The longer that any horse spends in “training” the more monotonous the work can become. The rate the horse learns at is always changing based on how much you are trying to introduce or improve. If there is too much challenge in learning because we are teaching faster than the horse can learn the horse will start to tune out and stop improving. If we never challenge the horse to improve and let him get comfortable with what he knows for to long boredom will set in. With the green horse there is also a safety factor that is not always there with a schooled horse. If we do too much the potential for the horse to react violently is very real. To continue learning there must be a challenge to improve every day. How much improvement is different every day, but there must be some. There is a difference between teaching a new concept and improving a skill already taught. The hard part is to know when to ask for improvement and when to teach the next skill, and how much to expect from the horse on any given day. I am a big believer in allowing the horse enough down time to think about what he has done for us. I think it keeps them mentally fresher. Long term breaks are good but if they come too frequently we never get to enjoy the horse and what he can do for us.

A horse that is starting to have a difficult time learning or improving what he already knows but has had an extended period of time off may still need a break. Or maybe just a change would do. There are other ways to work the horse and allow him to use the skills he has developed. Getting out of the arena and trail riding or hacking around the barn may be just what’s needed.

The horse must be safe to take out of the arena or there is no point going out. Hacking or trail riding should be relaxing and casual. So a few days before I take a horse out I will start to prepare him so it is a good experience. On the first day I may work the horse as usual and instead of cooling him out in the arena I will then lead him around the farm just to show it to him. If he can take the place in and be curious and relaxed it is an indicator that there should be no problem. If he is freaked out by something I want to know about it before I am riding him. I ride by myself most of the time so I don’t have another horse to be there for him to follow. He must be prepared to take to the big bad world without much help. I may not take the horse too far depending on whether a change of scenery is interesting or terrifying.

The next day I will change my lesson a bit and try to work the horse as if we were on the trail. I will ride with slack in the reins, although not at the buckle. I will see how responsive the horse is with less support and guidance from me. Can I steer him, stop him and get him going as if he were a broke trail horse? If not then I either help him do so or cancel the field trip, (pardon the pun). At the end of the lesson I will again cool him out by leading him around the farm and go a little farther than the day before.

When I am confident with horse being able to put his training to work in a less mechanical mode and a more relaxed one I am ready to venture out. I will start my lesson as usual in the arena walk and trot around for only a couple of minutes. I want to take note of any environmental factors that could be an issue. I don’t want to protect my horse from scary things but being forewarned is being forearmed. Then I will head out at a casual walk and ride him as casually as I have been the past few days. I will head out on the same route that I have been walking in previous days so the surroundings are somewhat familiar and I won’t take him farther than we have already been. The ride should only take a few minutes and then I will head back to the arena. A few circles and then I will either put him away if I think that another circle is unwise or we will do another lap and then put him away. I will keep him at a walk the whole time we are out and I will let him stop and look around, especially if there is something that he is concerned about. I am not going to fight with him if he will not go past a particularly scary spot. I will get off and lead him past before we really argue and taint the whole experience. I try to remember that we are supposed to be relaxing not stressed. If he is too stressed then I will turn back and do some light work in the arena.

The point of all this is to expand his world and give him some down time during the training process. Building confidence out of the arena will help him become more reliable in less predictable environments. Don’t try to teach him anything when out on the trail, his mind is too occupied by where he is going to learn effectively and the ride will just become a fight. As Dominique Barbier would say “just listen to the birds”
© 2008 Will Clinging

Getting back to work after some time off can be difficult. The holiday is never quite long enough so it’s nice to be able to ease back into the job. That is true of the horses that have had some time off. Several of the horses that I am presently riding have had a month off. They are mostly happy enough to go back to work but the first few days there is also reluctance to perform. How much training the horse had before having some time off plays a big role in how long it will take to get them back to the level they were at before their holiday started. They have not forgotten what was taught but it may or may not have become habit either. It is a matter of putting them through a condensed version of the starting process over again. This should only take a few days rather than weeks or months to re establish guidelines for behavior that I had been working on before the layoff.

