be that annoyingly blissful person that is looking after your horse, gaining experience and doesn’t care about points or opinions.

4. Simon says – this is another great group game to play. Someone will need to play Simon but you can swap it around so everyone has a turn. Simon says do a twenty meter circle, Simon says halt, Trot on – oops Simon didn’t say that- you lose!

5. Maze run - using poles, cones and barrels, create a maze and obstacle course to navigate through. Just remember to ensure you understand how well your horse turns, as you don’t want to make it too difficult… it is, after all, a game!

6. Horseback archery - if you haven’t had a go at this yet, it is truly time to try! We run an archery session in our school’s mastery classes and everyone enjoys it. It is also great for teaching emotional agility within yourself and your horse!

Quick fun

1. Find that itch and scratch it – horses are herd animals so contact is something they enjoy. Even better, it’s something they need for those hard-to-reach itchy spots. Give your horse a moment of pleasure by giving one of those favourite hard-to-reach areas a good long scratch!

2. Carrot stretches – what horse doesn’t like carrots (and if yours doesn’t, try their other favourite treat). Encourage them to reach forward, between their front legs, and to the sides to get the carrots – preferably while staying still. It’s also great for stretching out their neck and back muscles before a riding session.

3. Squeaky toys – as with the soccer ball, some curious horses may enjoy the stimulation provided by flicking around and jumping on a squeaky toy. Laughter will be guaranteed as they discover the different noises they make. Just make sure the toy is much larger than a mouthful!

What games do you play with your horse? Comment below!

Good horse training doesn't make exciting video...

Good horse training doesn’t make for particularly exciting video…

Good horse training is a lot of time spent on the basics.

to build trust

Good horse training is being able to get quiet and still

to encourage relaxation

Big secret?

A lot of the GOOD STUFF happens in horse training when we do NOTHING.

You wont see a video of me with a horse rearing, bucking or bolting.

When we address the reason for those behaviours, find our horses threshold for stress, and give them the skills and confidence to ask for their needs and manage themselves emotionally, we don’t need to push them to those extreme behaviours.

But it does makes for incredibly boring video ;P

The common denominator in all horse training methods - and when it goes wrong

No matter what your preferred style (or your horse’s preferred style) of training is, they all have something in common:

we are always moving them away from something they don't want (pressure or withholding of the treat) towards something they do want (release of pressure, treat or another form of emotional motivation).

When they get the thing they do want they get a happy hormone hit for task achievement. It is ours and their own reward system for recognising they've done something good.

The clearer we are at acknowledging the behaviour we want and reinforcing it, the bigger the happy hormone hit and the more willing our horses become to try again (for a certain period of time).

This isn't without its own problems.

The process of finding the answer and not getting it cause the opposite of happy hormones. The blocking of achieving a task is the cause of frustration and quite often it's us that's responsible for handing out rewards so that frustration can get directed towards us. 

The bigger happy hormone hit our horses get for task achievement, the stronger the feeling of frustration when they don't find the answer - and even more so if they think they have given the right answer but we withhold the reward because we think it wasn't a good enough effort. This withholding of reward can move our horses out of frustration into aggression if we are working with a horse of that temperament type.

However we choose to reinforce wanted behaviours we want our horses to find enjoyment in finding answers. This is what creates willingness and cooperation. When our horses find learning fun they more willingly participant and accept bigger challenges as they develop.

The added bonus is that when our horses understand how to seek and find answers, introducing new challenges is easy and we don't have to go through the whole process again. 

A lot of the horses I work with don't know how to find the answers and it makes introducing new asks harder because they get stressed not knowing how to respond. Teaching a horse to find the release of pressure both in a physical pressure and in the withholding of reward and guiding them through those emotions gives them the emotional range to deal with the different stressors that come up in training as well as moving them out of a flight brain into a learning brain. 

This is why we use the Trainability Program with our horses.

Fill out this form if you want to be updated on when we open the course to new enrollments!

Training Trainability

Pre-register your interest for enrolment by filling the form below

Let me know when the course opens!

Is a high head the sign of a disobedient horse?

Is a horse, carrying its head high, a sign they are resisting you?

Is that resistance then disobedience?

For a long period of my riding career exactly that. I thought a horse flexed through the neck and soft in the mouth was submission and anything else was resistance.

A horse that worked with its head up or out was being disobedient.

And then I became a trainer and rode professionally…

And I quickly learnt that a horse could still work with its head up and have submission and that initially green horses and green broken horses do need to lift their head and work for periods of time with their head up.

Whether their head was in the air had nothing to do with how submissive they were.

A horse that works with its head up can still listen perfectly to the halt aid and the steering.

In fact in my experience I have found more horses with better submission working out of a frame then in a frame.

Think about it - how does a horse differentiate between the aid that asks it to tuck their nose and the aid that ask them to stop? The aid is essentially the same - (preferrably) a light, backwards pressure on the reins.

An experienced rider will say seat, of course.

But there are a lot of riders that don’t yet know how to ride with their seat, that can tuck their horses head into a false frame and then the horse has now lost its brakes. So they put on harsher bits and nose bands to try and get the brakes working but what is truly missing is the communication.

But its not just the rider, sometimes it’s the horse.

It can take a little bit even when using the seat for the horse to differentiate between a frame aid and a halt aid, especially if they have been trained without that differentiation previously. Even if they have had that differentiation trained in, with a different ride who doesn’t use their seat the same the horse can still get confused.

So the type of riding that is typically called resistance under saddle I would say is more closely akin to limited musculoskeletal development than actually resisting and challenging the aid.

My green horses on training these days have far better submission to the aids while working hollow than the horses I trained for frame equals submission in my younger years, because submission has to do with communication whereas frame has to do with musculoskeletal development.

And it isn’t easy to get there. It doesn’t happen over night.

I remember as a kid my idealised instructor got a new horse that was green and was not yet ready to work in a frame. I saw her riding it hollow and thought well maybe she isn’t as good of a rider as I thought. Maybe it was just the horse that was not good.

It takes a green broken horse with no injuries or trauma at least 6 months to 2 years to work steadily and consistently in a working frame that positively compliments the musculoskeletal system - and that’s something we don’t talk about enough.

It’s not an easy process to develop the forwardness, engagement, swing, elasticity, core, topline elasticity and postural skills for the horse to work in good self carriage AND understand its aids well that perfectly primes it for the balance needed for the career we are hoping to follow with our horse.

This is why we developed a whole course for it.

If you are not sure what a healthy working frame, self carriage and good aids should look like so that you are ready for collection, then check it out.

How do you compare with other horse owners?

How do you compare with other horse riders?

Or owners?

Or trainers?

I have one statement for you:

You don’t.

