How to get your horse to “join up” without chasing your horse into submission

As horse riders on the journey we are all seeking the moment of utter magic and joy, where our horse connects with us on a deeper level emotionally.

The moment where they stop arguing with us, pushing us around, trying to run away from us.

That moment of union where it’s like you are your horse move and think as one. 

Join up is often recommended to establish this connection. It is touted as the way to handle your horse without violence and to develop a bond. However, after years of breaking, training and playing around with different groundwork principles, I believe there is a better way.

What is join up

Join up is where you free lunge your horse in a round yard.

You keep the horse moving forward until you see loud, over exaggerated and multiple relaxation cues (Read more about relaxation cues here).

The premise being that when you horse shows these signs of submission they are ready to approach you and bond with you. When you are free lunging your horse you are wanting them to change direction by turning into you not away from you. This also encourages the join up process.

Why this works

It gets the zoomies out.

We honestly expect a lot more of our horses than we do of other animals. Because they are so big and we want to sit on them we expect a naturally flighty animal to be unflappable (get it cause they’re often scared of flappy plastic bags). We not only expect them to be cool, calm and collected in all environments but we also want them to be steady and balanced when they work no matter what kind of performance pressure we put on them.

Behaviours that are perfectly acceptable from other animals (i.e. the zoomies) are considered naughty when done by horses. Sometimes they just need a good run to get the spunk out of their system and then they can concentrate and work again. Join up can let our horses have a good run and a buck and warm their back up before settling into focus and work. 

Horses learn from the release of pressure. Whatever a horse is consistently doing when you take the pressure off them they will learn to do. So if you take the pressure of the lunge whip off when your horse shows relaxation cues, or calmly approaches you, they will learn to give multiple, loud relaxation cues and approach you calmly… eventually so they don’t have to lunge anymore.

So used correctly this can be a handy skill to have and know how to use but it doesn’t establish a bond with your horse. It can be a useful way to allow your horse to get its pent up energy out of its system so it can calmly approach you and better control its emotions. 

And a horse that can’t control its emotions, can’t control its behaviour. 

Why we don’t love it

It doesn’t teach horses how to process their emotions.

Just running the energy out of them so that they can focus doesn’t teach them how to shift their emotional state.

So if they are cooperating because they are scared, confused, frustrated anxious etc, it only teaches them how to process emotion (fight or flighty hormones) by running - which is not necessarily what we need to teach a flight animal. More so we are taking advantage of the horses natural way of processing fight or flight hormones by running. The fitter we make our horses the longer it takes to get those relaxation cues and we end up making our horses fitter than us. 

It works off the idea of submission.

While at equestrian movement we start with leadership (i.e. me boss you follower), we like to try and move quickly into a partnership.

We also establish leadership with clear, consistent boundaries and following through on our asks. Not chasing our horses until they quit (FYI this is also why join up works). You are clear and consistent on what you want the horse to do and what will happen to them when they do it. There are clear consequences to their behaviour and it is followed through on.

So what is thought of as a bond establishing it really is just the horse learning what to do with pressure and how to find the release (don’t believe me? Check out this study where they were able to get the same join up results with a remote control car. https://thehorse.com/118284/remote-controlled-cars-used-to-study-round-pen-training/)

You don’t have to chase your horse to establish a connection with your horse and get them to “join up” or “hook on”

Showing up as a good leader, establishing clear, consistent expectations, following through on your asks, being clear in your expectations and consequences and over time you will develop trust, respect and a relationship. Want to speed the process along? We cover how to establish the connection without join up in our Easy Peasy Liberty Module of Training trainability.