When I start back I want to give the horse credit for what I know he knows, but I will expect a few things to be challenged by the horse. This challenge could simply be them re confirming what they thought I did or did not want. It is a time when I try to find out how much the horse really learned or how much he was simply coping with what he was expected to do. Often during a layoff the missing pieces of the various puzzles that we call training get found or assembled in the right order. This happens because of the reduced stress levels of the horse and decreased expectations that we have had during his time off have allowed him the time to process all the information I threw at him.

As I work with him I re touch specifically all the major points of training that the horse worked on. The authority will almost certainly need re confirmed; I just put him back in the round pen for a few minutes and get re acquainted.

Equipment shouldn’t really be an issue and I don’t make a lesson of it unless he tells me I need to. Any lesson that I work on that he has exaggerated difficulty with is an indicator that he may not have learned that lesson well enough in the first place. That means I will spend time on it now. If there is no real difficulty then I touch on it quickly and carry on.

Work in hand is important to cover to make sure the horse is still comfortable with contact from the bit. He should be able to perform the lateral work on the ground with relative ease. Moving forward with contact, bending to the inside and doing a turn on the forehand, and a turn on the haunches with him relatively straight and soft will remind him to pay attention to the bit.

Longing with the side reins loosened initially so I can help him remember to go long and low with light contact. I try to remember that the horse’s fitness level has changed for the worse. Muscle tone and strength need developed again so it is important not to force him into a frame that he may have been able to handle a month ago. Rhythm and balance won’t be as good as it was, and he may not be able to perform for as long until his fitness level increases.

I want to make sure that he will park next to the mounting block with little or no help and be able to stand quietly.
When he has accepted my authority again, is comfortable in hand and on the longe and he is willing to wait at the mounting block for me to get on I will start to ride him again. I usually allow a couple of days before I think about too much work under saddle. The first few days will be dictated by how comfortable and responsive he is. If he is apprehensive I will just ride him as if it were his first ride all over again. Things will quickly come back to him if he is not pushed. He may be in a fragile frame of mind for a few days as all the training comes rushing back to him. I like to keep the first few lessons short and sweet. Each day could be the equivalent of a weeks worth of sessions so I won’t try to teach anything new until I am confident that the horse is at least as good as he was before he got a break.
The horse once he has had a chance to get back into the swing of things is about ready to move into the next level of training. The basics are all falling into place and it won’t be long until he will be performing as a reliable horse that shouldn’t need to be treated as a youngster unless his age dictates that he needs more time to mature. It is the horse though that should decide when he is ready to go to more advanced levels of training. This should be a long, slow process with the learning curve not nearly as steep as it has been in his early fundamental training. If the horse is very young I would just continue to build his confidence at the level he is at for another month or two and then give him another month or two off. The older more mature horse should be able to handle longer periods of work before they get an extended break. As with everything in life balance is essential. If we can balance work and rest the horse will be happier for it.
© 2008 Will Clinging

As I write this article I am sitting in the lodge at Sun Peaks ski resort. I am on holidays. I have been looking forward to taking a break for a while. Quite a while actually, as the rigors of work at and away from home take their toll on me mentally and physically. I could list a variety of aches and pains that haven’t healed because I don’t get much chance to get away and enjoy some rest and relaxation. This leads me to think about the horses I ride for a living. When do they get a break from the training that we so often impose on them? In the series of articles I have been writing about starting and riding the green horse I have shared a lot of information. This information depending on who is using it has been taught over a few days, weeks or months. Since I started this series the horse has come from being just halter broke to now being ready to start canter work. The approaches I have offered have been a methodical introduction of skills that build on the skill previously taught and are important to have for the skills yet to teach. The end result at this level is to have a horse that understands all that has been taught. This understanding of authority, responsibility, and mechanical dexterity should help develop a confidant, reliable horse.

