221. Patience, Persistence & Perseverance over Power...

Throughout the horse world it seems that when a horse doesn't do as you ask it to the most common solution is to use more force... a stronger bit, a whip, spurs, a martingale anything that allows you to gain more physical control.

However, i have always had a problem with this because horses don't beat the *** out of each other to make each other do as they want in fact most of the time they barely even touch each other. Horses work out who is in charge by exerting confident body language and seeing who will 'back off' first.

This is how i believe horses should be trained i don't believe in beating a horse into submission as many do and i strongly believe that the psychological interaction is far more important than the physical one. We have therefore been training Spice with these principles in mind and are seeing amazing results.

Today we decided to take Spice down to the Ford which was over flowing with water and admittedly something most young horses would find frightening but if Spice is ever to hack out confidently on her own we need to increase her confidence and this was therefore the perfect place.

Right from the start Spice led us out of the yard opening the gate and not once attempting to go behind (which is in and of itself amazing progress) in view of the fact that it was only her third time out in lead.

But sure enough as soon as we approached the Ford anxiety and fear set in and she immediately tried to use Persia (the other horse) as her comfort blanket doing her best to get 'behind her'.

We knew that if we could get Spice to go through the Ford without the comfort of another horse either in front or beside her she would gain massive amounts of confidence and would hopefully stop being so reliant on other horses in the future.

So how long did it take? approximetely 20 minutes with spins, rears, bucks and lots of running backwards but bit by bit Spices fear and anxiety decreased and she began to start thinking about the stimuli in front of her rather than simply reacting to it. And as soon as one hoof was in the rest swiftly followed.

It was a moment of great elation and the result was seeing Spice looking more confident than ever leading the way for the rest of the hack and even passing her first digger!

No real force was used throughout the time it took to get her across the Ford... the simple truth is all that was needed was patience, persistence and perseverance and what was so lovely was that Spice crossed the Ford because she felt confident enough to NOT because she was 'forced to'.

I believe that any confident rider can get a horse to do something with enough force and physical aggression but that a great rider can get horse to do something without such force and the result of this is having a horse that respects and trusts you because they want to not because they have to.

I can't wait for our next ride out...the sense of achievement one feels when seeing a result like this is immense.