How to Develop a Trustworthy Trail Horse, Part I

Hi and welcome to Holistic Horse's "Ask the Expert." I am Caroline Beste of the Tao of Horsemanship. Today we are going to be discussing The "how to" when developing a safe and trustworthy trail horse, one that is happy to stay back with me, is calm, relaxed and brave. There is a lot of material to be covered in today's topic so I have broken it down into segments with today being "Developing a Trustworthy Trail Horse: Part I."

My first question for you is what makes a horse not trust worthy on the trail, unsafe and often times unpredictable? I'm not asking the obvious either, meaning, we know that bulking, dropping a shoulder and rolling back into a full gallop is not safe and absolutely dangerous behavior. What I want you to think about is WHAT makes them do this?

What is the first sign, body language that shows up in our horse that cues us into our horses becoming dangerous, unpredictable, unsafe? The FIRST sign is a lack of focus, attention, connection to us, the rider, the leader.

Most of us understand horse psychology and behavior, at least the fundamentals. Horses are prey animals that are on heightened sensory awareness all the time. They are always ready for flight, fight or freeze. They perceive their environment as dangerous unless told otherwise. When we have an unsafe horse, we have a horse that is paying attention to everything BUT us. At this point our horse has escalated and is is heightened and ready for flight, fight of freeze. They don't trust us, respect us or think of us a leader. We can become that leader by creating situations, exercises, that allow us to work on the important ingredients to developing a calm, safe trail riding partner. None of these has anything to do with desensitizing or bomb proofing either. It has everything to do with developing our horse's mindset for focus, cooperation, emotional agility when feeling pressured, and trust and respect for our leadership.

How do we achieve this position, as lead horse, with our horse? We begin with building the relationship first then work towards achieving partnership. Because horses are social and gregarious by nature they seek out and enjoy relationships and are easily influenced. When it comes to relationship we want our horses to WANT us. If they don't feel companionship, friendship in the work, or training, they will not want to be with you nor will they enjoy the work and time you spend together. The relationship is what motivates our horses to seek us out, include us and take care us.

So now I've talked about the qualities and importance of both love (relationship) and leadership. We must include both in order to create our horse's desire to be with us, take care of us, as well as the motivation to cooperate and partner. So, now I go back to the question I asked earlier about WHAT makes a horse react and act dangerously? It is the lack of relationship and leadership between you that causes our horses to feel uncomfortable and unsafe. They end up being influenced by other horses, the herd they have adopted on the trail ride.

How can we develop deeper bonds, relationship, and leadership and stop the madness on the trail? We begin by working through specific ground and riding techniques that embody heart-felt intention and develop deep awareness and observation skills. These skills help us become aware of how our horse feels about what we are asking them and assist us in becoming the leader necessary to help them understand, accept and partner without question. In the end, we are looking for a riding partner that does not question our request and is happy and content to join us. This takes tremendous trust, respect and focus on our horse's part, with focus being the name of the game as without it our horse is focused on everything else but us!

I am going to show you the following exercises that I have developed to assist in creating a calm, cooperative partner in our horses. These exercises are in a sequence with the first being...

Well, that wraps up our first segment, Part I, of "How to Develop a Calm, Cooperative Partner in our Trail Horse." We discussed the following qualities we are looking for when developing our horse's calm and cooperative mindset: focus/attention; the "3 R's" when training -- responsiveness, rhythm and relaxation; confidence when faced with pressure -- which can be your request, new environments and adrenaline; relaxation and rhythm when in movement.

Join me next month as Smokey and I show you how the qualities of the ground work we demonstrated influence your horse's mindset when riding. I will also show specific techniques that will help you deepen the level of focus, responsiveness, respect and connection needed to be safe.

Please visit www.taoofhorsemanship.com for more education materials, DVD's, clinic opportunities, training and the TAO of Horsemanship Online Foundation Course.

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