Much of what I teach is much more mentally and emotionally challenging than physically difficult. There comes a point that we all reach when we are just plain tired of working and or learning. It can be detrimental to continue training until this mental and physical fatigue has subsided. The difficult thing to know is when we are getting close to the horses threshold for work or learning. This is often just a matter of paying close attention to small things you horse is telling you. Things like he is getting more difficult to catch, he is having trouble concentrating, he is making mistakes when normally he would not, is there a diminished effort on his part, is there more evasion or unwillingness in areas where he once tried his best?
The learning curve when we start the training process was very steep. It seems every session that the horse learns and accepts a noticeable amount of information. If you think of your horses mind as a glass of water, when we started it was almost empty, every day we add more water, some of this will be absorbed by the horse leaving room for more. If we start pouring information in faster than it can be absorbed the glass will spill over. When this happens we are often unaware and just keep pouring but the horse is already saturated. This information that spills out is lost. Now think of the horse with too much information as a jig saw puzzle, the lost information are lost pieces, he can assemble much of the puzzle but there are holes in it that he can not fill in. This causes confusion and incorrectness. Continuing to teach will not help the confusion and will just add to it.

Older more schooled horses can usually handle more work than a young green horse. Even they need time off to allow the mind and body to have a break. Training at any level is stressful, the higher the fitness levels the higher the expectation for performance. This expectation can become unrealistic even in schooled horses. Prolonged mental fatigue can lead to increased evasive behavior. This evasiveness can escalate into real problems, and some times a break can help change the pattern of behavior from continuing to get worse. The Problem may need addressed any way but it can be easier to deal with if the horse is fresh of mind and body.

When I was a full time cowboy I used to have six horses in my string. A “string” for those not familiar with the term is the group of horses that are reserved for a cowboy for his sole use while working for a ranch. Every cowboy will have his own string of horses that are usually owned by the ranch he works for. I would keep two to four horses in at any given time to be used for work. The reason behind this was that with two horses in the horse would only have to work every other day. As the days were long and the miles were many, fatigue would set in quickly. As a horse got mentally and physically fatigued he would be turned out with the ranch remuda, or herd to rest and recuperate. A horse could easily spend six month turned out before his turn in the rotation came up. Any young horses that went to work were only expected to do light duty and that might only last a few weeks before being turned out again. This meant that I always had horses that were mentally and physically fresh, and if they weren’t it was time to change.

Training is not easy at any level. It is especially not easy if the horse or horses we are working are tired. A horse can be tired of work or learning in a single lesson and then be tired or fatigued from weeks or months of lessons. If we want to have a long successful life of training with our horse it is important to take breaks and let them absorb the lessons we have taught. When ever you start to think about having a holiday you are probably tired of the routines of work or school. Your horse should deserve the same holiday. Don’t be afraid to give him some time off, it will only do him good. Give him credit for knowing what he has been taught, horses have memories like elephants, they don’t forget anything. Yes you may lose some fitness but you will gain a horse that is happier in his work.
© 2008 Will Clinging

Pace and rhythm

In my last article Aug/07 I worked on the transition from walk to trot for the first time under saddle. Now that the horse is prepared to trot when cued I will start to spend more time developing a quality trot. By Quality I mean that the movement is forward and has rhythm, the horse maintains a calm attitude and is continuing to listen and try to be as correct as he can. For a rider that is used to riding a well schooled horse the quality will not be comparable for a while. There are still many things that will affect the quality of a green horse’s movement.
Many green horses are relatively young, therefore physically immature. That immaturity can result in uncoordinated movement that will improve with age.

Mental maturity will also affect quality. A young horse will not have an established work ethic, and have a limited attention span. He can only concentrate for so long before the work gets to be too much for him to comfortably continue. The education of a young horse can be intense in the amount of information that he has to absorb. Too much work can cause conflict in the sense that as they tire they lose concentration and will forget to respond appropriately to a cue or a correction or they can simply find evading easier than the work. In a nut shell quality is not all about the length or suspension of the stride.

