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Post by horseguy on Dec 25, 2016 18:00:35 GMT
I have been thinking a lot about what Jimmy said and about rideanotherday/Rose leaving. I am guessing both saw something similar that went against their principles in how I am approaching this prospect. Jimmy said as much and I agreed with him. I don't know if I agree with Rose, she was not specific.
I realize the conclusion I reached and will explain here might sound like justification, but I want to put it out there to see what people think. I came up with the name "Optimal Physical Training" as a way to describe my process. I believe also that some people will think of it as very Machiavellian and that might cause what I have to say to come off as being from the past when trainers "broke" horses. And I would agree that it does seem a lot like that because in ways it is like that. But it is also different. It's different in that it does consider square zero, even when square zero is not applied.
Optimal Physical Training is a standard of training that is solely based on one outcome, immediate physical peak performance. All of those words are equally important immediate - physical - peak performance. Example (forgive me if you have read this before), as a guest in a hunt years ago the fox had come up a steep hill from a creek to a road way cut into the side of the hill. The hounds chased the fox up the hill, over the road and up a bank on the other side of the road and continued up the hill into a woods. The Staff and the Field riders (followers) all made it up to the road, but the Staff could not get up the bank on the uphill side of the roadway. It was too steep and the road was too narrow for the Staff riders to develop the impulsion get up the bank and to stay with the pack. The very worst had happened, the pack was on a chase completely alone an dunproteced.
I watched every Staff rider try to make it up that bank and none could, so I quietly walked my horse from the group of Field riders to the Staff who were standing around on the road frustrated. I turned my horse to the bank, crossed the road and jumped up the 6' bank and became the only rider with the pack, not Staff, not even a member. A guest was alone protecting the pack crossing roads in traffic, and other dangers it might encounter. This was disgraceful but a thankful circumstance nonetheless. The pack's safety is paramount.
So why was I the only person there who could stay with the pack? Is it my riding ability? No. My horse's physical ability? No. It was because my horse was trained to a different standard. That standard was immediate physical peak performance resulting from Optimal Physical Training. That jump up the bank was difficult and near the edge of the horse's ability but the training made it happen.
I have never thought about this in a very global way before. My method developed over time from what I learn when I was young, and it became just "how I trained" horses for polo and hunting. This method is probably somewhat near to a military standard in terms of desired outcome. I thought about Jimmy's comments about how I chased the horse in the field and ignored his attempts to come to me. I thought about Rose's offense at how I let the horse hit the wall. And I thought about how all I could respond with in my last post was that I am sloppy in the early stages because in the end it works. And I asked myself what "works" means, and it means immediate physical peak performance. It means training a horse like a soldier who at some moment may have to give his life and in doing so overcome every fear, hesitation and instinctive impulse. It is to do what is asked or die trying. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it is also balanced by knowing the limits of a horse's physical ability and going only to that edge. After all, it's not war.
Therefore, in this Optimal Physical Training method, I "don't care" about some of the prospect's impulses. I might use them later but the first thing is to establish a relationship where the horse, thorough every experience, learns that the trainer has the horse's best interests as his first priority, especially when things go wrong, like in the stall. i.e. being conscious enough not to let the horse fall, as he fought, into the stall door but rather into the big even wall.
This is a provocative training method meant to come to difficulty and use it. It uses resistance to overcome hesitation, and at the same time it builds a comrade soldier type of relationship between horse and rider. It is based on a kind of "going into battle together" frame where resistance, sloppy as it may come up, is a very useful raw material for training. Thus my belief that it all evens out in the end when the fellow soldier relationship is established and employed together overcoming greater and greater obstacles and challenges.
So I ask, does this sound like a lot of self serving BS? Is it just another take on the old horse breaking process?
