Preparing for Spring Riding Season

Looking ahead to the upcoming riding season, whether you ride for pleasure or are a competitor, you can strive to offer a supportive partnership towards your horse. I will touch on two concepts that you can start considering, without even having to battle the outdoor winter conditions!

The first is addressing your mental focus. Often we think of riding as an escape from the everyday challenges and stresses of life.  The horse on the other hand can immediately recognize if the person is not mentally present, if they are distracted, stressed, tired, etc. 

I suggest folks learn how to mentally “leave reality at the door” when they are heading out to ride. My perspective is that the ride begins when someone thinks about going for the ride. Mentally separating other aspects of life from the time spent with the horse allows a rider to offer the same level of consideration, conversation and focus they are asking from their horse. 

When mentally present, a person can communicate proactively with their horse, rather than only offering input or critique after the horse has made an undesired movement. When people are distracted, they tend to only notice the big and dramatic moments, rather than the subtle ones when the horse is initially asking for guidance or support. If the human suddenly tries to intervene during peak stress or fear in the horse, it can cause defensiveness towards the rider’s aids.

Intentional guidance from the rider (which should not be presented as a dictatorship to the horse), what I call “riding in real time,” increases the clarity and timing towards what the horse is about to offer. This also decreases the critical, after-the-fact interaction that occurs between many humans and horses.

A rider’s constant critique is a leading contributor to creating defensive horses. By taking the initiative and offering specific intention, the horse can be clear on what will be asked of him. This can build his confidence and increases his willingness to try, because the rider will be offering respectful and specific communication.

Addressing your own mental presence leads to my next topic: riding goals, intentions and the horse’s thought. As they say, “hindsight is 20/20.” Take a few minutes and think about the last one or two riding seasons.  What were some challenges that arose between you and your horse and have they been addressed?

For a lot of folks the traditional “wet saddle blankets” approach is used as a way for horses to learn and improve.  I find that solely focusing on the horse’s physical movement leads to a continuous “containment” from the rider trying to keep the horse physically compliant. Instead, I prioritize getting the horse’s thought with me first, which then influences his physical movement.

When you think of past experiences with your horse, do you start with “I didn’t want him to…” or “I wish he would not always...” or “I hope we can…”? Those three sentence starters I frequently hear from riders who are having difficulty achieving goals with their horse. Often people fixate on what they do not want their horse to do, rather than how they can change their approach and help their horse arrive at a different outcome. 

Imagine someone was a nervous, inexperienced driver and there were bad road conditions.  If before they drove their car you told them “Don’t crash,” would that decrease their chance of getting into an accident? Probably not. In fact it might even add stress while they were driving and perhaps increase their anxiety.

What if the next time they drive their car, you are a passenger and you say things like, “Don’t go so fast… you slowed too much… stop sooner… why did you change lanes?” Would your words relax, build confidence or reassure the already insecure driver? Did you teach them anything? Have you helped improve their driving ability? Has your presence made driving a better experience for them, inspiring them to invite you along in the future? No, it has not. Instead, you have made them feel worse due to your approach in how you interacted with them, even if your intentions were good.

Unintentionally many people create that same experience for their horse. The person wonders why they are not achieving the results in their horse’s performance. If the rider continues offering delayed, critical, task-fixated focus irrelevant of the quality, they are not supporting their horse. 

In terms of goals with your own horse, before presenting the back country trail ride, the jump, roping the steer or working on your 20 meter Dressage circle, mentally think through what and how you will need to communicate the small pieces that will contribute to achieving the overall goal. Often through specific, incremental communication from the rider presenting “pieces” of the goal, the horse can better understand the specificity of the movement and build confidence. Below is an example. 

Let us say you ask your horse to change his energy at the walk, and he ignores you, leaks out with his shoulder, clamps his jaw down on the bit, or stays stuck at one speed. What will happen when you ask him to move faster? Whatever you are feeling at the slower gait will magnify at the faster energy level. 

If you ignore his initial feedback of resistant and defensive behavior, and attempt to be more specific, such as trying to improve your flying lead changes, roll backs, or finding the ideal spot to the jump, is your horse currently mentally available to hear you? Will his response be to softly address a physical change you ask of him? No.  Presenting the long term goal when you are missing the foundation pieces is setting the horse up to fail and be critiqued.

So take some time on those cold, dark days and perhaps jot down your equine related goals, and what incremental pieces you’ll need to address with your horse to help you both achieve them with quality.

Jump Starting your Riding Season

Spring is here, now what?

For those who are not competition motivated, or who have to address “obvious” advancement with their horse, such as working with a baby and teaching them ground manners, I find often find pleasure horse owners reach a plateau with their equine partner, and often lack a direction, which in turn can create patternized routines and rides, lack of motivation, lace of mental presence from human towards their horse.

Up here in the pacific northwest, many horse owners are lucky enough to keep their horses at home, and have the opportunity to “just ride” whenever; though the ease of accessibility is awesome, it can often become a “lonely” experience without another equine enthusiast to share ideas, thoughts or experiences with.

Of course then there are sometimes the horror stories of folks trying to expand their equine associated friends, but large groups of all levels and mentalities in varies levels of dangerous scenarios can often turn someone off from participating in group gatherings.

So what can you do?  Here are a few ideas…

1.)           Every two weeks “add” one small new concept, idea, or thought to YOUR knowledge base regarding any equine related.  This can be read, watched, heard.  You don’t have to either “totally get it, understand it or want to use it.”  But it will be something new to think about.  It often can take a long time of “mulling something over” before you can have an opinion about it.

In this day and age media allows us a lot of opportunity to see, hear and read things we would have never had access to in the past.  Take advantage of it.  Even if you just sit back and watch all of the amateur horse lover videos on YouTube, audit a local competition or other horse related gathering.

2.)           Go take a lesson or audit a lesson.  Even the “top” horse people in the world take lessons or continue to expand their knowledge through learning from others.  Lessons often can be associated with “having a problem,” but really they may just be a way to get another person’s assessment of “where” you and your horse are at, with some ideas and suggestions for future improvement.  To get the “most” for your money, if you can find someone to video you (to film in close proximity to the instructor so you can hear what they are saying), you’ll be able to watch the video in the future, and some of the things you may have missed while riding, you might be able to address after watching yourself in the lesson and reminded of the instruction offered.

3.)           Find a riding buddy.  I don’t mean someone who you will brainlessly gossip with when you ride out on the trail, but rather someone with similar horse related interests who might share and/or motivate you.  There are always notice boards at the local feed store, and often online there are plenty of websites (horse and non horse related) where people can freely advertise or search for other people with the same similar interest.  It might take a little time, you may have some “misses” but eventually you’ll find at least one person who you can share you appreciation for the sport with. 

I was reminded yet again just a week ago, how clients who live quite far apart, but who met at one of my clinics a year ago, are still in touch and have on several occasions done horse activities together.

There are plenty more ideas but, these few can offer you an affordable jump start to your riding season.

Because I offer training by the week, I find many folks who come for a week or two as a “spring tune up” to get them and their horse on the “same page” in order to go home with some realistic and plausible future goals and ideas.

Good Luck,

Sam