The quickest way to ruin a horse is

by being afraid that you’re going to ruin the horse!

When I went to Africa last year, I unfortunately ended up in Hospital being treated intravenously with some very strong antibiotics to kill off a very stubborn infection I had caught from a tiny cut on my toe.

(By the way, this has not deterred me in any way from doing such volunteer work again.)

Anyway, the first nurse that had to put an IV in my vein was highly experienced and very compassionate. However, she didn’t like needles herself and was afraid of hurting me when inserting the needle.

The second she mentioned that, I knew I was in trouble, and that this was going to hurt…

It definitely did!

She stabbed me probably 7-8 times and didn’t manage to get the needle properly in my vein at any point. Eventually, thank goodness, another nurse came in. I asked him if he was afraid of sticking me with the needle and he said “No, not at all”.

He got the needle in the vein on the first try.

Phew!

My experience is that a similar fear of hurting another being is a big limitation for a lot of riders but, as with the nurse, this fear can end up doing a lot more damage and cause a lot more pain than good I’m afraid.

Amongst other things, it can show up as:

• fear of having a heavy hand or not getting the timing right and pulling on the horse’s mouth;

• fear of undoing the training that the trainer has done or doing it wrong; or

• fear of hurting the horse with your legs, spur or the whip when asking the horse to go forward.

I can fully understand all of these concerns.

Humans have a lot of worries and fear. This doesn’t mean that we will be successful if we let our emotions or fears control whether we take the necessary action to achieve the goals that we want. 

You see, the sad thing about these fears are:

1. The rider that fears pulling on the horse will allow the horse to pull and lean on the hand and reins, essentially causing the exact thing they fear. Without the proper frame the horse will fall on the forehand, hollow his back and hurt his mouth and whole body from this posture.

2. The rider that fears undoing the trainer’s work or doing it wrong will never be committed enough to their own learning and practice to figure out what works and what doesn’t. They will end up rewarding bad behavior by accident out of doubt and at best, training will become inconsistent, resulting in a lack of progress or negative results which strengthens the fear.

3. The rider that fears communicating the driving aids clearly will end up kicking and kicking and kicking the horse the totality of every ride and will struggle to accomplish much else as impulsion is the requirement for everything else. As the horse becomes more and more desensitized to the leg, the rider will have to kick even more, perpetuating the problem.

The mindset of fearing something will stop you from dealing with it as you are focusing on the fear and making that part of the problem instead of focusing on the solution to the actual problem.

When you focus on trying to solve the fear, then you are focusing on the wrong problem and therefore you won’t be able to solve it.

When you focus on what you don’t want, then that’s usually exactly what you get. Not because of some mysterious universal energy working against you, but because by focusing on the fear you are avoiding taking the actions that would solve the real problem and you’re continuing to take the actions that won’t solve it.

Ergo, the problems stays… it’s not rocket science!

For example:

1. Light hands don’t create light horses. Neither do heavy hands. The hand has to apply the right amount of lift to solve the weight issue. Understand that statement and you are already ahead of the game. You must use the hand together with your seat to balance and lift the horse off the forehand and redistribute weight to the rear so that the horse stays within the frame, which means in self carriage, and the rider can now ride with a light hand because the horse is balanced. Swift and sometimes strong half halts are needed for this. No wishy washy soft hands are going to solve the issue.

2. To learn how to get the results that the trainer is getting you need to step into the mindset of a trainer. Trainers don’t always have the answers ahead of time. They allow curiosity to lead the way, they do trial and error to see what works and what doesn’t, and they keep going until they find the solution that does work on the real problem, not the made up problem. They aren’t afraid of temporary discomfort whilst discovering what works.

3. The horse must learn how to be obedient to the leg. Obedience doesn’t just mean that the horse should go forward off the leg, it means that it should go “promptly and immediately” forward off the leg without a delayed response and without having to ask multiple times. This is done by giving prompt leg cues, i.e., touch with the leg and if the horse doesn’t immediately respond, reinforce with the whip. Increase volume until desired response happens and then don’t touch the horse with your legs or whip for a minimum of 10 seconds to allow the horse to understand the benefits and freedom from the aids that come with self impulsion!

Whenever we are learning or teaching something new, it involves a temporary period of discomfort, don’t allow the discomfort to get you off track.

• The horse might not like it at first when you insist he should go forward, he might even throw a temper tantrum if he’s used to being lazy on the forehand and has a bad work ethic.

• You might not like increasing your aids and taking leadership because you’re afraid of setting boundaries or fear you’re being mean and are scared of what that says about you.

So what???

Put yourself out there. Try things. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. That’s life. Have a little courage, and above all have a little faith that you can make it to the other side.

Have a little faith in yourself.

Just because you have the gumption to tap the horse in the butt to make it go forward doesn’t mean you are abusing your horse.

Just because you stand up for your beliefs or boundaries with people or horses doesn’t mean that you are a bad person (by the way, this can be done with kindness). Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean turning into an A-hole or blaming others or making them wrong. On the contrary, it’s about taking responsibility for everything in your life – this includes horses too, so hitting a horse is not the same as holding your ground.

Lastly, training horses with only positive reinforcement is not a thing. It doesn’t work for humans either. Participation rewards have not proven to make successful humans and my experience is the same with horses.

Horses are asked to work and working means that it can’t all be done with positive reinforcement. The knowledge comes from knowing when to use what method and then to always reinforce all positive responses with a reward so that even work can become a winning positive experience.

Humans can’t reach their goals without ever stepping out of their comfort zones. Neither can animals.

We all need to develop more stamina, more discipline, more self belief, more faith more determination and some good old courage! And sometimes that’s hard and sometimes we don’t feel like it.

But the more we commit, the more we improve and the more fun we have in the process.

Every learning process goes through these following 3-4 stages:

1. Difficult, heavy, hard, uncoordinated, not much fun.

2. Getting better, still messing up, sometimes hard, sometimes fun

3. Got it! Light, easy, creative, clarity, so much fun 🤩

4. Ready for the next step and starting the whole process over again.

How quickly you get from stage 1 to stage 3 depends on how much validity you place on your fear and excuses, and how much you allow them to slow you down.

If you take responsibility for them and realize that fear doesn’t equal facts, just fiction, then you can visualize your end goal and keep your eyes firmly planted on that no matter what obstacles pop up and just blast right through them.

A lot of times our fears are not valid, they are just fears and we don’t need to allow them to run the show.

Imagine throwing your fears off the Grand Canyon and then soaring like an eagle, or imagine riding a horse with total lightness and feel how that makes your heart fly and skip a beat with joy!

That’s the focus you need to maintain!

Ride with Lightness

Celie xo

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