All I can point to are results. I have trained more hunt Staff horses than any other trainer I know, including for one pretty well known Master and a bunch of Huntsmen, who need the best available horse to do their job. I have also trained polo horses that were prized by foreign professionals, the most demanding players. And I have made these horses from rejects of all types. In fact this prospect was the least desirable of the young horses this breeder was selling as she dispersed her herd due to her health. He was the most spooky, the one that was offered at a 1/3 of the price of his siblings. I liked him for his hyper vigilance and his immediacy of action. Both traits contribute well to achieving immediate physical peak performance. He's my kind of horse, and now he' sin my kind of training. He has progressed in his boundaries, his understanding of the relentlessness of the process and he has come to enjoy the physicalness between us. He'd been neglected due health reasons and he has rain rot. I have been picking the rot spots out of his back and followed that by messaging the spots. At first he was very jumpy and in time he has learned that it feels better afterward. He's stopped hunching his back was I scratch out the rot "dandruff" with my fingernails. He turns his head toward me when I do it not in complaint or a threatened bite, but is a curious way.
I'd like to be a better trainer. I do think I use square zero, but I also teach that sometimes there is not time. We must go to the square that presents itself. And those squares come up in the steps I have designed as a method and a measure of how a horse works at an immediate and sometimes dangerous task.
Rose, if you are lurking, I'd greatly appreciate your comments.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 26, 2016 17:41:16 GMT
My further thoughts on this include how we deal with fear in training. For a prospect training is an unknown. The process, the interaction with the trainer, the goals or demands are all new. The first unequivocal sign that a horse is experiencing fear in training is heavy breathing. Some trainers might say to back off if this sign appears. There are advocates of "fear free" training. But what if the horse's career will include fearful circumstances and the horse does not possess boldness?
I have never experienced a fire fight where I could be killed. I have known a number of people who have and they tend to say something like, "everyone is afraid". Fear apparently becomes "part of the air combatants breath". I believe this is true for prospects being trained for intense dangerous work to a meaningful degree. How a trainer deals with this probably varies, but I for one cannot see how to avoid the reality that the job is demanding and scary and that these elements have to be included in the training and also must be compensated for in some way. The way I try to use is by forming a "combat" type bond. We're in to together.
In high school I was a ski jumper. There is no easy "fear free" way to learn ski jumping. You can try to do it slower, smaller, or otherwise try to "get around" the reality of it, but there is a ski jump and you have to go off it. You inevitable fail and crash, and you must go back up the jump and do it again. When you gain experience you crash less and the sense of fear diminishes, but I was never able to completely overcome the inherent fear. In polo too, the sport with the second highest per capita mortality rate, the fear is there even after 20 plus years. It is at he beginning of the game, but as the play unfolds, it recedes after many years. I think horses that have jobs like polo, if they make it into a polo string, feel similarly. There are a few crazy bold ones that may not, but most do and training them for the work becomes about dealing with fear to a large degree. |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 26, 2016 21:19:48 GMT
"....I am sloppy in the early stages because in the end it works."
I understand the need for "immediate physical peak performance"
Ray would say, "You feel like you could ride your horse up a flag pole, or down a badger hole."
The ultimate aim of our training is when we have the actions of the horse, feet,legs,body and mind, at our immediate disposal. Where there is no lag time from request and action. The life in the horse is available and controllable on demand.
And the horse we could "ride down a badger hole" has at one time or another, been tried by fire,challenged, and measured, and not found wanting. he's hardened and sure.
We certainly don't start this way. Nor would I want to.
If the needs of war or calamity demand that time is of the essence, than we are going to get right to it with a young horse, without much concern of his involvement or acceptance level. It can be done, and was often enough, and the good horse fills in the rough spots, and the good rider lives through the confusion and resistances.
But if we are not under that pressure, than why subject the horse to it?
If we followed a military example of discipline, than "sloppy" work would not stand. "..in the end it works". In the end, it may work, only because of the ability of the horse to fill in.
Discipline demands that we observe the consequences of our actions or inactions.
I am certain that you know how much you can get out of a horse, and how much it takes to get there.
But do you know how little it can take, and still get as much?
Square zero is observation and waiting. The horse prepares for action, with a turn of his head, his eye, the flick of an ear, a posture. If you want to weave a thin thread into a steel cable, you still have to start with the thread and not break it.
Some young horses tolerate sloppy. Others just won't. It's what I call going right past the feel, as if it wasn't there, into something much harder. Overexposure in a young horse will yield nothing but trouble usually, although, in the end, it might work. or the horse filled in and we can say, see, it worked.
in the meantime, maybe in the process we missed those places where the horse was getting ready anyway.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 26, 2016 22:57:55 GMT
I think "sloppy" comes for the process of many years ago training "classes" of horses and trying to get them all to graduate by May 1st. Accepting that some will do better than others but the end date was the standard. Those days are gone but the process lives on. It's an old dog new tricks issue.