Another’s journey isn’t the same that you are taking, so YOU shouldn’t be the same. It is also true for your horse.

Yet we often fall into the trap of comparing our progress to others, to help us bench mark our own progress.

Another person is going to differ from us in so many ways.

• mindset

• health

• training and experience

• ultimate desire

are just a few examples of significant differences. Then we add our horses to the mix too!

Instead of comparing yourself to others, why not spend some time considering your own true path. The path that will make you happiest. The path that you can fit into your lifestyle.

Once you know what that is, you can move forward, and then you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else, because there is noone else on this journey but you.

Would you like to talk to us about your path and how you can bring your horse on that journey? Send us an email!

New horse - now what?

So you’ve got a new horse and you’re starting to figure out it's harder than you expected and not all it's cracked up to be. 

You thought you got your dream horse, but working with them is stressful and you come away feeling like a failure and you’re not good enough. 

Maybe your horse just needs a better rider.

Before you truly throw in the towel, consider this:

Take the expectations off of yourself and your horse

You may have thought that you would have your new horse a couple weeks and be ready to go out and do all the amazing things you dreamed of, but now you feel nervous and uncomfortable and are finding excuses for why you shouldn’t ride. 

Your new horse isn’t a mechanical object. It comes with emotions and emotional baggage. It has had a huge transition and we can never quite know what has happened to them in their life. 

Take those expectations away and just get to know your new horse and focus on building a relationship and trust first.

Know that you are enough

When it comes to working with our horses it is so very common to come away feeling like we aren’t enough. Just having the attitude that you can be exactly what your horse needs can be the game changer to succeeding with your horse.

Skill isn’t the be all and end all

While it is important to develop the skills to help you and your horse succeed together, it is just one piece of the puzzle. 

The most important thing that you can provide for your horse is security and safety that you are going to show up as a good leader and meet their emotional needs. 

Professional trainers are good at teaching buttons (trained cues), but a horse that can’t control its emotions can’t control its behaviour - so providing your horse with the emotional support and balance they need will go a long way to creating the relationship and horse of your dreams. 

Establish yourself as a leader with easy exercises

Your horse knows what you don’t know: an important part of your horse cooperating and being safe is that you see you as a good leader. 

If you are trying to further your skills and challenge yourself by doing things outside your comfort zone, your horse will know that you aren’t competent in following through on those asks and will challenge you as a leader. 

Start building your relationship and leadership skills with exercises that make you go” pfft that’s too easy”, because all of your horses little quirks will have the opportunity to come out in exercises that you are confident with which will build your confidence in how well you know your horse and build their confidence in you. Once you know what your horse does at its worst, what they are doing when they aren’t coping with the stress and pressure and how to bring them back from the brink of overwhelm and distress - only then should you start challenging yourself and your horse. 

Be flexible and ready to shift the goal posts when needed

This goes hand in hand with dropping your expectations. 

If you go in to work with your horse expecting them to work or behave a certain way and they don’t meet your expectations, you can create a negative working environment where neither of you are enjoying each others company. Being able to shift your goal posts so that it's impossible to not come away with a win and positive experience makes both you and your horse look forward to spending time together. 

Always finish on a positive note feeling like you could’ve done more.

What are your goals? If you are keen on building a harmonious relationship with your horse based on leadership, trust, affection, and healthy movement? Join the Arena to access the programs and support!

Dressage Tips For Beginners

If you are new to the discipline of dressage, welcome!

This is an exciting time as you work in what is fondly referred to as the artistry of horse riding. However, there are a few tips I wish I had known before my very first competition - read on below:

Know your arena geometry

I can’t even begin to tell you how important this is. And how long it took me to realise it was important!!

I didn’t actually learn how to break down the arena movements and understand the geometry until I was training to become instructor. That’s 15 years of competing not knowing what a 20m circle was supposed to look like!

Of course, I was always going home with the comments “circle not round”, “circle too big” or “circle too small”. Once it was actually broken down for me it made soooo much sense why I kept missing the crucial marks here and there.

Don’t sacrifice your movement for your frame.

To begin with, you will be endlessly frustrated that you don’t have a frame. Once you get the frame though, it’s easy!

But if you’re constantly getting comments like lacking forward or lacking impulsion, then you’ve restricted the horses movement in asking it to come into a frame instead of enhanced it.

Don’t take competing so seriously

Just go to the competition for the outing and the experience for at least the first year. Anything else is a bonus!

Competitions are stressful, and not only do we put the stress of a new chaotic environment on our horse, butwe also ride them differently because we are trying to show their best potential and nail our accuracy. You are also competing against seasoned competitors who know the drill and professional trainers.

Just focus on you and your horses getting confident, relaxed and knowing what is expected of you.

Stay on the horse, stay in the arena. And if you don’t that’s fine too.

When you first go out, your first goal is to just stay on your horse and stay in the arena.

After you have gained more confidence with this (and yes, you might be able to do it at home, but the competition arena is a different kettle of fish), only at that point can you up the challenge and work next on relaxation and accuracy, then rhythm and tempo, then quality of bend and lastly frame.

Practise your test at home so you know it upside down, inside out and back to front.

This will help you know how much preparation your horse needs for each ask, helping with your accuracy.

It will help both you and your horses confidence to know what is expected of you.

It will definitely help you when you go to the competition and have to know your test.

Make sure you give yourself enough time in the warm up to be able to watch the test before you and read through the test as a refresher before you go into the ring.

How to ride "on the bit" correctly

We recently spoke about WHAT riding on the bit actually is (missed it? Read the blog here).

Now it is time to understand the underlying dynamics and conditioning we need to consider before putting it into action.

How to put my horse on the bit?

The horse being on the bit is a combination of:

• establishing acceptance and willingness to follow bit pressure,

• understanding how to communicate flexion without tensing the neck against the bit pressure,

• and the conditioning for the horse to be able to hold the posture required for them to stay on the bit.

And I’ll give you a little secret for free:

On the bit has less to do with the arc of the neck and more to do with the flexion of the hocks.

The straighter the hocks, the straighter the back, the more resistance and pull you get into the bit. If you teach the submission to the frame aid without the hock flexion your horse will lack forwardness, throughness and impulsion. It will still be working on the forehand and will be working either behind the bit or heavy in your hand.

When you are truly & correctly working your horse on the bit, your aren’t controlling the angle of neck flexion, but instead the angle of hock flexion.

How to keep my horse on the bit?

Then keeping your horse on the bit has do with keeping them sitting into their haunches, hocks flexed.

This is why the conditioning is so important and why having your horse on the bit takes a while to develop and hold well with consistency. Our expectations is the difference between me going for a run and me going for a run lifting my knees. They need to learn the poise, posture and lightness of a dancer and then build the muscles to hold that extra effort for periods of time.  

