Horse training and riding instruction based on learning theory to develop your relationship with horses.
I put together a before and after video of a young horse who had trouble learning to be lunged. Normally when a horse understands the basic go, stop, and turn commands, lunging is easy right from the first time. Not for Violet… she needed a creative solution that the principles of equitation science suggested. Watch the video to see the transformation!
(Facebook didn’t like the music I used in the video, but I do have the right to it!)
In case you missed part (or all) of last night’s live video discussing a horse training case study, you can find the whole thing below. It’s only 15 minutes long, so give it a watch!
Tonight at 7 pm MST I’ll be going live to dissect the case study of an 11 year old jumping lesson horse.
Everyone at the barn was surprised when the previously well-mannered horse began running around the jumps instead of going over!
We’ll practically use the 10 First Principles of Horse Training to figure out how to resolve the problem, from first steps right through to jumping again.
It’ll be fun—and it’ll be short, so don’t be late! Join me on Facebook @clairetyhorsemanship.
As a five year old green-broke horse, Laddie’s only riding experience was alone on trails. When he was acquired for further training, the arena was a new experience and being ridden close to other horses was too. He shied at everything, and any time another horse came too close he would stop suddenly and run backwards, or shoot forwards. This anxiety made him tense and the rider often felt like he was about to buck until he got going.
Anxiety in a new situation is very normal. Controlling these reactions, however, is key to achieving relaxation and habituation (Principle 1). At first, when any correction of unwanted behaviour was made, no matter how mild, the anxiety increased and he seemed unable to trial new behaviour, showing a negative state of mind (Principle 4). Instead of starting directly with the shying and hyperactive behaviour, then, cues he already knew were used and his responses rewarded until he began to offer improved responses and show interest in figuring out what was required (Principle 3).
Then a new cue for ‘turn’ was installed using two light whip taps on the shoulder and transferred to the reins (Principle 7) so that any random turning, in a shy for example, could be corrected (Principle 6).
The ‘go’ cue was also re-installed, as sometimes it caused stopping or moving backwards instead of going forwards (Principle 9).
With these new cues, overshadowing was used (Principle 5) near areas of the arena that caused anxious responses until go and stop were light in those areas.
The number of horses in the arena was then increased and their proximity to Laddie was decreased using the same go, stop, and turn cues (Principle 8) until riding past another horse elicited no unasked change, and finally being ridden past produced no random movement either (Principle 10).
Laddie is now calmer about new situations, and is more willing to try new behaviour for a new cue, indicating a generally better state of mind (Principle 4).
This 22 year old mare had been used as a therapeutic riding horse for 5 years. During therapy sessions, she would not obey cues provided by the rider, requiring her handler to intervene. Her teeth would be grinding for the entire session, and periodically she would try to bite her handler, often resulting in an aggressive response from the handler. While being prepared for a lesson she would show signs of restlessness and aggression to the point where the Association wasn’t sure they could keep using her.
Aggression is always an alert to something being unclear or confusing in the horse’s training. The therapeutic association was right in questioning their continued use of her (Principle 1), but finding the cause would have been better. Responding with aggression typically makes the behaviour worse (Principle 2).
Bailey tended to grind her teeth when cued to stop, showing confusion about what the cue meant (Principle 9). The stop response was retrained, starting at obedience because she would slow a little bit when pressure was applied (Principle 8). Care was taken that there was no pressure when she was not being asked for something. The teeth grinding suddenly diminished, and the biting stopped entirely.
Next she was taught to ‘park’, an extension of the stop response. This was used in the tacking area, and when she realized that all that was required was standing still and not moving she quickly relaxed and even appeared to enjoy being groomed, wiggling her ears and lips when being brushed on the neck (Principle 5).
With the tension and conflict gone, she quickly became a favourite among the volunteers, and was able to continue serving as a therapy horse.
Although his behaviour had been growing steadily worse, no one expected this 11 year old Clydesdale- Thoroughbred lesson horse to begin running out at jumps. Students had reported his unpredictable shies, but this new behaviour began leaving them in the dirt. He gained a reputation of being ‘dirty’ when formerly everyone described him as a ‘teddy bear.’
The clue to this horse is his consistent behaviour. Shying and running out both demonstrate a loss of self-carriage of direction (Principle 10) when the shoulders suddenly turn without a cue, thus throwing riders (Principle 1).
Hemi was retrained to turn his shoulders from a rein cue using operant conditioning (Principle 6). To consolidate the new behaviour, he was ridden in areas where he was known to shy, and the retrained cue was applied during a mistake to bring his shoulders back to the rider’s line (Principle 10).
Upon approaching jumps again, Hemi lost rhythm immediately preceding an attempt to run around the jump, thus failing rhythm and straightness levels of the shaping scale (Principle 8). After training improved transitions within and between gaits, walking up to a low jump (underriding) was used to cause him to speed up just before a jump, producing a drawing effect on the approach and a clean effort over the jump.
Because running out was quite rewarding, the habit meant Hemi could not be returned to the lesson program immediately. However, with practice of the new behaviour by a rider using equitation science, he should successfully return to work.
Clairety Horsemanship 