Still I do not think "overexpose" is the exact word I'd use to describe the process of steps that generate resistance. The resistance is information that gets calculated into the process in a rolling information kind of way. I think of it more like taking a horse to the edge of their capacity to experience stress, fear, resistance, trepidation and letting them feel it and get past it. Some just don't make the cut and are culled out but most make it.
"do you know how little it can take, and still get as much?"
Excellent question. My deepest answer would be, "with some horses". There are horses that "get" my process. It's like they found their long lost home. They sail through as if someone is coming in at night and training them so when I train them they already know it all. These are bold horses with intensity. It's the idiosyncratic ones that take the time and energy. You are right, I know how much it takes to train there and I don't know how little it might take if you or Ray Hunt trained them. But These the issue, I am not sure if you or Ray Hunt trained them they'd have the edge I like in a horse. There are three minutes between periods in polo and players come out on the field with their next period horse during this time. Some can be seen working their horses very hard. When I have asked them about that kind of warm up, they say the are "taking the edge off" their horse. To me that what the games is for and about. I am more concerned with losing it than with "taking it off".
But I will take your word. If the Ray Hunt school of thought can allow you to "ride your horse up a flag pole, or down a badger hole" without delay or excessive cueing, or in other words, with intensity and initiative on the part of the horse, then I will adjust my approach.
By the way, today that prospect was perfect. He had some fear coming out into the indoor because the guy there was grooming the footing in the main part of the arena (I was working behind the big arena in the warm up area) and the tractor was making noise that is not usually present. He did some heavy breathing, stopped twice but continued on will little urging and proceeded to lunge at a walk and trot, both directions flawlessly. He halted and changed direction pretty much on voice command. Another day like today and I will check the lunging box and move on. He hesitated just a little after going into the stall but did it well. It's what IO call a "good day" training. Those days come and go but on average what I look for is progress in the steps over time.
I appreciate you direct and honest comments.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 27, 2016 13:40:57 GMT
I have been thinking a lot about this, particularly the "square zero" principle. I have come to the conclusion that I like and use that principle something like 85% of the time when training from the saddle and 45% when training from the ground. These are estimates and vary depending on the horse. But it raises an interesting question about why the difference.
One obvious difference is I don't believe a trainer can employ the unity principle from the ground. I am sure some circus horse trainers might disagree, but I think riding the horse is the only context when unity can be achieved and employed.
Another contextual difference is that when on the ground and in the horse's space, a trainer is perceived by the horse as just another being, often just another animal to dominate in the herd for the herd leaders. I haven't thought this through completely, but this is where humanness and horseness becomes a choice for the trainer. I think, maybe, that the square zero principle, when used on the ground, introduces the horse to humanness. In contrast, when it is not used, the trainer uses their own developed horseness to relate to the horse in training. This distinction requires a lot more thought to see if it is correct, or a useful distinction, but I think it may be valid.
With this current prospect, I think he is a young herd leader. He was put in with an older tough mare's mare and he bit up her butt from day one. From the beginning he swung his butt into people in his stall. He displays impulses of dominance. I believe that these impulses are dangerous to people and irritating at the least when handling a horse. I think that over the years ground manners in general have been largely put aside and replaced by a tolerance that goes with pet ownership. I have been recently reminded of this new standard when I have helped bring horses in for feeding at the new barn. The vast majority of the horses boarded there are ill-mannered and make the work of moving them from pasture to barn far more difficult than it needs to be. In this situation I believe that the person given the task of moving these typical contemporary horses is better served by asserting their horseness than the square one principle when, for example, trying to open a gate when 4 or 5 horses are in a scrum at to gate preventing this simple task.