How to get my young horse on the bit?

If you’ve just got yourself a young horse and realised that they aren’t as soft and easy to ride as your dressage school master, you’re not alone!

In the naivety that was my youth I thought all horses knew how to work on the bit and the ones that didn’t were because the rider didn’t know how to ride. How wrong I was!

In fact so wrong that I’ve written a whole course on the skills and prerequisites a horse needs to be able to work on the bit.

There is a lot to cover with a green horse in establishing relaxation, balance and suppleness, understanding of the aids, work ethic. Also the depth of frame often required in entry level dressage by far requires movements of an educated horse, such as leg yield, shoulder fore and canter through simple changes.

To be working your horse on the bit at a competition you want to be training at least one level higher than you are training. Most professional riders you will compete against will be training 2 levels higher. 

To teach a green horse to work on the bit, we believe it is important that you as a rider are educated in riding true self carriage and not just pull the horses head down. For the horse, they need to develop the strength and power of the haunches to sit deeper and flex behind and engage their core so they can relax and swing over their back.

Once these 2 skills are developed, “on the bit” happens naturally and easily. 

A little tip for free: green horses are great for eliciting the gaps in our own understanding and knowledge so you if are stuck on something, review the basics and see where you have missed a core piece of the puzzle in your own understanding and ability.

Riding on the bit requires skill and education, and can’t be achieved overnight. However, with the right effort and training, it will become natural and will look effortless flawless - bring those high dressage scores (as long as the judge likes your horse’s coat colour, of course!).

related blogs

Why Your Horse Wont Canter

The canter is considered by a number of horse riders as one of the most fun strides to ride. Yet many other riders find it very hard to get their horse into a canter. So let’s have a review on why the canter might not be working for you.

Your horse isn’t fit enough to hold you in a canter

Like any athlete, horses require training to develop and hold riders in their chosen sport. It involves them coordinating 4 legs, balancing a human on their back, engaging their core, and trying to listen to what you are telling them. Imagine trying to hold 3 plates, walk in high heels, suck in your belly and smiling at the same time – then up that walk to a run! While it doesn’t look pretty, and probably isn’t feasible, with practice it becomes easier.

Same for our horse. We can help them build it up by ensuring they have their core engaged, a working pace and balance in the lower paces before introducing it in the canter. We can also help them by working on their canter transitions on the lunge.

You are getting in the way of your horse’s canter

If you lack balance, or lack confidence, you may be clenching down on your horse with your knees, and/or gripping the mouth to tight, and essentially providing a set of mixed signals for your horse.

If your canter isn’t established, you can’t help your horse coordinate theirs under saddle. Hop off, work on some canter on the lunge, and look for a riding school horse with a balanced canter to help you learn.

The working area is too small for the horse to canter

If you are trying to canter in 15 meter circles and your horse is unable to do so, the area is too small. The horse lacks the capability of maintaining that amount of bend at the canter pace, regardless if it can while at the lower paces.

The advice here is to go big! Bigger circles, bigger arena! Allow your horse to build up their ability to bend in the canter before trying to work in smaller circles or corners.

The horse just goes into a faster trot, and doesn’t pop into a canter

This may happen for several reasons:

• Your horse can physically hold you in the canter

• Your horse doesn’t understand the aids

• You are giving your horse the wrong instructions

• Your horse is trying but isn’t quite there yet

• Your horse is purposely avoiding the canter

Firstly, make sure you are providing the correct cues to pop them into canter. You may need to hire an instructor to get you through this phase. I would also suggest reading the 4 reasons why a horse evades to establish what to do in the case of the other reasons.

Do you have a riding question? Pop it in the comments below and we will respond!

The horse that evades straightness cannot work their body correctly

Straightness is a crucial part of the horses development and one of the things they love to evade!

Basically because working with straightness is harder for them then working crooked. But also because it truly is impossible to be perfectly symmetrical.

This is why we get obsessed with dressage. We are forever endlessly seeking the impossible. I say this as lovingly and supportive as possible because I am right there with you relentlessly seeking the impossible!

Now before I manage to completely talk you out of your never ending pursuit of perfection that is dressage, the purpose of the way the exercises and movements are tiered throughout the levels is to address the ways the horse will naturally evade that way of movement.

For example, prelim introduces circles and serpentines that create the looseness and suppleness for the relaxation and swing required for a prelim working paces.

Novice introduces leg yield, lengthening the paces and smaller circles to create the engagement and throughness required for novice working paces.

Elementary introduces shoulder in, traver, rein back and simple changes that create the elevation and collection required for entry level collection.

And so forth up the levels.

So when we are talking about straightness we are talking about maintaining the connection from hind end to contact for the level. We are talking about stacking the horses building blocks on top of each other as evenly and balanced as possible. We are wanting to get our horse to engage its core and be as even and balanced as they can. The more evenly and balanced they work the less concussion and strain it puts on their body.

Straightness comes from becoming centered, balanced and engaging the core. It is comes from moving their weight into each of their 4 legs so they become “ambidextrous” so to speak. Of the horses I have met mostly they are strong and straight to the right and weak but supple to the left. Straightness comes from developing the tone to be equally strong and supple on both sides.

So when a horse evades straightness they will be twisting through the pelvis, dropping the shoulder, weaker one way than the other or more supple one way than the other. Any of these will put strain and concussion on our horses body which will at best slow their progress and at worse do damage to their body. Not engaging their core puts strain on their back, especially when we then sit on their back and creates tension through their back.

Is straightness and correct development important to you? Join our email list for when our course green to self carriage opens!

The Physical Adaptation Process

Do you think your horse is an athlete?

Horses are less physically adept at performing tasks than one might expect. They all have the same balance and muscle conditioning problems that any athlete experiences, but at the same time they are also unable to always communicate these issues.

A horse can only do what it is physically able to do.

With my training, riding and teaching the conditioning of the horse is key.

The horse generally understands what it is supposed to be doing well before it is physically able to do it. This is where a horse can get frustrated with itself and its’ rider - the same way we can be frustrated when, for example, our instructor is telling us to do something, we know what we are supposed to do, but we can't coordinate it. 

The dressage training scale is designed to develop the horse’s ability for self carriage throughout the levels.

If you look at a dressage test, the movements in each level are the movements needed to develop the quality of self carriage required for that particular level. For example 20m circles trot and canter (done correctly) develop the quality needed for a working trot and canter in a preliminary test. 15m circles trot and canter, leg yield and lengthen are needed to develop the quality of working trot and canter needed for a novice test. Shoulder in and travers, medium trot and canter and 10m circles trot and canter are needed to develop the collection for elementary - and so on and so forth. In this way we use and focus on the quality of the execution of exercises to develop the required self carriage for the horse. 

