Unwilling horses, bad riders, and know it all thinking give trainers a bad name!

This will be as close to a training post that I make on this blog. I have another blog were I write for my customers and answer training question.

One of the hardest things for me to do is keep quiet, when I hear someone complain about certain types of training techniques, or aids. When they accuse everyone that uses some tools or achieves a certain response from the horse of being  abusive they are showing themselves as the narrow minded people they are in my opinion. 

Trainers and coaches have to be many things to be great at their jobs,  they have to be:

1. Psychologist of both horses and people, if they are going to train and coach both.
2. A student of physics, a student of human and equine bio mechanics, so they understand the effects of pressure on the body of both the rider and the horse.
3. Skilled enough to be demanding without being forceful, and smart enough to know the difference.
4. Open minded enough, to realize when something that usually works is not working with this specific horse and or rider.
5. Smart enough to use all their skills to figure out new methods that are not forceful when usual ones do not work. 
6. A great observer, so they can see everything that is effecting the results in  both their riding and their students riding .

Those are just the things that they need to be good at to do their job well, it does not speak to the skills of running a business or marketing a business.

To be negative and judgmental about other peoples methods based on nothing more than a head position or a piece of equipment, only takes a willingness to know everything.

Recently I was asked for my opinion on whether the training technique of tying a horse back was abusive. My answer was  "it can be!"

It is the same as with riding a horse behind vertical or as dressage queens like to call it Roll Kur! Is it abusive? Same answer IT CAN BE.

When can either  biting up (tying back) or riding in hyperflexion (Roll Kur) be abusive in my opinion. When bad riders and poor horse people try them. 


Horses will find a way not to exercise or avoid the work we ask of them until they are convinced it wont hurt and we are insisting they do it.*

Some of the ways they find to not work include hiding from, or resisting pressure, if they hide from pressure then they will go behind the vertical or into Roll Kur position as a way of hiding from the pressure. If they resist the pressure then they will push into it and strain against it. 

The horse can do both of these things with very little pressure being applied. It is  not the response to pressure that makes it abusive it is the amount of pressure used to get the response that makes it abusive.

So when some see this type of reaction to pressure they blame bad training, when it could be bad training an unwilling horse or just a bad rider applying more pressure than the horse is ready to accept.

If you can not look at these 2 pictures and see a difference in pressure applied just by the look of tension and reaction, then you are not much of a horse person in my opinion. 

Abusive or not abusive? To me it is obvious one is abusive and the other isn't, one is forced the other is given willingly or the horse is hiding I do not care which it  isn't abusive in my opinion. But the amount of Hyper flexion is the same.

I am not going to discuss the benefits of riding a horse this way, only the reasons that it sometimes happens.
Personally when I have horses that hide behind the vertical I hate it,  other trainers love it, because they want the head in that position, so it makes it easy for them when the horse hides there.

If people watching do not see the difference between the above 2 pictures they would call any trainer with a horse behind the vertical abusive.

Bits, spurs and training aids are only as abusive as the person using them. I have taught clinics where the rider was so timid I actually told them to use a more sever bit or put spurs on so the horse would not just tune them out.** 

The horses reaction to the amount of pressure applied by the rider or training technique is what makes something abusive in my opinion. 

For example tying back or biting up, here are 2 pictures can anyone see the difference in the horses reaction? 

• One is giving willingly to the pressure applied, they brought their inside hind leg forward to help them balance properly.   
• The other is straining, out of balance and there is no rounding through the horses top line or give in their sides past the shoulders.  

Again I am not arguing effectiveness of the training, just are they abusive or not! For me one is not and one is getting close and I would need to see more than this moment in time to tell for sure. The amount of pressure applied at any one time, must match the ability and willingness of the horse to accept it at any given time. 

Now these pictures of a horse resisting pressure below are abusive for sure in my opinion. 

What have I lost my mind AGAIN? All of those look like riders at any weekend horse show and one is from the famed Spanish riding school?  

Well everyone one of those horses above are resisting pressure and straining against it.
We cant be closed minded about training techniques and open minded about other forms of abuse can we?  

The reasons why a horse is resisting pressure should not be important if we consider resisting pressure abusive?
Maybe:

1. They have never been taught how to accept pressure
2. They are being asked to give more than they are capable of at this time
3. They are just bad riders that can not apply the right amount of pressure

It is the resisting of pressure that injures horses. In the top pictures of this set I can almost feel the horses back and front legs screaming from the sudden jolts. 


I do not care if a horse resists to a novice rider, it is how novice riders get better. I do care that we do our best to help novice riders get better as quick as possible. and we do  not allow bad riders to remain bad. They get better or they go away.




The sign at the road say this person will take your money to train your horse, or coach you how to  ride.
It does not say they are any of the things listed above they need to be in order to be a good trainer. 





Judging the techniques people use, or a head position the horse gives to willingly as abusive or not is just wrong. It only takes a closed minded person who is never wrong. 

 If we listen to those types of people we may as well start calling people who are novice riders abusive? Lets force people to take lessons to learn how to ride before we allow them to try advanced events like Barrel racing and Reining? 




How many exhibitors and people n the stands at our events would we have then?












I think encouraging better riding and better horsemanship is very important,  I wish more coaches did it.  


Most tend to give into the customers demands and allow horses and riders not properly trained to do things they are not ready for.





Associations do not help either, they advertise anyone can do this come give us your money!







When I go to do clinics, or am paid to coach, my first job is to help riders do better, and we very often end up doing slow work instead of fun fast work.  I have them spend most of the time working on balance and control drills at a pace they as a team can achieve without causing the horse to resist. Then we go see how the fun stuff works at the end. 

 Some riders see the improvement they gain and come back, others don't care or notice and go find people who will let them do the fun stuff and offer ways to stop the horse from resisting that the rider cant do!
But they are running and turning and stopping so what the  hey we don't care if the riders improve fast because if they don't they keep coming for help.
We don't care if horses are getting abused by riders riding over their heads because they do not get scored well or win much and they keep coming back for more advice on how to fix the horse from resisting.

We need to change our thinking on many things if we want to address the issues we face as an industry. This is one of those things that riders have to change their thinking about in my opoinon

1. Everyone wants to go fast or do the cool things they see the top riders doing. 
2. They don't care if they do them bad, they want to do them. 
3. They expect coaches and trainers to help them do them better, without telling them they need to take basic riding lessons. 

This gives trainers a bad name and puts them in a tough position: 

1. Do they put the horses through torture so this fool can balance on their horses face,while they run to a sliding stop or in a barrel pattern? 
2. Or do they say you need to learn to ride first it will be better on the horse and we will get quicker results, 

 Most good professional do number 1,  but wish they could do number 2,
 Doing number two is just that a crappy way to do business, and we all know it but the customer is never wrong. 

So Novice riders and Bad riders get some lessons, stop abusing your horse and making your trainers and coaches look like they approve of your abuse.

People that know it all, and find a training technique or a profile abusive please get some education before you judge my industry. I am more than willing to continue the discussion of why these things can be but are not always abusive if you are not yet convinced?

Thanks for sharing your time with me,  the notes below are expansions on my comments above. 

Rod



* knowing the difference between insistent and forceful is the difference between a horse person training horses and a person who trains horses.

**Now would I have them do that and not be able to ride in balance? No but I do not work on things with students that  they can not stay balanced doing!