Generally in an unformed kind of way, I am starting to see that maybe both the square zero and the old "breaking" principles are useful. I do believe however, having seen the old breaking methods early in my life, they need to be modified in light of more informed training methods. Jimmy's point on doing less is perhaps the reference point. We need to understand what less means. For example, if you get a real dominant horse that is taking up weeks or months of often dangerous training, is it "less" to throw him on the ground and demonstrate where his unrelenting dominant impulses ultimately lead? I am also reminded of Magnum, my most stunning failure as a horse trainer. He was rideable but the moment I entered even a minimal state of unity with riding him and then began to teach him anything, he ended the session, often with me on the ground. Riding him was a bit like defusing a bomb. I used every ounce of my understanding of square zero (I didn't have a name for it then) to teach him responsive movement. All my work was about stetting him up for success, which he uniformly rejected. In 1960, he'd have been put through whatever it took to "break" him, but after a year I formed a bond with him and gave him away to someone who would not train him. |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 27, 2016 15:42:47 GMT
"I don't believe a trainer can employ the unity principle from the ground."
That would depend on how you define unity.
Unity is easier to spot when it doesn't exist. And that is true on the ground as well as in the saddle.
Someone struggling with a horse is not unity.
Flawless understanding is unity. Seamless transitions. Absolute attentiveness.
No apparent resistance. i would have to call those things unity. All those things can be achieved without riding.
But riding a horse adds a more complex dynamic, and requires much more knowledge on the riders part.
It's the same, only different.As they say.
There is also another factor of unity which is something else, and very elusive, and defies definitions.
The square zero idea is not a technique. It's feel. And it happens 100% of the time no matter what we are doing.
It's just that most of the time, we go right past the zero part. We miss our preparation, as well as being unaware of the horse's preparation. We don't get the horse ready. Some call it a pre-cue. I don't like that term so much. But it is the idea that something always happens before something happens. Before action, there was preparation. If we work at the preparation stage, and develop feel, we can see the horse respond, or the beginning of a response. Horses are very perceptive to minuscule changes, unless we have dulled them by over desensitisation.
It is often easier to see how the zero idea works from the ground, because you can see it. But if we take that concept to the saddle, we have to have even more feel. Eventually, you might want that lightening fast, edgy, response. But lightness and quickness are always going to come from the horse getting ready, and being ready, before we have even finished the question. The only time that is not true is when it is accomplished through fear. And that is effective, but unreliable in the long run.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 27, 2016 16:08:10 GMT
I use the definition of unity that reflects "one being". What this means is the rider and horse are in motion and stillness as one. There is a Sioux word for it similar to the English word "train" that defines a locomotive and cars. A train is one thing. In unity the horse and rider are one thing. I have difficulty defining unity as a state where the horse and rider are physically separated.
"The square zero idea is not a technique. It's feel. And it happens 100% of the time no matter what we are doing.
It's just that most of the time, we go right past the zero part. We miss our preparation, as well as being unaware of the horse's preparation. We don't get the horse ready. Some call it a pre-cue. I don't like that term so much. But it is the idea that something always happens before something happens. Before action, there was preparation. If we work at the preparation stage, and develop feel, we can see the horse respond, or the beginning of a response. Horses are very perceptive to minuscule changes, unless we have dulled them by over desensitization.
It is often easier to see how the zero idea works from the ground, because you can see it. But if we take that concept to the saddle, we have to have even more feel. Eventually, you might want that lightening fast, edgy, response. But lightness and quickness are always going to come from the horse getting ready, and being ready, before we have even finished the question. The only time that is not true is when it is accomplished through fear. And that is effective, but unreliable in the long run."
I think I get the feel of being with/in the preparation. There is always preparation and in that sense I understand "it happens 100% of the time". I also get that it is in the preparation that adjustment, compensation and other changes can be best initiated. Where I am struggling is with the apparently (I may be misunderstanding) expressed idea that there is nothing in between square zero and force, particularly in relation to how horses behave with one another. Horses use force, they use intimidation, they use a glance. All are used in the context of perception of preparation. This is horseness.
I am not convinced that fear and force are one and the same. I agree fear is effective, but unreliable in the long run. Force on the other hand can be a lasting reference for a horse.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 27, 2016 19:50:04 GMT
"Where I am struggling is with the apparently (I may be misunderstanding) expressed idea that there is nothing in between square zero and force,"
There is an entire universe between zero and force.
We have to get the horse ready. We might ask something and get nothing. We say, what wrong with that horse? We asked. To us he refused.