Generally speaking, it takes 6-8 weeks for the horse to develop coordination and balance to the exercise, 3-4 months for the muscles to develop, and 6-12 months for the bone and ligament density to peak.

When we rush the horse’s development, we can end up with many issues (aside from the mental and emotional aspects) that impact its’ ability to continue to work at a higher level. We may find the horse seeking ‘cheating’ avenues, such as dropping the shoulder or twisting the pelvis, in an attempt to create the exercises that we, the rider, are demanding. In this action, we actually increase the likelihood of our horse becoming injured, disabled and no longer suited to riding.

Allowing the time for the horse to be able to truly develop physical ensures a safer and more successful journey for you both.

Enrol in the Green To Self Carriage Program today to progress your horse through the steps of healthy, balanced physical and mental development.

Is My Horse Nasty?

If your horse has been acting out you can find yourself contacting industry professionals to try and rule out why.

Quite often I see people ask one professional, who comes back with no there’s nothing wrong with your horse - and yet the behaviour continues. It leaves you thinking you have a dud horse that’s just nasty.

Different professionals see different problems in your horse based on their experience and what they specialise in. Just because one professional couldn’t find the problem doesn’t mean there isn’t one and you shouldn’t keep digging. Sometimes you even need to ask for a second opinion within the same profession.

If you are asking yourself, “what is wrong with my horse” then you need to run through the following list:

• Does the saddle fit well?

• How is the horses teeth/mouth?

• Does the horse like the bit you are using, does it fit?

• Is the tack rubbing uncomfortably?

• Could it be ulcers?

• Are they on the right feed?

• Has the vet ruled out underlying issues?

• Is my horse sore?

The “is my horse sore” is a complex issue to deal with.

All horses have some kind of discomfort from being ridden. The threshold for the level of pain or discomfort the horse feels is completely dependent on its own unique personality. I’ve worked with some horses that you would think should be in a lot of pain from their past injuries and yet they are perfectly behaved, and other horses that are slightly uncomfortable about being ridden and yet complain loudly.

This is why the correct conditioning of the horse is a key component of our horses’ trainability.

They have to be able to hold our weight within the limitations of the tack and move elegantly, freely and boldly, but without making us nervous and uncomfortable. It’s a bit of a big ask right?

Our horses are athletes and as such will require the same support that Olympic coaches put into their athletes. It is why we should put such an emphasis on correct musculoskeletal development, allowing our horse to communicate its’ needs back to us, and getting additional manipulation support by someone with a good reputation whether chiro, massage or acupuncture.

Treat your horse like the athlete he or she truly is - enrol in our Green to Self Carriage program today!

Why professional trainers, breakers and instructors ride for submission.

Why do most professional trainers, breakers and instructors ride their horse into submission?

Short answer – it’s the quickest and easiest way to get their desired results.

Trainers and breakers only have a short period of time to get big results. They also are very competent riders that don’t baulk at a horse bucking, bolting, rearing and acting out and will just ride them through that behaviour into submission. They simply don’t have the time to spend with the horse to take it at that individual horse’s pace.

Another reason why professionals work for submission is because they don’t have the time to develop the trust and relationship to get the results this way.

Getting our horses to say “yes”, as opposed to submission (not sure what this means – read this first), is because what and how we ask depends on how well-established our relationship, trust and leadership is established. This takes time. With any of my students that get a new horse, I recommend that it takes a year minimum. Normally, when you send your horse away on training, they get maybe 6 – 8 weeks to get the horse to confidently and safely to walk, trot and canter, and to look after their rider. It’s a big ask!!

Lastly, when someone comes to us as an instructor and trainer, it’s not because they are happy with where they are with their riding and how the horse is working. It’s because they want to step up and ride at better level. So for us as instructors and riders, to get more from our students, we have to put pressure on our riders and get them to ask more from the horse.

The horse will nearly always protest because the quality they have been working at has been good enough, so why should they put more effort in? We have to put more pressure on the horse and push through their argument to get them to try harder and often do something they’ve never done before (for both horse and rider) and figure out what that something is.

Where this “push through” doesn’t work.

• Our horse doesn’t know how to process pressure;

• There are gaps in our horse or riders understanding of the aids;

• The horse isn’t physically ready to do more;

• There are underlying traumas (whether physical or mental) that take longer and need more support through those developmental processes.

Is your horse coping with its training? We would love to hear from you!

Submission Vs Yes

We talk a lot about submission in the horse industry. It is one of the qualities of training we are marked on.

In the dictionary, submission is defined as:

• “The action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person”.

• “The act of allowing someone or something to have power over you”.

I don’t know about you, but this isn’t the kind of relationship that I want to have with my horse.

All my life I had been taught how to bully my horses into submission. To be bigger, scarier and stronger than my horse and anything it could be scared of.

I used to hop off at the end of a ride feeling guilty about how I had treated my horse.

Not that the way I handled them was particularly brutal or heavy handed. It just wasn’t the relationship or the experience I wanted to have with my horse. It wasn’t the relationship I had with them on the ground. I didn’t understand why that’s what I needed to get what I wanted from my horse under saddle.

As an instructor for kids and beginners, I also understood that they physically (and for the kids, mentally) were incapable of dominating a horse into submission. The lack of strength, coordination and balance in the saddle (and for the kids understanding) meant that the horses weren’t doing as they were told because they weren’t being made to.

There had to another way to get cooperation from our horses.

This is where Training Trainability came from. How can we engage our horses in the learning process so they enjoy the training sessions and want to participate?

One of our core philosophies is to ASK, not force.

Training Trainability gives the horse the opportunity to say “no”, which a lot of riders and trainers don’t agree with. This is understandable, because if you’re horse has never been given the opportunity to say no they really take advantage of it and will just about to say no to everything!! This can feel like you’re going backwards with your training and your horse is being naughty, so riders can quickly give up on doing it this way.

This method of training is about empowering the horse’s voice so:

• They choose to participate in the training, and

• They also can feel comfortable about saying that’s enough when they feel pushed to their limit mentally, physically or emotionally.

It’s about us, as trainers, to think outside the box and find motivators other than how hard we can kick, use the whip and pull on their head. It’s about developing a trust, relationship and bond with our horse, so that they want to spend time with us and look after us.

It doesn’t mean that there is no discipline and we let them walk all over us. It’s about establishing clear boundaries and expectations of behaviour so that when we work with them they are respectful and safe.

When it comes to performance pressure where we are stressing their intellect and physical condition however, we must take our time and let them say “yes” or “no” rather than expecting submission of everything we ask for.

To learn more about how to apply Trainability to your horse, click here.