The fundamental pieces of training are mostly in place and now we just assemble those pieces in different order to achieve different goals. Forward must come first, this is where I want to work on pace and rhythm. Pace is relative to the speed we are going and rhythm is relative to balance. If the pace changes erratically there is no rhythm to the movement therefore imbalance.
I will keep the horse on the rail to help with straightness and I want to be able to control and adjust his pace. Initially I want him to trot out until he is comfortable before I adjust anything. In the early days of developing the trot there will much imbalance from both horse and rider. I just want him to trot without trying to stop. I am keeping hardly any contact so I don’t contain the forward motion and I will post the trot to try and keep it going without much leg. When the horse has established a pace that is comfortable for him to maintain I will then take a little more contact and ask him to keep going forward.
It is likely that I will lose the pace when I take contact with the bit. I will try to just send him on without changing the amount of contact. This is when the work in hand done previously to teach him how to accept contact should start to pay off. He has learned to move forward with contact but because I am now riding him when I ask it might take some time for him to accept both leg and hand at the same time.

When I am working on the ground or in the saddle I try to cue the horse as correctly as I can for that particular movement. I want to prepare the horse to be as correct as he can be. I will then correct the part if any, of what I have asked for that didn’t work as well as I would have liked. When I correct one thing I expect something else to stop working as a result. I just keep working on the worst part until he can put it all together. That could take some time though so I must remember not to get too picky. He is obviously not so comfortable with what I am asking or he would get it right every time I ask. I must have a realistic understanding of what he can and can not do for me today. The specific pieces of pace and rhythm are forward and contact.

When he has accepted the contact from the bit and is still moving forward with a decent pace I will start to work on adjusting his pace within the trot. I want to encourage him to lengthen his stride and speed up or shorten his stride and slow down.
To lengthen I will ask him to reach down and lower his head and neck and go long and low. I will use my seat to push him and I will use my leg sparingly to support the aid from my seat. I do not want him racing, if he keeps building speed he will be more off balance and he could scare himself or he could start to canter. I want a comfortable forward trot to help improve balance.

To shorten his stride I will have my elbows touching my side and then arch my back and lift my shoulders. This will also cause my hands to lift slightly and should elevate his neck. It will likely not get much of a response initially but I don’t want to start pulling on him. I can increase the pressure on the bit a little but I will try just to wait until he responds. I might only get a tiny decrease in his pace but it is enough that he responds at all. I will then release and ride forward. If he breaks into a walk I will just pick up the trot again.

Rein length is an important factor. If I have too much contact (rein too short) I will be containing the movement or pulling to slow him down. If I have too little contact (rein too long) I can not ask him effectively to accept contact and raise and lower his and neck.
The contact is only to communicate with him through the bit. It is not to pull and balance on.
Although the horse has a basic understanding of what I am asking him to do he will often find it difficult. He now has to be able to put all the things he has learned to use and thinking on the job is much more difficult than learning the theory behind the task. I allow time for him to think and I will only work on one thing for a few minutes before going back to something he better understands. I want to get in, make my point and get out. Each time I come back to it he should be more capable of understanding. If I keep asking him to repeat the maneuver over and over again he will quickly get bored.

Adjusting pace is a valuable tool that will develop softer transitions and help improve balance. It also leads to developing and maintaining awareness of your horse and from your horse. You must pay attention to him to notice small changes in pace and he must pay attention to your subtle aids to get release. When teaching this concept it is important to remember not to do too much to make the change happen. You must let it happen.
© 2007 Will Clinging

All of the things that I have written about in the past months have been taught at the walk. Before I ask a horse to trot or canter under saddle for the first time I like to make sure that all the fundamental pieces of the puzzle are in place. Once the horse starts trotting the schooling proper starts. Although he is still green he is usually ready for more correctness in what and how he performs. Remember he will be green for months or years to come depending on your definition of “green” but being a school master is still a long way off.