But the reality is he wasn't getting ready. So we may have to come in pretty strong with pressure of some kind, in order to get the horse to think about getting ready. But in the next moment go back to zero. Start over. He isn't preparing maybe, he isn't understanding maybe, or his mind is on something else. So to get his mind we might have to be fairly forceful. But then you ask again from zero, and observe very closely if he is doing anything to get ready. He has to arrange his feet right. So with some horses, we might have to come again hard. That can still be feel. If we are looking for the preparation. And on the other side of that coin, we might be seeing that the horse is preparing to brace, preparing to not respond. We have to look for that as well. It is withing the preparation that every action, or non action, comes from. So we can then either support it, and help it go the right direction, or block it from happening. This is where there may appear to be a big struggle. The horse may not know what to do. But maybe the next time we take the slack out of the reins, the horse will get ready, and that is where there needs to be some feel, some caution, some release, or we go right past the try, and the horse gives up. Sometimes it is the struggle that yields success, unfortunately.
That is where we have to be careful not to relate it to fear. We can do that, if we simply make it difficult for the horse to get the wrong answer. He may have had the right answer, but we missed the attempt, and didn't help it along. Force does not have to be fear. But be careful our actions are not causing the horse's self preservation to take over. The need for self preservation, combined with fear, is a lethal combination.
This is why in the beginning, with some horses, we cannot be sloppy and get away with it. But of course, my life with horses is filled with moments where I said, gee, I wish I hadn't done that!
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Post by horseguy on Dec 28, 2016 10:54:16 GMT
If preparation is constant, and awareness of constant preparation on the part of the horse is the basis of feel, and furthermore sometimes a trainer must apply degrees of force to illicit change in the preparation, where does the fear come from or where does it and why does it enter the process?
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Post by jimmy on Dec 28, 2016 15:37:26 GMT
If preparation is constant, and awareness of constant preparation on the part of the horse is the basis of feel, and furthermore sometimes a trainer must apply degrees of force to illicit change in the preparation, where does the fear come from or where does it and why does it enter the process? That might be question you will have to ask the horse. The entire process of breaking in a young horse is in assuaging fear. Fear is the natural self preservation in the horse as a flight animal. Force, combined with a painful association, can cause fear. Rather, fear combined with an association with a person, create a dangerous horse. If force is applied passively, in such a way the horse comes up against his own pressure, then it is just his own pressure he finally backs off from. If force is used punitively, it is rarely effective. The horse bites you. You hit the horse in the face. But the horse will bite you again, only next time he will bite you and duck. That pretty much describes most dysfunctional training, based on fear or punishment. With feel, you can set it up so the horse, as he prepares to bite you, runs into his own trouble, in such a way, it had nothing to do with you. If he bites you, it's too late anyway. All this being said, a fearful young horse is often the most sensitive. That can be used to our advantage. That is why I don't like the over de sensitization techniques, or imprinting. I prefer a sensitive horse, because the life is there. A horse with absolutely no fear may have no reason to trust you, because you never had a chance to demonstrate to him you will not harm or put him in harms way, because you were never a threat to begin with. Those are the horses that may do something harmful to you. They won't ask first if it okay. If you keep that natural fearfulness just this side of trouble in a young prospect, it can be simply curiosity. Which is why you don't overexpose them. |
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 29, 2016 12:19:38 GMT
I have been thinking a lot about what Jimmy said and about rideanotherday/Rose leaving. I am guessing both saw something similar that went against their principles in how I am approaching this prospect. Jimmy said as much and I agreed with him. I don't know if I agree with Rose, she was not specific.
I realize the conclusion I reached and will explain here might sound like justification, but I want to put it out there to see what people think. I came up with the name "Optimal Physical Training" as a way to describe my process. I believe also that some people will think of it as very Machiavellian and that might cause what I have to say to come off as being from the past when trainers "broke" horses. And I would agree that it does seem a lot like that because in ways it is like that. But it is also different. It's different in that it does consider square zero, even when square zero is not applied.