6 Reasons to Train Straightness in your Horse

Straightness is a term that is thrown around a lot in riding. But what is it, and why should we be using exercises to encourage it?

Horses can’t actually travel straight. Watch the way that a dog runs and you will notice that its haunches travel to one side. This is the same for horses, because their shoulders are narrower than their hindquarters. When a horse travels “straight” in the paddock it is normally when they are “prancing” the movement isn’t particularly controlled - they are in a state of excitement with their tail and head in the air snorting. Not exactly what we want to be riding.

What straightness means under saddle is that the parts of their body that they typically go crooked or collapse through are stacked on top of each other evenly. Like if we were to stand square with our feet under hips, our shoulders stacked on top of our hips and then our head squarely on our shoulders in a relaxed stance we would be “straight”. “Crooked” would be if we stepped on foot in or out a bit further, dropped or twisted through the hips, leant a shoulder forward, kinked through the waist or neck, twisted our head and the like.

Of course this can only happen in theory because we have our own structural strengths and weaknesses and will find effort from one side easier than the other. This is seen in doing squats where we can push stronger off one leg than the other or in yoga where we can stretch deeper into a pose on one side than the other. The ultimate goal of straightness is to strengthen our weak muscles and supple our strong or tense muscles to create tone. And this is our life long journey of developing straightness in both ourselves and our horses.

When the integrity of our straightness is lost we are more inclined to injury and pain. The joints don’t stack well on top of each other along our vertebrae and limbs, this stresses the cushions between the joints, the ligaments and tendons attached to stabilize the joints and the muscles. It also increases risk of damage to the nerve and pinching of the nerve because the vertebrae house very vulnerable nerve bundles that communicate throughout the body. Increased “crookedness” also puts more stress on the bones and increases risk of bone conditions like arthritis, splints, fractures and the like because of increased concussion.”

Horses, very much like people, develop "Crooked" - a preference to  weight bear through one hind more than the other, twist through the hips and pelvis more one way than the other, lean onto one shoulder more than the other, turn their head more one way than the other and so on. Most horses are strong and straight to the right and weak and supple to the left, which may actually have something to do with the way they curl in the womb. In addition we need to consider the contribution of their breeding and confirmation. For example a naturally supple thoroughbred may find their weak side is stronger because their suppleness is actually their strength.

So what are the reasons to train for straightness, if your horse naturally develops crooked?

1. Your riding will be more balanced

When a horse is encouraged to work straight, it will make it easy for you to be more balanced. When a horse is on the forehand they typically put you in front of the vertical, and you being in front of the vertical puts the horse more on the forehand. Same for crookedness, if your horse is dropping its hip it will make you collapse through that same hip and not distribute your weight evenly into both stirrups. You end up counter balancing each other and reinforcing, strengthening the crookedness.

2. You horse will improve his suppleness

Straightness and elasticity go hand in hand because straightness is truly the horses’ contractility power to flex complementing muscles along the length of its spine. Two factors come into consideration here. When a horse is “straight” it is because it can engage and ground its core, transfer its weight onto the haunches and take the weight of the forehand. The horses ability to engage its core and flex and squat through the haunches so that it isn’t balancing with its forehand and underneck muscles is what it needs to be able to go into long and though. So straightness training is developing the suppleness of topline the horse needs to develop a “rounded gait” and working frame.

The stronger and more grounded the core the more elastic the movement both in bend and in impulsion. Because straightness, engaged and grounded core and balance are all kind of the same thing. So the better the horse can balance and distribute weight the better and deeper they can bend without losing their balance.

When we train straightness in our horses, we are training for more suppleness as we introduce straight on curved lines, through changes of bend and transitions, into leg yield and our laterals without overdeveloping too much pelvic flexion or rotation either way, etc. The suppleness can safely be developed on both sides as the horse use both hind legs powerfully and elevates and extends through each shoulder evenly.  

3. A straight horse will have more impulsion

Impulsion is the elevation and thoroughness of the forehand where engagement is power and flexion of the hindquarters. This can happen when the horse develops his squats evenly through his hindquarters and develops enough engagement of the core that it can start lifting the forehand, rolling the shoulder blades into place so that they can extend through the shoulder with relaxation.

Impulsion, or the forward thrust of movement, happens when you have a horse using his hind quarters. A crooked horse may use one hind leg for thrust, but this is only minimally powerful as this leg is not under the hip (wide) and a little to the side, meaning it cannot be maintained (try using one leg to thrust yourself into a run - note how we push it out to the side, how quickly we tire). A balanced, straight horse is able to keep his legs direct under his hips and can use both legs to power his forward movement easily - and therefore develop strong, maintainable engagement. Once the horse starts getting into his hocks the straightness has to continue through his back with even bend left and right to lift the forehand and allow for rotation through the shoulder blades. Impulsion can then occur as the horse learns to lift and extend through each shoulder. If one shoulder develops more than the other or the horse gets deeper into one hind than the other they will lift that shoulder higher and be penalized for an irregular stride.

4. Straightness is essential for Collection

Collection can only occur once we have successfully created rhythm, relaxation, connection, impulsion and straightness. Only a horse who is familiar with and accepts the aids for straightening work can collect, due to the ability to bear more weight behind instead of swinging the hind legs to one side and elevate and extend the forehand rather than leaning into the shoulder. Straightening exercises as spoken about above (straight on a curved line, straight through changes of bend etc.) also develops the strength of conditioning the horse needs for extended periods of time in collection. The more dynamic movement we create and the more easily and fluidly a horse can transition from one exercise to the next the straighter, more evenly developed and balanced they are and the easier it is to develop and maintain collection. Collection can be developed in a crooked horse but we really start to notice the way it hinders the horses ability to move forward, fluidly without restriction, with grace and ease.  

5. You can improve the musculoskeletal health of your horse

Even if you have no desire to compete your horse in any discipline, straightness will help improve musculoskeletal soundness in your horse. A crooked horse tends to overdevelop some muscles and under-develop others. This increases muscle, tendon, and ligament strain, can change the conformation of your horse and increase the risk of joint and bone damage. Exercises in straightness can improve your horses’ happiness and comfort now and later in life - and after all, that's why we are here! A lot of the exercises we use can be applied on trails and open fields hacking out.

6. You will be less likely to get 'stuck' in parts of the training scale

The main thing holding you back where you are now from where you want to be is the condition of your horses’ musculoskeletal system, in combination with your knowledge of how to ride those movements. (You don’t know what you don’t know but that’s a story for another day). When we first introduce an exercise or movement to a horse they adapt quickly. Their constitutional strengths pick up and protect them from this movement doing damage to their body. From there they plateau while the rest of their musculoskeletal system adapts to this new stress (this can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years depending on your skill as a rider, previous injuries, how well they adapt, how well you manage protective reflexes etc). If you push them through before they are ready you compromise the integrity of their musculoskeletal condition and keep exposing them to stressors that they must keep adapting to, which results in only their strongest parts adapting to protect themselves from damage and their weaker parts are getting more and more left behind until they get an injury and need to spell.

