What are you telling your horse? I mean, when you interact with your horse on a daily or weekly basis, what are you teaching him? Have you thought out what signals you might be sending your horse?

I have a question for you. Let’s say that you were working with a young horse teaching it to pick up his feet. Let us say that your horse lets you pick up his foot and hold it for a couple of seconds. After you release his foot, what would you do? Well, I would guess that you would pet him and tell him that he was a good boy, right? That is what I would do, and it is what I see other people doing. We praise and reward our horses for good behavior or when they give us the correct response. This is a good thing.

Here is another question: Perhaps you are riding a younger horse, say, 2 or 3 years old, and you come across something scary, whether it is a car or just something that your horse sees. Your horse might ignore it, but if he is fairly young, it is likely that it will startle him and scare him. He might jump a little, back up a step or two, or just freeze and get ready to run. Now, what would your response be? For many of us, we would probably pet our horse and tell him “eeeasy” or “it’s okay, boy” in a soothing voice, and try to calm him down. Well, essentially, you are rewarding him. You are rewarding him for doing a bad thing: spooking or acting nervous. This is a bad thing.

I mean, think about it. When you praise your horse, you pet him and talk to him in a nice, soft voice; when you are calming him down while he spooks, you pet him and talk to him in a soft voice. To your horse, you have rewarded him for doing bad behavior; you are rewarding him for spooking.  Most of us do not want spooky horses. So, if petting your horse and talking to him when he is scared is not the right response, then what is?

Of course, different trainers say different things all the time. One trainer says do this to calm your horse down, another says something completely different. I will never say that one trainer is wrong. What I will tell you is how I train, how I give my horses the foundation they need. I teach my horses “whoa.” I start at the beginning on a longe line and teach them that when I say “whoa,” they must “freeze” and not move until I tell them to. If they stand still, then I reward them by petting them and talking to them. That is the time to soothe them, not when they are jumpy.

Training horses can be tricky sometimes. We must give them all the right signals at the right times for them to really be well trained. This doesn’t come naturally to most people. It takes much patience and not a little knowledge of how the horse might think. It takes thought and understanding to grasp what you are communicating to your horse. Please try to learn just what you are saying to your horse.

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