Optimal Physical Training is a standard of training that is solely based on one outcome, immediate physical peak performance. All of those words are equally important immediate - physical - peak performance. Example (forgive me if you have read this before), as a guest in a hunt years ago the fox had come up a steep hill from a creek to a road way cut into the side of the hill. The hounds chased the fox up the hill, over the road and up a bank on the other side of the road and continued up the hill into a woods. The Staff and the Field riders (followers) all made it up to the road, but the Staff could not get up the bank on the uphill side of the roadway. It was too steep and the road was too narrow for the Staff riders to develop the impulsion get up the bank and to stay with the pack. The very worst had happened, the pack was on a chase completely alone an dunproteced.
I watched every Staff rider try to make it up that bank and none could, so I quietly walked my horse from the group of Field riders to the Staff who were standing around on the road frustrated. I turned my horse to the bank, crossed the road and jumped up the 6' bank and became the only rider with the pack, not Staff, not even a member. A guest was alone protecting the pack crossing roads in traffic, and other dangers it might encounter. This was disgraceful but a thankful circumstance nonetheless. The pack's safety is paramount.
So why was I the only person there who could stay with the pack? Is it my riding ability? No. My horse's physical ability? No. It was because my horse was trained to a different standard. That standard was immediate physical peak performance resulting from Optimal Physical Training. That jump up the bank was difficult and near the edge of the horse's ability but the training made it happen.
I have never thought about this in a very global way before. My method developed over time from what I learn when I was young, and it became just "how I trained" horses for polo and hunting. This method is probably somewhat near to a military standard in terms of desired outcome. I thought about Jimmy's comments about how I chased the horse in the field and ignored his attempts to come to me. I thought about Rose's offense at how I let the horse hit the wall. And I thought about how all I could respond with in my last post was that I am sloppy in the early stages because in the end it works. And I asked myself what "works" means, and it means immediate physical peak performance. It means training a horse like a soldier who at some moment may have to give his life and in doing so overcome every fear, hesitation and instinctive impulse. It is to do what is asked or die trying. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it is also balanced by knowing the limits of a horse's physical ability and going only to that edge. After all, it's not war.
Therefore, in this Optimal Physical Training method, I "don't care" about some of the prospect's impulses. I might use them later but the first thing is to establish a relationship where the horse, thorough every experience, learns that the trainer has the horse's best interests as his first priority, especially when things go wrong, like in the stall. i.e. being conscious enough not to let the horse fall, as he fought, into the stall door but rather into the big even wall.
This is a provocative training method meant to come to difficulty and use it. It uses resistance to overcome hesitation, and at the same time it builds a comrade soldier type of relationship between horse and rider. It is based on a kind of "going into battle together" frame where resistance, sloppy as it may come up, is a very useful raw material for training. Thus my belief that it all evens out in the end when the fellow soldier relationship is established and employed together overcoming greater and greater obstacles and challenges.
So I ask, does this sound like a lot of self serving BS? Is it just another take on the old horse breaking process?
All I can point to are results. I have trained more hunt Staff horses than any other trainer I know, including for one pretty well known Master and a bunch of Huntsmen, who need the best available horse to do their job. I have also trained polo horses that were prized by foreign professionals, the most demanding players. And I have made these horses from rejects of all types. In fact this prospect was the least desirable of the young horses this breeder was selling as she dispersed her herd due to her health. He was the most spooky, the one that was offered at a 1/3 of the price of his siblings. I liked him for his hyper vigilance and his immediacy of action. Both traits contribute well to achieving immediate physical peak performance. He's my kind of horse, and now he' sin my kind of training. He has progressed in his boundaries, his understanding of the relentlessness of the process and he has come to enjoy the physicalness between us. He'd been neglected due health reasons and he has rain rot. I have been picking the rot spots out of his back and followed that by messaging the spots. At first he was very jumpy and in time he has learned that it feels better afterward. He's stopped hunching his back was I scratch out the rot "dandruff" with my fingernails. He turns his head toward me when I do it not in complaint or a threatened bite, but is a curious way.
I'd like to be a better trainer. I do think I use square zero, but I also teach that sometimes there is not time. We must go to the square that presents itself. And those squares come up in the steps I have designed as a method and a measure of how a horse works at an immediate and sometimes dangerous task.
Rose, if you are lurking, I'd greatly appreciate your comments.