What exercises are you using on your horse to encourage straightness? Join our membership program and access free lesson plans to help you create your strategy!

Interested in the physical development of your horse? click here for more articles

These Exercises Are Too Easy - Surely They Can’t Work?

So many times my students will feel like they are stuck on the easy exercises for too long.

Or I will give them exercises to practice, with the feedback that they are too easy and so didn’t think they would work.

Why is it in our nature as humans that it must feel like its hard for us to feel like we are improving?!?

The fact that they are easy exercises is exactly the point.

Over the years I have striven to be better by riding over the bigger jumps and doing the harder movements and thinking that my horse and I were improving because we were doing the hard stuff.

After years of working with hundreds of different horses and students I’ve learnt however doing the easy stuff often and really, really well, makes the hard stuff easy and natural.

And isn’t that truly what we want?

The training scale is supposed to be a natural progression of training and movement. While learning a new skill, refining and developing your feel and quality is hard, but the actual transition should smooth.

If you feel like you’re butting your head agains the wall and getting nowhere, rather than pushing for more, you should be looking for gaps in your horses and your own understanding and communication. If you are trying to progress and the movement falls apart, you need to spend time building condition in the easier movement, so it is not such a huge leap to execute the new movement.

We can also get the feeling that because we can already do something, we are ready for the next thing.

Is Walk, Stop & Back Up too easy an exercise, when it consistently re-establishes boundaries and respect?

Rather than achieving something and then saying “What’s next?”, we should want to achieve something and say “How can I do this better?”

I can guarantee you that the person that rides a halt transition after 1 week of practice, compared to the person who has been practising and perfecting for a year, compared to the person who has been practising and perfecting for 20 years, will have comparable different experiences of how well they can execute the aid. And even the person who has been practising and perfecting for 20 years will have gaps in their understanding compared to the person who has been doing it for 40 years.

This is why at Equestrian Movement we focus on the journey with our horse more so than the destination.

It doesn’t mean you can’t fulfil your grand dreams of what you want to achieve with your horse, it just means that the time frame comes second to the quality. Patience is our first skill to learn.

Repetition is good for our horse. It is how they learn.

Some horses, the more fast thinking, intelligent ones don’t like repetition so we have to think outside the box and figure out how we can practice the same exercise in different ways to get the repetition in. But overall horses learn through consistency, follow through and repetition. Exactly the way we do.

We don’t send our kids to school and expect them to know the alphabet in the first day, week or month and then expect them to be able to spell! So why do we expect our horses to understand the language of legs, seat and hands straight away and to do it perfectly every time?

Repetition wires the brain and establishes language and understanding.

Another reason why we like to use easy exercises is because we can’t establish ourselves as good leaders when we are challenging ourselves.

Have you ever tried something new that was harder and everything fell apart and your horse took advantage of it and started being “naughty”? I bet you have!

Your horse needs a strong, capable, competent leader and when you are trying something new that you don’t know how to do, you come across to your horse as incompetent. Because, well you are! At that particular exercise.

Whenever this happens in our training we must strip back to something easy to re-establish ourselves as competent leaders that our horse can confidently take direction from, before challenging ourselves again. Whether that be that ride, next ride, a week from now or a month or a year. We have to be able to leave our ego at the hitching rail each and every ride and do what is best for our horse.

So if the exercise seems too easy and too repetitive theirs a good chance it is exactly what you need to be right now.

Discover the easy, repeatable and reusable exercises that are the very foundation of any training you do

Click here to view the course

Why we should be teaching our horses to be curious

You’ve seen it, right?

The horse that prances, snorts and shies on a trail ride, at a competition, or even at the trees blowing in the wind.

Maybe you have even been on that horse.

It’s not exactly a pleasant scenario to be in, and can take all our skill and energy just to keep riding.

Horses are inherently animals of prey and therefore their instinctive reaction is attuned more to flight then fight. Therefore, a horse that is ‘high strung’ or displaying those types of behaviours is nearly completely using the instinct part of the brain, which disengages the ability for the horse to be able to use the parts of the brain to think, process and learn

A moving object, different colour, change of location or interaction with unfamiliar horses or people – all of these things can set your horse off into instinctive mode, even if they are normally well behaved in your home paddock.

It’s a heavily (and sometimes heatedly) debated topic on how to overcome these issues and we are going to weigh in on it ourselves.

So let’s have a quick look at some of the commonly recommended solutions.

Desensitisation:

When we use desensitisation skills we are teaching our horse that the best response is no response. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the horse is ok with what is happening to it just that the right response is no response. It also means that the horse has no way of telling us that it’s not coping. If the best coping mechanism is no response and our horse is scared of something and so shows no response we say aha!! See! My horse isn’t scared anymore! What happens is it copes until it doesn’t and then gives us no warning that it’s not coping and explodes. This is how most horses are “broken” in and if they don’t pass this qualification they are considered dangerous horses, unsuitable for riding.

Another term for this process is flooding. We “flood” the horse’s sensory processing mechanism until they no longer respond. This doesn’t mean that the horse has processed the stimulus. It just means they are not responding to it. This therefore isn’t helpful to us when we need to resensitise them to get them to respond to our cues and aids. They are then left with the choice of which stimuli will they react to and the reactions are generally extravagant and “out of character” because they don’t know how to process the stimulus or how to react they only know not to react.

Be the boss/leader:

Being the boss is a critical skill in our working relationship with our young, green, uneducated horses but not always a priority in our mature and educated horses if they have had a good education.

A well educated horse learns to look after its rider. A well educated horse has been exposed to lots of different environments and situations and has come out the other side unscathed and so becomes confident and knows what to expect when put in new and different situations.

The younger, greener horses are still learning and need a competent leader that they trust to show them how to deal with their environment and show them they are safe. An older horse that has lots of homes and instability in its life and learning can become agitated and scared when it goes into new environments because it hasn’t enjoyed the stability and knowledge that it will be going home and ok.

This skill of being the boss can be misinterpreted as being the bigger bully. Every instructor that I’ve ever had has told me that you need to be scarier than what the horse is scared of. This never fixed the spooking but it made me really good at hanging on!

Developing good leadership skills with our horse is one of Equestrian Movements core training principles. It sets our horse up with trust in us to keep them safe and allows us to introduce them to scary situations and show them how to handle it. In the long run it is the key to developing a good relationship and rapport with our horse. Setting boundaries and following through allows us to show up as good leaders so that our horse trusts our leadership skills and follows us into different environments with trust that we won’t let harm come to them.

