Picking your battles
Posted by Rosie Jones on Tuesday, January 25, 2011
I actually hate the term 'battle' when it comes to horse training. As soon as you are thinking in terms of battles I think your on the wrong track. However, there is something to be said in the age old wisdom of picking your battles, as I have been reminded this week by 3 different horses.
Firstly, theres Harv. Harv has had a lot of time off this winter, with the snow, the broken down (then stolen!) car, and the daylight, I have crammed clients into every workable situation, so its been very hard to get time to ride my own horse! He's only 6 years old, and so an easy month of chilling out in a herd with regular, consistant handling has been no problem. But, I knew I didn't want to take it for granted when it came back to starting work again. I really don't want to take his willingness for granted, ask too much of him, and remind him how to say No - afterall, why should he do what I say when I have hardly asked a thing of him for the last month?!
So, I went back to the walking (actually jogging, I'm trying to get fit) in hand, and also playing with very simple control of feet exercises both in hand and ridden in the yard, we are working on mocving his shoulders, barrel or quaters over clearly. I think I have chosen about the right level of 'stretch' for Harv, because he doesn't always get it right, sometimes he thinks about resisting, but I'm asking for easy enough things that I know I CAN 'see it through' and get that Try from him and then release all the pressure. So I can feel I'm winning him over again, and he is falling into the habbit of letting me manouver him and not minding that. As part of this I tried Ponying him out, by that I mean leading him from another horse. Hmmm. I guess he still has a way to go before his behaviour with other horses totally settles. With ears brightly forward, and not a glimpse of aggression, he persistantly clamped his wide-open jaw onto any bit of the poor lead pony he could get to. I felt so bad for the poor pony (who behaved impeccably) that in the end the only way to keep him safe was to go along with Harvey's head practically in my lap - so sacrificing my own thigh safety. I did see a car driver actually laugh out loud at my attempts to squirm out of the way of Harveys snapping jaws, control both ponies and smile at the traffic at the same time. I should add that no ponies or people were actually harmed in the making of this tricky situaiton, but Harveys training certainly didnt benefit. When we got back to the yard, I did a little groundwork with Harvey which started off absolutely awfully sticky and resistant, so I dont think good lessons were learned and I dont think this exercise will be repeated for Harv!
The other two ponies I'd like to bring up in this blog are both beautiful connemara ponies, and could both broadly be described as nappy. The first is a spooky and reactive fellow, with a rider whose confidence has been affected - not least by his panicy behaviour in traffic. With him, a productive approach is to stick firmly within the boundaires of his and his rider's confidence. Perfecting exercises which focus on dealing with low levels of stress - which both equips the rider with a handful of 'tools' that help her to stay in control when pony is scared, but also gradually desensitises pony to the type of thing he is scared of. So she gets more sued to handling his spookiness effectively, her confidence in him and his confidence in her improve, and ideally, we will be out hacking again in no time without ever feeling like their was a battle of wills.
The second connemara is a switched off, sleepy sort of chap. He doesn't respond consistantly well to the leg, and, although not the sort to put up a big fight or do anything that could be seen as 'nasty' - he's not inclinced to take direction willingly - he's a minimum imput sort of guy. With him, a much more direct and clear appraoch is needed, where we do push through resistance rather than avoid it, and show him where the fun and enjoyment is to be had in using his body.
Of course this is massively oversimplifying both ponies, but the key thinking point for me at the moment is exploring when to push agaisnt resistance, and when to avoid the resistance in the first place, both day to day and horse to horse.
I guess I'd really like to have one clear answer for this, but although the cases above are clearly defined, in real life that is just never the case!
Speaking fo real life, I really have much of it to be getting on with - Oh the exciting life of a horse trainer - I'm trying to complete my tax returns before Jan 31st!!
Rosie xxx
Firstly, theres Harv. Harv has had a lot of time off this winter, with the snow, the broken down (then stolen!) car, and the daylight, I have crammed clients into every workable situation, so its been very hard to get time to ride my own horse! He's only 6 years old, and so an easy month of chilling out in a herd with regular, consistant handling has been no problem. But, I knew I didn't want to take it for granted when it came back to starting work again. I really don't want to take his willingness for granted, ask too much of him, and remind him how to say No - afterall, why should he do what I say when I have hardly asked a thing of him for the last month?!
So, I went back to the walking (actually jogging, I'm trying to get fit) in hand, and also playing with very simple control of feet exercises both in hand and ridden in the yard, we are working on mocving his shoulders, barrel or quaters over clearly. I think I have chosen about the right level of 'stretch' for Harv, because he doesn't always get it right, sometimes he thinks about resisting, but I'm asking for easy enough things that I know I CAN 'see it through' and get that Try from him and then release all the pressure. So I can feel I'm winning him over again, and he is falling into the habbit of letting me manouver him and not minding that. As part of this I tried Ponying him out, by that I mean leading him from another horse. Hmmm. I guess he still has a way to go before his behaviour with other horses totally settles. With ears brightly forward, and not a glimpse of aggression, he persistantly clamped his wide-open jaw onto any bit of the poor lead pony he could get to. I felt so bad for the poor pony (who behaved impeccably) that in the end the only way to keep him safe was to go along with Harvey's head practically in my lap - so sacrificing my own thigh safety. I did see a car driver actually laugh out loud at my attempts to squirm out of the way of Harveys snapping jaws, control both ponies and smile at the traffic at the same time. I should add that no ponies or people were actually harmed in the making of this tricky situaiton, but Harveys training certainly didnt benefit. When we got back to the yard, I did a little groundwork with Harvey which started off absolutely awfully sticky and resistant, so I dont think good lessons were learned and I dont think this exercise will be repeated for Harv!
The other two ponies I'd like to bring up in this blog are both beautiful connemara ponies, and could both broadly be described as nappy. The first is a spooky and reactive fellow, with a rider whose confidence has been affected - not least by his panicy behaviour in traffic. With him, a productive approach is to stick firmly within the boundaires of his and his rider's confidence. Perfecting exercises which focus on dealing with low levels of stress - which both equips the rider with a handful of 'tools' that help her to stay in control when pony is scared, but also gradually desensitises pony to the type of thing he is scared of. So she gets more sued to handling his spookiness effectively, her confidence in him and his confidence in her improve, and ideally, we will be out hacking again in no time without ever feeling like their was a battle of wills.
The second connemara is a switched off, sleepy sort of chap. He doesn't respond consistantly well to the leg, and, although not the sort to put up a big fight or do anything that could be seen as 'nasty' - he's not inclinced to take direction willingly - he's a minimum imput sort of guy. With him, a much more direct and clear appraoch is needed, where we do push through resistance rather than avoid it, and show him where the fun and enjoyment is to be had in using his body.
Of course this is massively oversimplifying both ponies, but the key thinking point for me at the moment is exploring when to push agaisnt resistance, and when to avoid the resistance in the first place, both day to day and horse to horse.
I guess I'd really like to have one clear answer for this, but although the cases above are clearly defined, in real life that is just never the case!
Speaking fo real life, I really have much of it to be getting on with - Oh the exciting life of a horse trainer - I'm trying to complete my tax returns before Jan 31st!!
Rosie xxx
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