I'd like to address one thing first - it's not letting the horse hit the wall that bothered me. He made a choice to put himself in a position to be on the muscle and fight. When the resistance he was prepared for didn't happen, he hit the wall. I'm ok with that. What I didn't see in your description was the preparation that came before that point happened. If you set a horse up to hurt themselves without giving them some sort of introduction to what you are actually asking for, THAT is what bothers me. I never assume something was done by a person. If they didn't say it, they didn't do it. Proper Prior Preparation Prevent Piss-poor Performance. I heard that quite frequently in my Advanced Western Performance class (reining, some cow work). If the prep work is done and the horse gets himself in trouble...well, that's a learning experience for them. Also, horses usually get on the muscle because they have a reason to believe that there will be a fight. Why did Triton feel like he needed to fight? I suspect a few things were in play. He was done learning even if you weren't done teaching. Working in a small area like that may have made things worse because he felt trapped. I try to find ways to keep a horse from feeling like fighting is necessary. If it gets to arm wrestling, they will beat me every time. I have the advantage in the intelligence department, so I put it to work. Horses sometimes get to a point where humans are on the edge of running out of horsemanship and if you just hang on long enough, they get through their problem and on the other side of it is a better horse. Persistence can make up for talent sometimes. I've seen a lot of people want to fix horses (or dogs, for that matter) with love. Love is a human construct and shouldn't be confused in the training of horse or dog. Setting clear expectations and boundaries and presenting requests in a manner that makes it easy for a horse to decide to go along with the request is something you'll hear a lot about. "Ask, tell, and make 'em wish they had taken the *ask*". There's no need to let a horse get to be a bully or a jerk. If you allow them to be in charge, that's when you get problems. Horses are AWESOME survivalists. Terrible decision makers when left without some sort of foundation in what a good choice looks like. Triton, I suspect, enjoyed his life of ease. Now that he's having some requests on his hands I'm quite certain he's a little offended by that. That's ok too. He'll get to a point where it's just not worth it to him to be offended anymore. He needs to learn what "attention span" means. I was a "jock" in high school. I learned a lot about physical performance and I like to apply that to horsemanship as well. Nothing beats a good warm up and a proper cool down. Warm ups are a lost art I think. It lets you find out where the horse's mind is at. Their body and their mind need to get off the grass and lazing in the sun and into work. Some horses can flip the switch mentally pretty quickly, but most can't. Cooling a horse down helps prevent performance injuries like sore muscles etc. Bob, I don't think it had anything to do with physical training to get up that bank. That's mental training and intestinal fortitude. Those other horses likely had the physical capability to get up the bank, but the riders didn't have the belief that they could do it and they didn't commit fully to the effort. A horse can feel that lack of commitment. If it's not that important to the rider, then it's certainly not going to be important to the horse to get it done. |
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Post by horseguy on Dec 29, 2016 12:49:31 GMT
I like and agree with everything Jimmy said. I believe fear management is the key to the end result. I picked the words Optimal Physical Training because training is physical and this is the biggest part of the desired result i.e. you want the horse to track well, to do a rollback, etc. We want the horse to act physically on cue and getting there is a physical process.
The word Optimal here, in my meaning, relates to that edge between force and fear. With the example of the biting horse, I try to set up the context where the horse will try to bite me. I am ready and he doesn't think I am ready. When he swings his head to bite, I am already there with my fist placed to intersect just above his teeth, and he slams his lip into my fist. That and other "tricks" are about knowing where to stand, knowing the range of motion of the horse and knowing their preferred style of biting. This is where the trainer who has dealt with many, many horses has the advantage. There are a limited number of biting patterns of behavior. You know them, the horse doesn't know you know them and you are so far ahead of him that he is confounded when his lip perfectly hits your fist. I have always felt that the confounding feeling the horse gets is a more powerful training experience than the actual hit on the lip.
