How Old is Old Enough?

It's interesting to me that now that horses are used primarily for pleasure or entertainment instead of as a means of survival or transportation that we are less patient with putting them to work.  Perhaps that is a reflection of our throw-a-way society.  Or maybe it is the fault of the the veterinary community that has perfected the band-aids necessary to keep a horse working when it maybe shouldn't be. Or maybe it's the fault of the high end competitive venues that have turned towards making money off of equine children rather than equine adults and the rest of us just follow suit.

I'm talking about the incredibly controversial issue of skeletal maturation and optimum age of starting a young horse.  There are many misconceptions and widely spread misunderstandings in this area of the horse world. The modern horse world seems to be more and more impressed with the advanced abilities of a young horse as showcased in a futurity.   We prize that young horse who achieves enormous amounts of money earnings early in his career and then retires to the breeding shed as a 3 or 4 year old.

You can see this change in almost every aspect of the horse industry, but maybe nowhere so dramatically as in the American Racing industry.  Where race horses used to have to be at least 4 before they began competing in long heats of 4 mile feats of endurance, the concept of the quick sprint futurities was introduced to allow betters a "glimpse" of the talent coming up.  Racing of 2 and 3 year olds in shorter more "humane" races became the norm and were immensely popular for the ability to stage a shorter race in a track that could seat more people, allow for more prospective betters and overall increase the excitement of the race.  Soon the only horses racing at maturity were cheap claimers or geldings that didn't have a career in the breeding shed to look forward to.  What has occurred in the racing industry is a significant drop in the number of starts a horse will have in his life paired with an increase in the number of breakdowns.

The same has occurred in the western reined cowhorse industry. What used to be a competition for a mature bridle horse (generally 6 or older) was then turned into a futurity for hackamore horses.  As the snaffle bit increased in popularity for it's ability to accomplish more advanced training more quickly the snaffle bit futurity was born.  This is a high dollar competition for young Quarter horses that are 3 years of age.  In order to compete in this highly demanding and physical sport those horses are often started under saddle at 18 months.One of the sad parts about this is that right there on the first page of the NRCHA rule book is the purpose of the association:  "The purpose of the NRCHA is to improve the quality of the western reined stock horse: to perpetuate the early Spanish traditions of highly trained and well reined working cow horses;"  It has traveled quite a way from the goals at it's inception.

Sadly the tradition of the early Spanish horseman were to not put any metal in their horse's mouth until age 5 or 6 and to bring them along slowly to protect not only their physical well-being, but mental well being. Spanish tradition would start a horse at 3 or 4 with very light riding with a hackamore until he was ready to move into the two-rein at 5 or 6 and only after he was carefully prepared would be be straight up in the bridle and riding one handed.  For many horses this wasn't until they were 7 or older.  Today, a 7 year old reined cow horse is likely ready to retire from the show ring.  Not always, but often.  It's like seeing Billy Etbauer still riding in the NFR.  Not impossible at his age, but very rare.

But it's not just high dollar performance horses that are being started as 2 year olds.  Conventional wisdom seems to push folks to start their backyard pleasure horses sometime during their 2 year old year.  The conscientious owner knows to wait until "the knees are closed".  This piece of equine wisdom is referring to the growth plates at the distal radius.  While you can't actually tell by palpating the horse if that growth plate has fused or not, many folks feel that you can and use this colloquial rule of thumb for starting youngsters under saddle.

What we know about rate of skeletal maturity is that the growth plates in the equine body slowly fuse between 1.5 years and 5.5 years.  Across the board.  There is no truth to the myth that some breeds of horse mature faster than others.  All horses reach skeletal maturity at about 5 1/2 to 6 years of age.  This really shouldn't surprise us as we know that the horse continues to erupt molars until they are 6.  Why shouldn't the timing for completion of growth be at about the same time.

What may not be common knowledge is that it's not the legs that are the slowest maturing part of the body.  The growth plates of the knees mature ( or close) at about 2 years for the small bones and 3 years for the distal radius and ulna.  The very last growth plates to fuse are in the equine vertebrae.  All 32 of them.  The last of those are the ones in the base of the neck.

The reason this is relevant to our young horses that we plan to ride well into their advanced years is that the process of riding our young horses can contribute to not only excessive wear and tear on their young joints (the hocks also don't fuse until 3.5 years) but strain to their backs and necks as well.

The process of teaching a horse to be ridden at a very young age teaches the horse to protect itself from back pain.  To do this the horse  braces his back and drops his shoulders and hollows out so that he can help take the weight of his vertebral column.  It's a minor thing at first and one that every young horse being started under saddle goes through to a certain degree until their back muscles get better at carrying that weight.  But if you persist in riding a young horse who's vertebral column is not able to bear that weight even with muscular conditioning, you create a habit caused by pain that becomes deeply ingrained and prevents the horse from properly learning to round up and use his body.