This takes time to establish and a lifetime to reinforce. You can’t do your leadership exercises in 1 day and then try and cross a busy highway with them. You are challenging just outside their comfort zone and then allowing them to retreat and recover and process that it wasn’t that bad.

Remove the horse from the ‘scary situation’:

As we spoke above if we have put our horses into a situation that they really are unprepared for and overwhelmed there isn’t anything we can physically do to help them handle the situation. We end up damaging the relationship we have been working so hard to build because if we can’t show up as a good leader in this situation then we have lost our horses trust and respect which is hard enough to earn the first time let alone try and earn again once it is broken.

Punishment:

These are common principles that are resorted to when trainers lose their cool and aren’t able to think outside the box or has lost patience. When we resort to punishment we undo all the hard work we have put into our relationship skills. At equestrian movement we teach to not emotionally engage in the situation because this is when you can end up lashing out in frustration. If you and your horse have done all the ground work leading up to this point with the pressure release and relationship building skills you should need to resort to physical punishment.

There is a fine line in using pressure release and it becoming a form of punishment. Both are forms of negative reinforcement but in pressure release there should be the opportunity to choose and a clear pathway of consequence that is resulting in the increase of pressure.

Physical punishment is using force without the horse understanding why and how to get away from the force and using a force that results in injury to the horse i.e. blood drawn, bruising etc. When we use a force that the horse doesn’t understand why, it is not learning how to react correctly, only how to get away.

The kind of force is very important to recognise because the damage is done mentally and emotionally. Some horses are just very “thick skinned” and so require a more intense “pressure” to find their point of responsiveness. People can be scared of using this strength because they don’t want to hurt the horse. What we teach here is to think about how hard its paddock mate would have to kick or bite your horse to get them to go away from their food. They would use just enough to get them to go away but not enough for them to get hurt (hopefully) even though you know they could really hurt them if they wanted. This is part of using pressure/release. Increasing the intensity of the aid to just enough they take notice of you but without hurting them. The level of intensity will differ across breeds and previous training. How much the horse has been shut down by desensitising techniques also plays a role here.

What is Teaching Curiosity about?

The aim of teaching curiosity is about 3 key reasons:

• Safety

• Emotional Balance

• Continued Learning

A horse that is taught to be curious has the capability of reducing its’ automatic instinctive and look for cues from it’s’ rider as to what it should be doing.

A horse that is curious is listening. A horse that is curious is open to learning. A horse that is curious is able to apply his mental and emotional reasoning capabilities and lead even the greenest rider through safely.

A horse that is curious may be interested in the rustling bushes or flying flag, but not tense and prepared to bolt.

A horse that is curious will be interested in you lifting its’ leg (you may get a nose in your back) but won’t be pulling back or kicking.

Teaching your horse to be curious allows new situations to be faced without fear, without flight, without fight, but with open emotional and mental awareness, capability to learn and process, and the development of the bond between horse and rider.

Teaching curiosity reinforces leadership, trust and strengthens our relationship, while allowing the horse to progress with its learning capability.

Do you want to train your horse to be curious, confident and open to discussion?

Click here to learn more

Reached The Breaking Point? Here is why...

All horses have a point where they can no longer say “yes”.

Think about a time a work with your boss where they have given you a job and you say yes can do, and then they give you another 3 jobs to achieve in that same time frame and you say yes can do but in the back of your mind you think “oh that’s getting tight”. They walk back in with a few more tasks to add to the list and all of a sudden your at your tipping point, ready to walk out. Or on the flip side, an anxious mess trying to figure out how you are going to get through all your work.  

Here’s another scenario: Have you been given a task that you have finished and handed it in only to be told not good enough? So you’ve taken it back to review and thought “yeah I can tweak that”; handed it back in, and it’s still not good enough. How many times can you be told it’s not good enough, with no recommendations on how to make it good enough, before you stop trying?

These are breaking points. You are pushed to your limits.

How well you cope with this kind of pressure has a lot to do with your passion for the project, your personality and how successfully you have worked through challenges like this before. This is why, with our training, we teach our horses to learn, work through their emotions, and to try and cope with pressure first, before we start giving them tasks like doing well at competitions.

A lot of horses with behavioural problems have those problems because that is the only way they have left to communicate NO.

Ideally I would like the horses not to know that bucking, rearing, bolting, biting and kicking are an option. But often that has already been established by the time I start working with them. So at this point I want to know:

• How much pressure they can cope with before they react “negatively”

• What behaviour they choose when they hit that breaking point.

• What little behaviours and subtle signs they give before reaching that point

• What settles them down

Our Training Tools

When we ONLY use negative reinforcement (IE creating an uncomfortable stimuli to illicit a certain behaviour), we will always hit a breaking point in our horse. This becomes an even more frequent occurrence when as the handler we miss our timing for the release of pressure. Using positive reinforcement we can encourage our horse to seek the correct behaviour through incentivising that behaviour with a reward.

At Equestrian Movement we use gentle negative reinforcement through pressure release to establish boundaries for acceptable behaviour and discipline, and then combine this with positive reinforcement for cue training and aids.

This means that now and then we will push our horse for more, but ALWAYS aim to avoid their breaking point by knowing when and how to release the pressure. We most commonly do this when our horse is challenging our authority. So we MUST know what to look for when our horse is about to hit breaking point.

The breaking point

Basically the horse shows resistance, and that resistance grows in intensity.

If we have done our pressure release right and we know our horse knows to seek the release of pressure.

If we have ruled out all other reasons for resistance (ie, pain, not understanding what we want or not being able to do what we want) we have a spectrum of behaviour.

Initially, if our horse is comfortable they will choose to ignore us, or they could also be shut down (read about symptoms of a shut down horse here). There is a very fine line of responsivity before we are putting too much pressure on the horse and they are overreacting. We want to gently find that point of responsivity to find out how much pressure our horse needs to get a response from our ask, without the pressure overwhelming them and making them scared or aggressive.

Just because you’ve gotten your horse to respond to you doesn’t mean that the horse will pick the right response. But getting stronger and increasing the pressure won’t make them choose the right response either. You have to look at your other tools. Is your horse not responding correctly because:

• It’s in pain (IE teeth are sharp, saddle doesn’t fit, damaged muscles etc)

• It doesn’t understand what you want

• It can’t do what you want

• It is scared of what you are asking, getting the answer wrong and getting in trouble or what you are asking it to do will cause it pain or for it to do something it doesn’t want to do.

• You’ve asked too many times without reward or break

If any of these reasons are the reason for your horse to say no, you will push it to its breaking point and make it over react.

