1) …it must be safe for you, safe for the horse, and the horse must be calmer or as calm as when you started.* You shouldn’t push the horse to a point where it feels the need to lash out or react in a negative way. Make sure that there is no chance that the horse will spook or that the horse will cause an accident.

2) …as soon as the horse responds to your cue, release all pressure.* If you ask the horse to turn to one direction and he moves even a little bit the way that you want him to, that is still the response you are looking for. We use pressure as the cue, and the release is the horses incentive for doing what we ask again.

3) …you must use the lightest possible pressure, or cue, to get the horse to respond in the way that you want it to.** Only use force when there is a great need. Otherwise use as little pressure as is possible to get the horse to change its behavior, direction, or speed...

4)...but, use as much pressure as you have to in order to get the horse to respond.  This might mean ounces of pressure or literal pounds of pressure.  To be an effective horse training, you need to be able to use the right amount of pressure at the right time.

5) …always remain calm, even if the horse gets excited. This is especially relevant when you are on the ground, maybe leading the horse, or if the horse is young. If the horse gets frightened or excited and is ready to panic and bolt, it might calm down if it sees that you do not even care about what is happening around you. If you remain calm there is a chance that the horse will follow your example and stay calm.

6) …always focus on what you are trying to accomplish with the horse; don’t focus on what the horse may or may not be doing.* If you are trying to teach a horse a specific cue, and the horse still has not figured out what you want to teach it, just continue looking for the desired response and reward the horse when it does what you want. Do not worry about all the other things that it does, that we don’t want it to do.

7) …always remember that whenever you do anything with a horse, you are training it. If you are in the pasture with it, you are training it; if you are leading it to the barn, you are training it; if you are just riding for fun, you are still training it. It is important to remember this because anything that you do with a horse could and will affect its behavior. If you are around a horse, you must know that you can affect its attitude in positive or negative ways.

8) …remember that if you are not in control, the horse is. In a horse herd, there is room for only one leader or alpha, and if you do not lead, the horse will think that it has no choice but to take control.

9) …try to end a lesson or ride on a positive note.* Most horses will be much better behaved the next time you get them out if you stop working with the horse after it does something well, even if it is something that it has been doing for a while. If you end a lesson with both you and the horse frustrated, the horse will remember it the next time.

I will discuss these points below.

These are basic guidelines, meant to keep you and your horse safe and calm. The calmer the horse is, the better. It is also helpful to try to do any new lesson in a familiar environment that has as few distractions as possible. This way the horse is able to focus more on you, and worry less about what is going on around it.

Here I will reiterate the nine points that I mentioned above.

1) It is important, first of all, that whenever you are working with a horse, you remain safe. You need to check through what you are planning on doing with the horse to see if you will be in any danger. Second of all, it must be safe for the horse. If you are working with a horse to accept a rope, you must make sure that the horse will not get so scared or nervous that it gets tangled in the rope. You need to make sure that the horse is ready for what you are teaching it. Thirdly, make sure that the horse is at least as calm when you are done, as when you started. The calmer the horse is, the more likely it will remember what we taught it. Our goal isn’t to force the horse into doing anything.

2) We teach a horse to do something by giving a signal (pressure), and when the horse responds the way we want it to, we release the signal. The horse learns that when it responds a certain way to a certain signal or cue, that we release the pressure, giving the horse its “reward.” This way the horse will want to do what we ask of it. Not because we are going to hurt it if it doesn’t, but because it gets a release of pressure when it does what we want. If you wanted to teach a horse to move foreword when you squeeze with your legs, you would first squeeze with your legs and as soon as the horse took a step foreword, you would release the pressure of you legs. The horse will soon learn that when you squeeze, you want it to move foreword. It also learns that when it moves foreword, you stop squeezing.

3) When we ask a horse to do something, we want to use the lightest possible cue. That means using the lightest amount of pressure or force as is necessary. If you wanted a horse to go foreword, you would just gently squeeze with your calves first. If the horse doesn’t move foreword, you can squeeze a little harder; gradually using more and more pressure until the horse moved foreword. The next time you ask the horse to move foreword, you do the same thing. Always start out by using as little force as possible. Our goal is to use a very, very light cue to get a horse to move foreword, back, left, and right or anything else we can think of.
4) There is a balance between the smallest amount pressure possible and the greatest amount of pressure needed to do the job.  If we want a light horse, we start with the lightest possible pressure.  However, we might need to use more force in the beginning to do the job.  This then, is the elusive feel in horse training.

5) Try to remain calm around a horse no matter what happens. Horses can sense your emotions, especially anxiety, fear, and excitement. A horse could pick up on what you are feeling and react in a negative way. Also, as a horse learns to trust you and look to you for guidance, the more that you remain calm, even in a tense or scary moment, the horse is more likely to remain calm. If you get nervous, the horse might think that there really is a reason to get all excited. I would rather have the horse calm when it is around me.

6) It is important to focus on what you are trying to teach the horse, not on whatever else the horse may be doing. If you are teaching the horse to hold its head at a certain level and the horse keeps turning in circles, don’t worry about its direction, just focus on that head. It is important that you don’t get frustrated and angry when a horse doesn’t do what you are trying to teach it to. Either go back to an earlier lesson or try it another day. Don’t get worked up over what the horse is not doing, but remember what you are trying to teach it.

7) Whenever you are around a horse, whether leading it or riding it, you are teaching it. You could be teaching it good things or bad things, but you must remember that a horse is always learning from you, even if you don’t know it that it is or don’t want it to. If you went into a pasture to catch a horse and the horse ran away from you and you decided to get the horse out another day, you have just taught that horse that it doesn’t have to be caught if it doesn’t want to. A horse is always learning from you, even the bad things.

8) If you do not show the horse that you are the leader, the horse will decide that it has to take control if it is to survive. You need to learn to be the boss and to earn the horses respect and attention. This does not mean that you need to beat or hurt the horse when it does not listen. It does mean that if a horse refused to go foreword, assuming that it is not scared or hurt, you should continue asking the horse to move foreword until it complies. One of the common “bad habits” that a horse will learn is that it doesn’t have to go away from home. This is “taught” to the horse when you ask it to go away from home and, when it refuses, you decided that let the horse turn around and go back. The horse learns from this, that all it has to do is resist and it will eventually win. So, within reason, make sure you, not the horse, are the one calling the shots.

9) When you are teaching a horse something or just out riding, try to quit after you and the horse have just done something positive together. This helps fix in the horses mind that whenever you get it out, positive things happen. It is especially important to remember this when you are trying to teach a horse something. It is possible that the horse might have a bad day or it might not understand just what you are trying to teach it. In either case, you should try to back up and go to something that the horse knows.