The next step in training a young horse after getting on their back (especially in many of today's "natural horsemanship" methods) is the one rein stop.  This is accomplished by repetitively pulling the horse's head over to your foot and limbering up the neck until it is quite soft and "rubbery".  Isn't this putting added stresses on the last vertebrae to fuse in the horse's entire body?  Pain here causes stiffness in the bridle that causes the horse to flex by turning his head at the atlas rather than flexing his entire vertebral column.   With vertical flexion he then learns to brace his withers and instead of flexing along his entire column will flex at the third vertebra to protect the rest of the cervical vertebrae.  All of this might look like a broke young horse to the uninitiated, but in truth it is a horse with reflexes built on pain.  Those horses can never move in a true collected frame.

So while the now common and widespread practice of putting a 2 year old to work in a rigorous training program undoubtedly leads to increased incidences of breakdowns in race horses and the widespread practice of injecting young horse's joints to try to stave off juvenile osteoarthritis, the other long lasting effects of braces and pain through their back and neck are less often addressed.

Does this mean that we shouldn't start our horses until they are fully skeletally mature?  That, for me, is a harder question to answer.

Paired with the data of skeletal maturity is the data that exists on mental maturity.  Horses can and do learn to learn.  One of the great things that have been bred into the Quarter Horse performance horses is their ability to calmly and easily learn what is expected of them.  They are almost "born broke".  This is because they have been selected for train-ability which is really the capacity to learn.  (Whether that makes them the smartest breed of horse or just the most trainable is a discussion for another time!)  For most folks that work with young horses and start colts the ones that have had an introduction to good handling and training as yearlings are much easier to start as 2 or 3 year olds.  That ability to retain a lesson and understand what is being taught is a learned behavior.  The younger they learn that, the easier they seem to be to train and quicker to trust.

Therefore, I believe the answer lies in moderation, as with most things.  I think you have to take into consideration your youngster and your training program.  I am 100% not in favor of futurities that demand a horse be put into rigorous training as a 2 year old.  I am also not in favor of any practice that deems it common and prudent to inject a young horse's joints in order to maintain joint health or cover-up a lameness and keep them working.  But, that's just me.  I have many colleagues happily preforming these procedures and building their retirement accounts much faster than I am.

I don't think you necessarily need to completely stay off your horse until they are 4.  I think you can teach a horse some valuable lessons, expose them to important stimuli and situations and in general build their confidence and ability to learn as a young horse.  I personally put 10 short (all but one of them were under 20 minutes) rides on my 2 year old this summer.  He had already had about a month of various groundwork exercises to establish some basic commands and improve his comfort with me and the tack.  Riding sessions would generally consist of going both directions at a walk and a trot with some simple directing with the hackamore.  We established whoa and the beginnings of a back.  I pushed him into a lope just to get him to feel it and then allowed him to trot again. That was it.  I did take him on one short trail ride just to expose him to an area other than our arena and home trail.  In my mind, that was about all he could handle.

This year as a 3 year old I will put some more rides on him throughout the summer.  He will be lightly ridden and exposed to basic commands and stimuli in a rotation with the other horses.  He'll probably be ridden about twice a month lightly through his 3 year old year. He certainly won't be loping circle after circle, going on 4 hour trail rides or schooling on spins and sliding stops.   He's almost 15 hands and probably 900#.  Had he been smaller (or I bigger) I would have waited until he was 4 to start the process.    

I don't feel that lack of skeletal maturity means no work or riding at all, but I think it means conscientious riding and training to preserve not only your horse's mind but his physical ability to be a good sound partner throughout his entire life.  I want to be riding my horses well into their third decade and possibly longer.  There is nothing sadder to me than a 6 year old that is too lame to be ridden in the show pen anymore because it was ridden too hard as a youngster.  That's like seeing a teenage girl that trained too hard as a gymnast and now has collapsed bones in her wrists and deformed radius.  Too much work too soon.  We need to be smarter than this for our horses.  Increasing the usable upper age limits of our horses through smart training will go miles to decreasing the numbers of unwanted or crippled  horses out there.  