We have covered some simple training rules in our training trainability course to help you avoid reaching that breaking point while still getting the behaviour you want from your horse.

Begin training your horse the CORRECT way

Click here to view the Training Trainability course

How To Tell If Your Horse Has Shut Down

Did you know that some horses ‘shut down’ their emotions while still doing what is asked?

The stillness that is the result of a tight and tense horse is often mistaken for calmness - until the horse overreacts

When your horse shuts down, it is a coping mechanism for not knowing what is expected of them and being scared of the consequences of doing the wrong thing. What is thought of as your horse being calm and relaxed because they are standing still is actually them choosing to do nothing to avoid the consequences of the wrong behaviour.

When this occurs in training, the horse stops learning and engaging with us and starts trying to protect itself. Rather than them learning how to process the training cues with calm relaxation, they are tight and tense on the brink of being tripped over into a fear state. This stillness that is the result of being tight and tense not knowing what to do is often mistaken for a calm, quiet horse. The horse hits its threshold for what it can cope with and all of a sudden overreacts leaving the owner/trainer saying “where the hell did that come from?”

Being shut down is also like learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a shut down state but not all horses that are shut down are in a learned helplessness state.  

Signs your horse has shut down:

• Horse stops responding to whips, spurs and being led by the halter or bridle

• The horse is unresponsive to a lot of stimuli (typically called a bomb proof horse) when trainers train desensitisation without training how to process, relax and breath through fear, the horse learns to just not to react to things it is scared of.

• Horse is standing perfectly still but standing tense and not breathing deeply. Their posture is guarded, they know where their exits are and ready to run, if there are no exits they will be getting ready to fight.

• Horse unexpectedly over reacts like launching into the air, broncing, bolting or lunging out at you with their teeth or legs.

• Avoid contact. They don’t try to initiate conversation with you and actively avoid you by not looking you in the eye, not touching you with their nose, standing perfectly still when you pat them and sometimes flinching at your touch.

• The horse doesn’t exhibit the normal stress signs because it is like a dissociative state. They have “left the building”, disconnected from their body.

Your horse is often trying to communicate it is uncomfortable when it is shut down before it stops coping. This is why with the way we train we try to encourage our horses to tell us they have a problem before they have a big problem. The signs are often very subtle however and often missed.

It can be the swish of a tail, the stomp of a hoof, the toss of the head, the swivel of the ears. This is where knowing your horse becomes so important and also why we use pressure release the way we do. Your horse can do these things as a little grumble and protest but then chooses to work with you. Other horses will do this as a sign to say back off I’m not coping. Its important to learn how much pressure your horse can cope with before they aren’t coping anymore, what behaviour they show when not coping, how they communicate to back off and what you need to do to help soothe them back into a state of processing cues again. 

Over time as your relationship and trust builds your horse should become less sensitive and more willing to your asks but only because they know you are listening to them and respecting their boundaries they allow you to ask more of them.

Using tactics to scare, intimidate and bully horses into submission is a common training tool used today. And, because it works, it continues to be used. It’s how I was initially taught to train. “Be scarier than the thing your horse is scared of”. However, I also learnt to train by teaching beginners who aren’t strong enough, coordinated or savvy enough to get a horse to cooperate through these tactics and so had to find another way they could get their horses to not only do as they asked but also to look after them.

Begin training your horse the CORRECT way

Training Trainability takes you through the methods to avoid your horse shutting down - click here to learn more

Making time to ride: 7 ways to fit it in

Making time to ride doesn’t have to be so difficult – does it? As we each live busier and busier lives, sometimes it seems next to impossible to make our riding commitments stick. Here’s a few things you can try to help you get out in the saddle more often.

List it

Ever heard of the Eisenhower Matrix? It’s a great way of prioritising your activities ranked by level of importance and urgency for your day, week or even month.

Grab a piece of paper, and divide it into 4. Top left, decide what is Important and Urgent. Generally, this is crisis, emergencies or important deadlines, but would also include feeding animals (and family). These should be ticked off your list quickly.

 Top right is Important and Not Urgent. This section often includes relationships and family, and is likely where your horse riding will fall. Allocate a large amount of planned time for these activities.

Bottom left in Not Important and Urgent. These items need doing soon but are not important to you – so can you delegate them? If not, get them done quickly and don’t spend too much time on them.

The final quadrant is Not Important and Not Urgent. Usually television, games and social media fall into this category. In September 2016, Mediakix  estimated the average time a person spent on social media PER DAY was almost 2 hours!! But let me ask you – if it’s neither urgent nor important, could it be nothing more than a time waster, which you could be using more productively, for example, riding?

Negotiate like Samuel L Jackson in, well, the Negotiator

Nearly all of us are required to work to be able to afford our general expenses (most of which goes to our ponies, dare I say!). While not possible in all cases, there is a chance that you can negotiate with your boss for some flexibility in your work day. Here are a few suggestions that may work for you, depending on your work situation:

Can you start/finish earlier, or perhaps even later, to take advantage of some time with your family and horse?

Can you negotiate some of your break times to be at the end of the day, to leave earlier?

Can you negotiate time in lieu in place of overtime, and spread those hours throughout your week/month?

Look after your health

 It might sound cliché, but the better your health, the more energy your have and the more productive -you will be. Ensure to get a solid sleep, eat well and make time for exercise – remember, horse riding is exercise!

Save your daylight

Horse riding is an activity that favours sunlight, unless you are lucky enough to an undercover arena with lights. Have a look over your Eisenhower matrix, and highlight the activities that can be done in the dark, such as housework, meal prepping or (in my case) writing.

Organisation is key

When your time is limited, organisation is key to getting maximum value. Having your tack shed organised in a way that allows quick access to everything you need for a short ride will be guaranteed time saver.

At the same time, organising your desk can save you precious time that should be used wisely - riding, of course.

It’s time for a new mantra

When we become busy our focus can shift off our important priorities and onto random, unimportant tasks. This not only wastes our time but starts to change our views of the important tasks in our lives, in essence negating their higher priority.

This doesn’t mean that you should beat yourself up when other, urgent and/or important activity take away your ability to ride, but is definitely something to think about if your time is being absorbed by non-urgent and unimportant tasks.

Put some effort into making your horse more receptive to your training

Spending time now training your horse will save you loads of time when you really are short on time. Think about it - how much time do you waste:

• Trying to avoid being shoved around by your horse at feed time?

• Trying to put a bridle on the sudden giraffe?

• Chasing your horse around the paddock because he doesn’t want to be caught?

Spending the time to make sure your boundaries are respected & your horse enjoys spending time with you will save more time than your realise.

Actively involve your horse in your training!

When our horses feel a part of their training, they are happier to work with you! Click her to learn more

What tips do you have for making more time for riding?