Where I think the edge of fear can be found in many horses is around the combination of sound and touch. I use voice when training prospects, and they learn my voice. It's not the words as much as the inflection. A long slow goooooood lets them know in a soothing way that they are on the right path. Likewise "stand" said in "the voice from Hell" can teach them to stand still. I don't say it that way the first few times but once I believe they understand what is expected and they don't do it, I will use that voice. I think voice in that way can bring them to the edge of fear but they know voice cannot hurt them. I think they feel the onset of fear but not physical or actual fear. I think using a wiffle ball bat is the like this voice/touch technique. The bat does not hurt, it makes an odd disconcerting sound that is sharp, and that sound at a specific point on their body combined with the bat's touch at a specific place on their body has a powerful effect at the edge of fear. For example, a horse that compulsively paws the ground (you cant take them anywhere nice because they did a hole at the trailer where they are tied) If you stand next to these compulsive diggers and wait for the compulsion to overtake them, and you hit their offending/pawing leg with the wiffle ball bat, they stop. I have had several compulsive pawing horses that then paw the air but not the ground after this training, which is OK with me. Most eventually get tired of that air pawing and stop.
The sensitive horses are my favorite too, but some need to be desensitized to be useful. The pan lids, ponying them around to show them the world, and other exposures before they can be ridden usually bring them into a more useful state of mind. I don't like this work and I must admit that it is why I get sloppy in ground work at this juncture in training. I prefer desensitizing this kind of horse from the saddle. It's more fun. For example, I had a great polo horse decades ago named Emma. She was a 10 in terms of sensitivity. Once I could ride her, which I did as soon as I could, I would take her to my polo club and tie her to the trainer. Sandwiched between two made horses, she could make it through the first couple trips hearing the announcer over the speakers, the crowd noise, etc. Once she got over the whole context noises and feel of the place, I got on her, green as she was, before the game. Polo clubs often have flags around of the countries that play the game. At this club the flags were stuck in the ground beyond the end zone such that the flags flew in the wind at about the height of the horse's head (I always suspected that this was a "home field advantage" ploy of this club because visiting team horses had to gallop to the goal facing a bunch of low flapping flags). Before the game I rode Emma to the flags and we "danced" as we worked to get her head to touch a flapping flag. In time she would ride in and out of these flags allowing them to touch her anywhere on her body. That was fun and why I prefer to do the desensitization work from the saddle.
Two flags at half mast. Dangerous game.
Gotta have flags. |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 29, 2016 14:47:42 GMT
“The best thing that I try to do for myself is to try to listen to the horse, I don’t mean let him take over.
I listen to how he’s operating, what he’s understanding or what he doesn’t understand, what’s bothering him and what isn’t bothering him.
I try to feel what the horse is feeling and operate from where the horse is.” Tom Dorrance
We get pretty busy training the horse, and being very clever at dealing with "behavior". We sometimes miss the horse entirely. We come to the horse where we are, instead of where the horse is. We get too busy subjugating the horse to our "techniques".
From the trainer to the horse. Or start with the horse. It's a profound difference.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 29, 2016 14:58:14 GMT
This is how I would describe "optimal".
Optimal would be doing just the right thing, at the right time, that had just the right effect. Something that just fit the situation perfectly.
As I get older, I get less interested in training the horse. It's a pain to have to train one. I'm a trainer who doesn't like training. I'm probably a lousy horse trainer, actually.
I wish we didn't have to train. I look at it as a necessary evil, to get to where the horse and I need to be.It seems a shame to tear the horse down, only to build it back up to where we are the same.
I'm pragmatic. I need to catch, saddle, and ride the horse. I have try to do just the optimal things I need to do to get that done, while trying to give the horse the best deal I have to give. I fail at this often. But that is where I start anyway.
I often find myself getting scientific, wordy, clever. I back away from that. Keep my mouth shut, and do my job.
Like I said, we get so busy training, using techniques, we miss the good stuff.
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 29, 2016 15:31:20 GMT
Optimal training. Force and fear have no place in training for me. I'm not big enough, strong enough or fast enough to get into a battle with horses. I will supply the horse with exposure to scary things and help them get over and past the scary to confidence. Confidence and trust lead to horses that will offer extreme physical exertion to do what you ask of them.
I have never taught a horse to load into a trailer. What I do instead is truly halter brake / teach them to lead and tie. Their job is clear. It doesn't matter if you put a trailer in front of them, if I go into the trailer, they will be with me. Same with bridges etc.
If you set the horse up to find the way, they will. But you gotta give them a good reason to do it.
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