Cowgirl Crazy

Phew, it's been crazy busy lately!  Work has been incredibly busy and we're trying to fit more work into less daylight hours.  This is also the time of year that we finally do all the chores that we need to get done before the snow flies that we have been putting off in favor of riding our horses all summer!  Normally it's not a problem and we get it knocked out without trouble in the month of October but this year the weather and the heavy work load have conspired against us so that we are struggling to find the free time needed to haul hay, cut firewood and do the various stashing of summer stuff in order to prepare for the winter.  Consequently our riding time has taken a back seat for the first time all year.  I will admit that I've ridden only twice this month and both times very briefly.  Yes, it's painful.  Yes, I'm having withdrawals.  Yes, I would suggest we not belabor the point!

So, this morning while we are waiting for the fog to clear so we can cut more firewood I'd like to share with you the amazing cowgirl experience I was fortunate enough to be a part of at the end of September.  Every year a group of local cowgirls embark on a horseback adventure at the end of September.  It's a tight knit group of girls with varying horsey and personal backgrounds with one thing in common.  They all want to not only enjoy the camaraderie of other horsey girls but further their own personal horsemanship journey.  There have been different focuses of past retreats, but in general we put together a series of clinics with one or more clinicians paired with a good trail ride.

This year was a great year with the exception of the lousy weather.  I'll just get that out of the way and say the weather sucked almost the entire time.  Cold, windy, snowy, rainy.  We got a few breaks but other than that it was an opportunity for us to "cowgirl up".  But for all the years this retreat has been happening, this was the first year the weather didn't cooperate!

We had three great clinicians that taught us in three small groups of six.  We were instructed in working a mechanical flag and both live cattle and buffalo, basic reining and trail obstacles/horsemanship.  The clinics were very instructive providing great opportunities to hone our skills on live animals with the cutting practice.  Reining was a great opportunity for many of the girls to try out the gas pedal on their horses and there was a lot of whooping in encouragement coming from the reining pen.  The trail obstacle/horsemanship session was fabulous.  My favorite was the teeter totter bridge.  For those of you that haven't seen one, it's a bridge that rocks when you walk over it just like a teeter totter.  I assumed my horse would be troubled with it a bit, but he handled it very well.  As a matter of fact, while he was standing in line with the other horses while I was off helping prepare another obstacle he decided to take his turn without me and went right over the bridge by himself!

Our location for the clinic just happened to be within easy driving distance of a couple of different hot springs and so our evenings after dinner were spent soaking in the hot mineral pools of the hot springs.  Incredibly welcome after the frigid day in the saddle.

We had the added luxury this year of professional camp cooks who provided amazing food at a bargain price so that the rest of us could concentrate on just riding and trying to stay warm.  I don't know how these woman provided such amazing food three times a day with no electricity or running water but they did.  I'm sure they won't volunteer to do it next year, but so glad they were here this year!

Our final day was the epic trail ride to the ghost town of Bannock.  We rode the old stage road 10 miles to the abandoned and well preserved ghost town.  Part of us splintered off for a more exhilarating cross country romp through the sagebrush hills and gullies.  Flying over that sagebrush at a gallop with a pack of cowgirls leaping sagebrush and gullies and flying up hills made me feel like I was part of an old time posse.  Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.  Then topping the hill and looking down into the picturesque town of Bannock was like stepping back in time.

It sounds like this would be an extravagant and prohibitively expensive endeavor but it is not.  The girls that work hard each and every year to put this event together do a great job of making it affordable.  This annual trip has spawned several other smaller ones that focus on different aspects per the group's preference.  Maybe you want something less structured, maybe you want something that's just trail riding, maybe you want to just see some amazing new country.

The point is that you should just do it.  Being together with a group of like minded horsemen to share not only laughs and triumphs but encourage past snags and fears is so incredibly valuable.  Learning from your fellow horseman is a wonderful way to learn.  Sometimes you learn what you can do to further your learning with your horse and sometimes you learn what not to do, but both lessons are equally valuable.  So, I encourage any of you horsey women out there (and men too!) to explore putting together a retreat like this.  The opportunity to spend a weekend of concentrated time with your horse and some of your closest friends is a wonderful way to improve your horsemanship.

Here are some pictures of our retreat this year.

Me and Moonshine on the left and Trish and Harley on the right working a buffalo heifer.  (This was that break in the nasty weather I was talking about!)

A few of the girls at the Meade Hotel in Bannock.

The entire gang about to over take the town of Bannock, Mt.

If you are interested in putting together a retreat for your group of friends, I encourage you to contact Lori Fisher at Fisher Equine http://www.fisherequine.com/  She can help design the experience that you and your friends are after.

The Bosal

I get lots of questions about why I'm riding my horse in a bosal.  Many assume that I am interested in going "bitless" and confuse the bosal with other more modern styles of bitless bridles including the mechanical hackamore and the side pull.  This could not be farther from the truth.  When I tell people that I am attempting to prepare my horse to one day be a bridle horse that carries a spade bit they look at me like I am woefully confused.

