Deano after a job well done. He still demonstrates his willingness to comply and yield to a feel, by yielding to less than 4 ounces of pressure. He helped me in our partnership accomplish things much faster with the horses we worked together in this session. WE ARE SO PROUD OF HIM! What a turn around! He has become a true asset to the equine world!! 

 Once we have an understanding of the nature of the horse, we can realize its importance in building a horse-human relationship. It is the nature of the horse that is the foundation, and we will call upon this time and time again during the course of the horse-human relationship. We will be using the horse's instinctive behavior to get him to follow guidance and direction from us.

 This leads us to ask ourselves, where do we want the horse to always be in our relationship? Answer: We want the horse to always be in a yielding frame of mind. This means that whether on the ground or with us on his back he shows zero or minimal resistance to whatever our request may be. This means that he should comply and follow a feel with less than 4 ounces of pressure from us. Example: lifting a quarter pounder from Mickey Ds. In other words it didn't take much effort on our part.

Preparing the horse emotionally

To get the horse in the ultimate yielding frame of mind, we need to prepare him emotionally by taking small victories from the ground work and building on them, getting him to comply to more challenging and demanding requests from us. We need to test his yielding frame of mind at all stages of his training. Training is a process, not an event. Example: The Super Bowl is an event, but it took a process to get to the Super Bowl. Well, training is a lifelong process and if applied properly and consistently and through passive persistence, you and your horse will also get to the Super Bowl (that being, the horse is in the ultimate yielding frame of mind) 

I know that a lot of us assume that horses were somehow born knowing things that we expect from them, but let's burst that bubble and myth right now - If we did not teach it to him, whether good or bad, he doesn't know it. When we run across a nice horse it is because someone that knew what they were doing mentored and prepared that horse for the job at hand. Much mentoring has to come from us as the instructor in the relationship.

Pressure and release

From the ground, get that horse to learn to follow a feel. Example: A horse is an into-pressure animal; the harder you push on him the harder that he pushes back into you. A horse has to be taught how to move away from pressure as well as into pressure. Example: There are 2 types of pressure - physical pressure and mental pressure. Let me give you an example of a physical pressure: When we push on the horse's hip and ask him to move it over, he is feeling a physical pressure. If we match the level of resistance from the horse and are patient enough to wait him out, he learns that by moving away from the pressure, instead of into the physical pressure, he could get back into the comfort zone by releasing, as he moved away, any pressure we had on him.

Here is an example of a mental pressure: There is a mariachi band playing; the horse in no way wants to approach it. (Remember that if a horse has never seen something before, his survival mechanism is going to be telling him to get away from it NOW!!!!) So the mariachi band becomes a mental pressure that he does not want to go to and get near. I, as his leader, will ask him to trust me to carry him through the situation and I will offer the support that is needed emotionally to get him to move closer and eventually next to the mariachi band as it plays. By getting closer to the band he is moving into pressure, a mental pressure situation. Genetically everything within the horse is telling him to run away. Through a proper foundation, and nurturing our relationship with the horse, we can get him to follow guidance from us and move into and accept the mental pressure.

This is where the horse's instinctive nature has to be reprogrammed, through mentoring, to overcome millions of years of pushing into physical pressure and moving away from mental pressure in order to survive, to now learning to adjust, accept, and yield to that pressure, whether physical or mental. (Remember that horses are always looking to get back into their comfort zone, so when he yields the pressure needs to cease as his reward.)

Building confidence

Set up situations that will instill confidence in you and the horse. Example: I do a lot of backing with the horses I train. Why? It is unnatural for them just as it is unnatural for us to walk backwards. A horse would rather go forward, left, or right than walk backwards. A horse will only back on his own if absolutely necessary, but first he will try to go forward, left, or right, and only backs as a last resort to get out of the situation he got himself into. Once I have a horse backing pretty light through a feel from the halter on the bridge of his nose, then I start to challenge the horse by asking him to back through gates and tight places and around obstacles. The lighter I get him to back and perform all of these things, the more he is demonstrating that he is in a yielding frame of mind. 