In preparation to transition to trot and eventually canter the horse should be comfortable with all equipment from saddle and bridle to side reins and the whip in my hand. The horse should understand the work in hand which introduced the concept of moving forward and accepting contact from the bit at the same time. I should be able to isolate the horses hind feet from his front feet and have him do a turn on the haunches and turn on the fore hand while still in hand. He should understand the contact from the bit and soften and lower his head when I apply pressure to the reins. I should be able to have him stand quietly and patiently while I mount from the ground or from a fence or mounting block. I should have a relaxed and forward walk. I should be able to establish a soft inside bend with a direct rein and at least a few strides of counter bend on the rail.
The days, weeks and months spent teaching these skills is time well spent because my horse now has most of the skills he will need to advance into higher level movement in any discipline.

When specifically asking for trot for the first time I want to be careful to prepare my horse to trot comfortably. Depending on his balance and mine, it could scare him if I chase him into it. I want him to offer it to me. To get him to do this I will encourage him to walk with as much effort as he can. When he increases the tempo of his walk I will let him slow down again. I will repeat this until there is an obvious increase and decrease in the energy he is using in the walk. Then when I have him as forward as I can I will start a trot motion with my body and hope that he follows me. I will use a little leg but not so much that he jumps into trot. The first time I do this all I might get is his head to come up and him to feel a little hectic. And back to slow walk. I will repeat each time asking for a little more forward even if it is hectic, I will also release all or any contact I may have with the bit so he does not feel trapped. Eventually he should take a step in trot, and then I will ride him at trot until he wants to stop trotting. I won’t worry about where he goes only that he goes. He will likely only take a few trot steps before breaking into a walk again. I won’t ask him to pick up the trot again right away. I want him to know that he can start trotting with me on his back and that he can stop trotting without getting scared. Each time I ask I will want only a few steps more than the last time and only when the transition to trot is smooth and comfortable will I ask him to maintain it longer than he wants to.

I won’t try to teach him anything at the trot until I can get him to maintain it comfortably. If the trot lacks rhythm I want him to find his own balance in trot before I start correcting him for anything. Without rhythm and balance I will just concentrate on the quality of the forward movement without too much contact. I will put him on the rail and just let him find his own pace. If I have to keep kicking him to keep him trotting I have already done too much trotting for the day and will end the lesson there. It is his responsibility to maintain it on his own once he understands what I want. I will encourage him to maintain it but if he will not trot for more than a few strides on his own he may not be ready to trot yet. If this is the case I will do most of my lesson at walk and only ask for a very small amount of trotting each day to build his confidence. A rule of thumb that I use to assess readiness to move up a gait whether from walk to trot or trot to canter, is that If I have to push him into it he is not ready. By “push him into it” I mean that if I have to kick him repeatedly or use a whip or spur with more than a light touch. If too much pressure is used the transition will likely be frightening to the horse and it will affect his balance and his confidence. With out balance and confidence all I have is a scared, off balance horse that can be overwhelmed and unpredictable. The faster they go the faster things can go wrong. The more established everything is at the walk the easier the transition to trot will be. Without a quality walk there is little chance for quality trot.

If I am working on improving the trot and it starts to get too quick or off balance I want to slow down and not allow things to continue to get worse. If my horse is building speed and starts to canter I will just try to stay with him and ride the canter without trying to slow him down too quickly. Once he has made the commitment to change gaits correcting him too quickly will only upset him so I will ride it out for a few strides then ask him to slow down in a relaxed manor. If he is constantly building speed in an uncomfortable manor it could be another indicator that there is no confidence in that gait and I will keep him at a slower speed for a while. If I can control the pace within the gait then he is ready to progress. In a very green horse it is the transitions up and down that are more important than how long he maintains the gait, especially in trot and canter. I think at this level it is more important to improve the understanding and confidence in the transition than building fitness. He will be fit soon enough. Each day I will ask for progressively more trot work until the quality in the trot indicates that he is ready for canter. Depending on the age and maturity of the horse both mental and physical it could be months before I try to teach a horse to canter. Asking too soon could be counterproductive if the horse does not have the strength and coordination to canter comfortably.
© 2007 Will Clinging