So, I thought I should maybe go into a little more detail about the purpose and use of the traditional bosal as there is much misunderstanding regarding what is a very simple and traditional piece of equipment.

I've already spoken a little about the difference between signal and cue and how it is important in preparing a bridle horse. The bosal allows us to train  a horse that responds to signal instead of cue.  Before the snaffle was introduced to the traditional vaqueros the horses were all started in a rawhide braided bosal.  There were many thickness and stiffness available and selection of what type of bosal you placed your horse in was often a matter of personal preference for the rider, sensitivity of the horse, and where the horse was in his stage of training.  To generalize, a young horse is usually started in a thicker and stiffer bosal that measures 3/4 or 5/8" in thickness.  It may have as it's core either rawhide, latigo or in extreme cases wrapped wire, though that is much more rare.  The reason for starting a young horse in a fairly stiff and thick bosal is that it provides a very clear  definition between signal and cue.

One of the things that I love about the theory of starting a young horse in a bosal and "saving" the sensitivity in his mouth for the spade bit is that young horses have A LOT of stuff going on in their mouth.  Young adult teeth are very sharp when they are first in wear.  Caps are often retained and difficult to shed.  It's not hard to imagine that asking a young horse who's mouth is busy going through a lot of sometimes very uncomfortable changes to accept a hunk of cold steel as well can be a difficult thing to do.  Of course in this day and age we routinely float a young horse's teeth to help remedy that problem, but still, it's nice to think that you can leave their poor mouth alone completely until they are done going through all those changes.

There are many misunderstandings in the use of the bosal, but the probably the most common is the fit.  You can't just take a bosal off the shelf (even a very expensive well made one) and just put in on your horse.  A new bosal is shaped roughly like an inverted dew drop.  It's braided in a straight line then bent around and joined in a heel knot.  If you've ever looked closely at a horse's nose that's not at all what they are shaped like.  In order for a bosal to provide a clear and concise signal to your horse it needs to fit all the way around your horse's nose, like a hat fits around your head.


These are new unshaped bosals.

Here is a great shot of a bosal fitting like a glove         

Here is what your bosal should NOT fit like

Notice in the poorly fit bosal there is only one point of contact at the bridge of the nose.  This horse will become very sore and have rub spots on the top of his nose which is a very common complaint for the uninitiated that give the bosal a try.  When your bosal fits your horse properly, there is very little to no abrading of the skin.

 This is a bosal shaping block. In general the bosal needs to be narrowed at the nose and widened at the cheek pieces.

When the bosal is properly fitted it rides about two fingers width down from the facial crest.  The bones of the horse's nose are easily felt and you can feel when that junctions to cartilage in the horse's nose.  You want your bosal on the bones, not the cartilage as that is soft and fragile and you can damage a horse by improperly placing the bosal.

Another thing that can take some practice when you first begin to learn to ride in a bosal is that it works much differently than a snaffle bit.  Because it is a signal device rather than a cue device, pulling doesn't work, especially if you are pulling with both hands at the same time. You can't hang on a bosal, and if your hands are constantly bumping and balancing on your horse, he will soon learn to ignore any pressure on the bosal.  So, developing a sense of feel and timing when riding in a bosal is very important.

A good example of this difference is in teaching lateral flexion.  Many who teach lateral flexion in a snaffle bit recommend that you pick up tension on the bit and hold it in a fixed position until the horse gives to that pressure.  The release of the pressure is the reward for the give and you build on that concept.  In a bosal you teach lateral flexion by gentle bumping on the bosal off to the side until the horse give just a little bit and that is his reward.  You can use the same techniques in a snaffle and honestly I think learning how to signal a horse in a bosal improves your feel and timing in a snaffle as well.

If you have an older horse that you would like to attempt to ride in the bosal I highly recommend that you get excellent lightness and response in your halter work first.  A halter can loosely work like a bosal in that the horse gives to both direct and indirect pressure.  If your horse tends to lean on his halter and not respond to the lightest touch, he will do the same thing in a bosal.

I need to mention that I am by no means an expert on the use of the bosal.  I am learning as I go and have much yet to learn.  This journey has been an experiment that I undertook as part of the challenge of learning the tradition of training used by the old vaqueros for building a bridle horse.  I have used the bosal to advance my green horse that was started in a snaffle, retrain my older gelding that has been ridden in all types of bits including correction bits and start my young two year old.  There is a very steep learning curve involved but it is incredibly rewarding to build lightness in your horse in the bosal.  All of my horses have responded very well and my 2 year old will be the first horse that never feels the iron of the bit until he is ready for the two rein.