I also try to get his feet freed up by moving his hip and shoulders at every opportunity and having him yield his space to me. When I untie a horse I ask him to yield his space by walking into him. If he refuses to yield his space, I pressure his eye in the direction I want him to move until he yields to me. I am convinced that the horse you lead is the horse you ride. This means that if your horse is non-responsive on the end of a lead rope and sluggish about his ground work, then that is how he will be under saddle - in other words stiff, bracey and non-compliant or not in a yielding frame of mind.

Maintaining emotional balance in high-pressure situations

As the horse progresses in his training, we can teach him to handle speed, and to stay compliant and focused and listening to our aids through passive persistence in our requests. We need to maintain his state of compliance as we put him in higher pressure situations and ask for more speed in his work. Example: I guarantee that if we have a problem at the walk it gets worse at the trot and worse at the canter and even worse at the gallop. Why? Because when we speed anything up with the horse, whether on the ground or from his back, he becomes more emotional and uses the reactive side of his brain more and the thinking side less and less. So if we ask for more speed from the horse without having prepared him to handle speed properly, he will never learn to yield under the most extreme and demanding situations, which is when compliance is needed the most.

So we need to set up situations that keep him compliant and confident and in between our reins and our legs as we speed things along, without over-pressuring him. There is a fine line there where too much pressure will cause the horse to lose focus and he will stop listening to our aids as he starts to use the reactive side of his brain more and more. At this point we are at his mercy.

Assessing the yield

One way to test the horse's yielding state of mind before we ask for speed is to make sure that he is willing to give to the rein, or bit, or bosal, or halter, or whatever you ride him in that he has been trained with. Once the horse understands yielding physically, we can begin to take physical control of the head and the hind quarters. This means that you have the ability to take the horse's head away either to the left or right and that he will follow his nose, with less than 4 ounces of pressure. At the same time you are able to get the horse to cross over with the hind legs, with less than 4 ounces of pressure from your leg, thereby disengaging the horse and helping you stay in control and safer in the moment. Once he has given and softened up, we must throw the reins back to him (give him the release of pressure) as his reward. This way he will keep complying when we ask for disengagement.

Having control over the horse's head and hind quarters will increase our chances of controlling the situation and help to keep us safer with the horse, whether on the ground or on his back. I would not ask a horse for speed at any other gait if I did not have control of the horse's head and hind quarters at the walk. Once you have the horse yielding his head laterally and crossing over with the hind legs at the walk, then it is time to establish the same control at the trot and then the canter.

By establishing control over the horse's head and hind quarters, we are in charge and he will learn to stay more focused and learn to follow our feel. When we have control over his head, we control his direction and he will learn to follow a feel and his nose. By getting him to cross over with the hind legs, we control his engine or his ability to drive from behind with power. He will also try to stay balanced, so as not to fall, as we ask for his head and hind quarters. As he gives his head and hind quarters willingly, he gives us control over his direction and drive, which helps us maintain control over most situations. 

Our ultimate goal should be to have control, and to have the horse in a yielding frame of mind - under all situations and at all the gaits including the gallop, with no more than 4 ounces of pressure needed to get a response from the horse. Preparation and exposure to everything we can possibly expose the horse to will help us reach the ultimate goal, which takes years if not a lifetime to fully achieve. Remember, it's a process, and any progress towards that goal means the horse is complying and honoring our requests, demonstrating that he is in a yielding frame of mind.

About the author:

Ferdinand Santana's specialty is helping rank and problem horses find peace, structure and discipline in their lives so that they may become productive members of the equine world. Ferdinand offers a Horse Training Club, the purpose of which is to help people develop skills that will help them get along with their horses for the rest of their lives. Goers learn how to develop feel, timing and techniques to solve their problems with their horses and to develop a deeper understanding of horse behavior.

719-946-0899 

Branson, Colorado