I challenge anyone interested in improving their feel and timing to experiment with riding in a bosal.  I believe that the horse enjoys the break from a bit and it allows you to work on different aspects of your training as well as improve your feel and timing.  It is a valuable tool for any stage of your horse's training and there is nothing better for a leisurely trail ride.  If your horse isn't soft in a bosal, how soft are they really?

Recap of Buster McLaury clinic

Last week Dan and I had the privilege of attending and participating in a horsemanship clinic with Buster McLaury.  While I have the utmost respect for Buster and what he teaches I was wondering just how much I would get out of a Horsemanship 1 clinic with my 6 year old who is supposed to be going into the two rein this fall.   He should be pretty far beyond the horsemanship 1 level, right?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  What I would like to do in this blog is recap what I learned and the lessons I hope to carry forward in my horsemanship.  Dan and I tried to make a list of all the things that really stuck with us from the clinic.  I'm sure we forgot more than we remembered because there is just so many moments that good stuff is happening that sometimes you don't notice it until weeks or months down the road when it suddenly goes off like a big bright light bulb. So, here are snippets of wisdom that I can pass onto you.

Sometimes you gotta be hard to be soft. Always offer as soft as possible then do what is necessary to get a change.   I spend so much time trying to develop light hands that I let my horses get by with not really trying that hard sometimes.  Especially when you know your horse knows the right answer but is just giving you a half-hearted response, firming up on him can drive home the point and make him try a little harder so that next time you can come in even softer.

Human has to change first.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  If you truly want change in your horse it has to come from you.  You cannot effect change without changing how you ride.  I find this applies to way more than just horsemanship.

Moving the hindquarters is the key to moving the forequarters.  This is applying specifically to the foundation of the turn around.  If you can't move the hindquarters efficiently and perfect don't even ask for the forequarters.

Build the foundation one perfect piece at a time but don't walk away and forget about it.  You have to check in on that stuff from time to time.  If any piece of your foundation training isn't exact it'll magnify into a bigger whole as you progress.  Get that stuff perfect and don't let it get rusty. A quick run through when you get on your horse is a great opportunity to check on that stuff.  Flex the neck, back up a step, move the hindquarters, move the forequarters, get soft feel.  Viola.  Now your ready to ride.

Soft feel without a change in the feet is not soft feel.  This one sunk in big with me and made a huge change in my horse in a very short time.  I have been told by numerous folks to "drive the horse into his face" by grabbing a hold of the face and driving him into to it create the illusion of softness.  It doesn't work.  Soft feel and true collection is in the feet.  When you pick up on your horse at a walk, trot, lope or stand still and ask him to get soft or collected it should not only change the way he is carrying his head but it should change the way he is moving his feet.  Once I quit driving my horse into his face the collection just came.  It makes sense to the horse that way.

When something you are doing with your horse isn't working you need to go backwards to when it was working and figure out where you missed a step.  For me this was the ever elusive flying lead change.  I have been working on trying to get this for years.  But when I tried to move my horse's hip at the trot I got nothing.  Therefore it wasn't working for me.  Once I went back and fixed it, we got it.  You can't move on until your solid in the parts of the foundation.

If it's not working slow, it'll never work fast.  We spent the entire 4 day horsemanship session working on walk/trot transitions.  We didn't lope once.  We just worked to see how perfect we could get those transitions and how light you could ask for it.  By the final day all I had to do was mentally raise the energy in my body and my horse would transition up.  No bumping, no squeezing, no clucking.  Just a change in my mental state.  You know what?  When I came home and worked on canter transitions it was perfect.  You can get more training done at a walk and a trot without loping than you can ever get schooling at the lope.

The horse knows how to arrange themselves, we just need to get out of their way.  I have spent so much of my riding life learning how to "hold" my horse together.  How to pick up a dropped shoulder, how to push that hip over so he can lope, how to bring his head down and in etc, etc.  When you forget about all of that and just work on getting in time with the feet and learn to get out of the horse's way they are perfectly capable of carrying their own body.  Hard habit to break, but it's immense freedom in your riding when you figure that out.

The horse should feel back to you when it's working right.  When you pick up on the reins, the horse should come along with you.  If he hurries to get off that rein because he's afraid of getting snatched at when he doesn't, that's not softness, that's fear.  If you pick up on the rein and he immediately sets himself with a brace to prepare for your bad hands, that's obviously not softness either.  When it's perfect, it's like holding the hand of a good dance partner.  You feel together.  So, if you pick up a soft feel the horse should hold it there with you as long as you ask.  If you pitch the reins and he's still holding it, he's not feeling back to you, he's posturing.  Does that make sense?

Get in time with the feet.  You can't move a foot when it's on the ground.  We worked on this a ton.  This is the key to lengthening stride, riding your horse in a perfect circle and stopping and backing as well as transitions.  When you are riding in time with their feet you can direct each foot as it moves.  Not because you have to help them move, but like you are dancing with them.  It's really fun to work on as you walk a circle.  You should be able to move the horse's feet along in a perfect circle, without losing the impulsion in the walk just by aligning your hips like you were walking that circle yourself.  You don't need to push the rib cage over, pull the nose in, and lift the inside shoulder.  The horse knows how to do that himself.  If you just move with him and get out if his way he can walk a perfect circle all my himself.  

Next time you ride your horse, pay attention to how little it takes to get your horse on the same page as you.  How little does it take to get your horse to walk.  To stop.  To back.  To trot.  To do a forequarter turn. To do a hindquarter turn.  Can you do it with just a thought?  No?  Me neither.  But that's what I'm after and hopefully someday we'll get close.  We're a lot closer now than we were 2 weeks ago!   None of this stuff is new or ground breaking tenets in horsemanship.  It's all been around a very long time.  It's not until you really challenge yourself to see where you really and truly are in your foundational horsemanship that you realize how badly you need to go back to square one and just fix somethings.

Good horsemanship speaks for itself

I recently saw a discussion on facebook poking fun at the "natural horsemanship" movement.  Loads of folks joined in on the discussion stating how there is nothing natural about riding anyway and what exactly is this natural horsemanship besides just letting the horse do whatever he wants.  Unfortunately because there are lots and lots of green horse people that get drawn to the hoopla surrounding many of the natural horsemanship instructors that are popular on RFDTV, some of the more traditional horse folk have a hard time taking them seriously and thereby reject the natural horsemanship movement out of hand.

It's sad really that it even has that unfortunate moniker.  Many of the folks that are practicing the "original" natural horsemanship don't even like to use the term.  You don't even want to get started on the debate about who made up the term and can claim rights to it.

Basically what "natural horsemanship" means to me is Ray Hunt type of horsemanship.  It has it's foundation in traditions that are much much earlier even than Ray Hunt, but for the sake of discussion, Ray and the Dorrance brothers are generally credited with making this style of horse communication more widely known at least on this continent.  Of course, like most great advances in the human race there were others exploring similar paths at similar times in other places and folks in Australia and Europe can claim "founders" in this style as well.

It's true that there is nothing natural about the way we keep horses.  That's why in general I am somewhat skeptical about any ideology about horse husbandry that has it's foundation in the mustang or other wild horse model.  You really can't compare our domestic horses to wild horses in how we manage them, house them or ride them.  But, if you really understand the way a horse thinks and learns and interacts in a herd setting  you can better your communication with them.  That is the crux of what has become natural horsemanship.  It's getting a horse to understand what we want them to do and even more amazing, getting them to want to do what we want to do.  It's making us all experts in equine behavior patterns.

In the wide range of different approaches to this style of horsemanship you will find everything from the completely unrestricted don't force anything on your horse style to the over the top domineering the horse must absolutely see you as the alpha style.  Like ice cream flavors, it's up to the individual.  I can't tell you which is best for you.  If you are like me and experimenting with finding a better way with your horses you will have to sample a few to find your favorite.

Here are a few hallmarks of a "natural horsemanship" program.

1. Groundwork and/or roundpenning.  A good natural horsemanship program starts with teaching basic communication on the ground.  This is where we establish our leadership with the horse and begin to build trust that we can help the horse find the right answer.  This is also where some form of desensitizing will come in.   The equivalent in a non-natural horsemanship program would be starting them in a 12x12 stall or snubbing them to a post and sacking them out.  Both common practices that are still used today.

2. Riding and training cues. Here is where there is a ton of variation depending on who you listen to, so I'm just going to tell you what is different about the way I ride as I follow the traditions that I have chosen to follow.  We go slow.  You don't prepare a horse for a futurity this way.  It can take until a horse is 5 or 6 before he is even ready to carry a bit.  We teach the horse to carry himself.   That means that we help a horse to develop collection through the entire body with the head being the last thing that we worry about.   Our goal in training our horses if for them to guide by the lightest touch and body positioning.  When I look over my shoulder for a turn and it moves down through my pelvis to my feet my horse should already be mimicking that movement and turning to look that direction.   This isn't rocket science or a completely new way of riding.  There are folks out there that have been riding this way for a long time.  So, you may be riding and training using more "natural horsemanship" techniques than you think you are.  What is not "natural horsemanship" in my way of thinking is anything that forces the horse into a false frame of collection or offers them no out.  Draw reins, martingales, cavasons and other devices that take the feel and timing out of the training are short cuts and have no place in a natural horsemanship program.  But, again, that's a rainbow in the fruit flavors and there are certainly those out there that are using those devices.  



Natural horsemanship isn't a fad.  It's not a touchy-feely "method" of training that requires a 10 DVD training kit.  It doesn't require any special tack or a funny fiberglass rod. It's definitely  NOT just letting the horse do whatever he wants to do.  It's a way of being with your horse and teaching them and trying to get in their heads to make them okay with what you are asking so that you and your horse are one. The horse doesn't do something because he's going to get jabbed with a spur if he doesn't.  The horse does something because he's pretty sure it was his idea to begin with.  That's your goal.  I don't care if you call it "Natural Horsemanship" or not. Call it Equine Buddism or Holistic Horseyness or Pony Pilattes or Cowboy Commonsense.   It doesn't matter.  Just do your best to be the best for your horse so that your horse can be the best he can.

Are you interested in learning more?  Here are a couple of places you can go to check out more information but don't be surprised if none of these folks use the term "natural horsemanship"!
http://www.martinblack.net/
http://brannaman.com/
http://www.rayhunt.com/
http://www.bryanneubert.com/
http://www.californiabridlehorse.com/
http://www.tomdorrance.com/

The Sensitive Issue of Desensitizing

In the good old days they used to call it "sacking out".  It consisted of tying your horse to a post and rubbing it all over with a gunny sack until it stood for it.  Generally it was a one time thing that happened prior to chucking the kack on his back and cinching it down.  Today desensitizing is a process that in some instances goes on throughout the horse's entire life.  There is a rainbow of fruit flavors available to choose from when you decide how or if you are going to incorporate this tool into your repertoire with your horse.

The science behind desensitizing is sound.  Horses are prey animals.  They have a well ingrained flight or fight response that has allowed them to survive in the natural habitat for thousands of years.  Their instincts tell them that if you see something that might eat you, even if you aren't sure it's probably best to get out of there quickly and then maybe reassess.  If you can't run, you better start fighting.  Desensitizing is supposed to teach a horse to stop and assess first prior to running and fighting.

Desensitizing today is largely done the same as it was years ago with the exception that you don't tie the horse.  You leave them an out so that they don't feel trapped and don't end up kicking in the fight response.  If your horse always has an opportunity to leave the scary object, even if it's just running around you in a circle they will eventually stop to reassess the situation and then accept it.  You can use any object to desensitize but most practitioners of natural horsemanship will use a stick and string (carrot stick or handy stick) or a flag or a coiled lariat.  While holding the horse on a lead line you introduce the object by moving it all around and over the horse's body until he can stand there and accept it.

The variation in method and ideology comes in when we start discussing just how much desensitizing you need to do.   Here is where the rainbow of fruit flavors comes in.

Maximum Desensitizing: These are the folks that have a regimen of desensitizing that they do with their horses each and every time that they work with them.  Typically this is incorporated as part of the groundwork routine but can also be done from the saddle.  You'll often hear this mantra from folks in this camp, "For every sensitizing exercise there is a desensitizing exercise".  So you will first teach your horse to move off of pressure or stimulation then teach it to ignore the stimulation.  It is up to the horse to read your body language and therefore your intention before deciding if it is supposed to move or go.  It is also often used as a sort of cool down after a rigorous sensitizing exercise.  When you start your desensitizing the horse is supposed to just cock a leg and zone out.  It's his cue to stand quietly.  Defendants of this process are the ones that you will often see standing on the back of their horses wielding a chainsaw or leaf blower while the horse stands quietly with a leg cocked.  If you are a horse person that is particularly worried about your horse spooking at different stimuli this looks like a dang good deal.  Opponents of this type of desensitizing worry that you are ruining the horses natural sensitivity to stimuli that makes it such a valuable partner.  How can a horse be sensitive to your lightest cue while also being dead to all outside stimuli?

Moderate Desensitizing:  Obviously this form of desensitizing falls somewhere right in the middle.  You will often pair desensitizing and sensitizing exercises with your horse and may even repeat the desensitizing exercises daily.  The difference is that once the horse is good and standing for the desensitizing you move on rather than belabor the point.   There may even come a time in the horse's career when you stop doing the desensitizing unless a problem with a specific object arises and then you always have the desensitizing to fall back on when needed.

Minimal desensitizing:  These are the folks that really can't even abide the word and will often choose a different term for what they do to "check out" the horse or make sure he is okay with stuff.  This type of desensitizing is much less regimented.  There aren't any desensitizing exercises you do with your horse, you just make sure he's okay with stuff.  For example, you horse is worried about fly spray.  You would just keep quietly fly spraying them until they quit freaking out.  You would do this as needed with the horse.  Or your horse is afraid of your hat.  You would calmly show the horse your hat until he was okay with it.  It's really just good basic horsemanship and common sense.  The idea being we aren't trying to make a horse okay with everything in the world so that you can carry around an inflatable boat on the top of your horse if needed.  We are trying to teach the horse that when we are there with you you don't need to be afraid because if I say it's okay, it is.  You are making a pact to the horse that says, "I promise to take care of you and when we are together I'll help you watch out for scary or dangerous stuff".  The horse learns not so much to tune stimuli out but to be okay with it because he has trust in you, his herd mate that you aren't going to be in trouble.

Even as I write this it seems silly to me that there is any debate about this, but believe me folks from the different camps can get down right touchy about this.  The minimal desensitizers believe the maximum desensitizers are dulling their horses and making dead unthinking horses that nobody would want to ride and the maximum desensitizers think the minimal desensitizers are just "cowboys" making crack heads that are prone to buck or run off at the least amount of outside stimuli.

Let me tell you about my personal journey with desensitizing.  I started out in the maximum desensitizing camp.  It made perfect sense to me at first.  Who wouldn't want a horse that is 100% okay with bombs going off and flags and fireworks.  I faithfully did my desensitizing with my stick and string or lead rope each and every time I did groundwork before getting on my horse.  I got my horse to the point that I could walk all around him while he stood sleeping as I whacked that thing on the ground as hard as I could.  What I noticed is that it worked great in that context.  What it didn't do is transfer to the larger outside world.  I found that my horse was either completely sensitized jumping to my least cue or completely desensitized sleeping while I made a ruckus around him.  I definitely could have gotten on my horse with a leaf blower and stood there blowing away while he slept.  But only if I had done my running around ground work and got him tired first.  It didn't help him to just trust that I would keep him safe in all situations because it was an isolated exercise.  When it happened after we had done some good running around in the arena he totally understood that it was time to stand and sleep.  If I just walked out and caught him and he saw something scary there was no trust.  Because I have a hot sensitive horse I didn't ever end up with a dull unresponsive horse  but I didn't ever get a horse that was completely with me all the time either.

So, with my next 2 horses that I started I went somewhere in the middle.  It worked better, I think, but especially with the little quiet 3 year old Morgan that had a tendency towards laziness I noticed that the more I desensitized the more it took to get him to move at all.  He loved desensitizing.  He thought it was right up there with a good grooming.  Once I realized that if I kept at it I was going to need spurs to get him to move at all I quit.  He wasn't ever really worried about stuff anyway, why continue with it as part of our daily routine?

A mistake that I see a lot of folks make with desensitizing and one that seems to create freak out moments is forgetting to desensitize a horse while he is in motion.  You'd be surprised at how a horse that is standing there completely dozing while you wave a flag around can turn into a nut case when you start moving that flag around while you are riding them or while they are moving around you in a circle.  When their feet are already moving that flight response just seems to be that much closer to the surface.  So, anything you desensitize your horse to should be done standing still first and then also while moving.

A great example of this happened yesterday with the Moony and the blue tarp.  He's spent some time with blue tarp being rubbed on him from the ground and he'll lope over the thing if it's laying in the arena.  Yesterday I decided to practice dragging the tarp while we were moving.  I picked it up off the rail of the arena and he was a little alert but okay.  I rubbed it on him, no problem.  Then we started to move off at a walk.  Instant anxiety.  So it took some time moving off slowly in a circle dragging the tarp for him to be okay with that.  I repeated it on both sides and eventually I was able to carry it like a cape flapping out behind us.

So, I wouldn't presume to tell you what level of desensitizing you should be doing with your horse.  I think like most things in horsemanship it is a personal decision.  But I do think you should be informed when you make that decision and I do think you want SOME level of desensitizing.  I also think that having a horse that is okay with lots of different stimuli starts with having a horse that is okay with you.  Build that trust with your horse and don't let him down and he'll be much more willing to believe you when you say, "It's alright."

A Heaping Helping of Humble Pie

I didn't realize that when I started this blog about my thoughts on horsemanship and the things that I've learned along the way that I might come across as sounding like I am now a master.  I am so far from that.  I am mediocre at best.  The entire purpose of this blog is to explore the nuances of horsemanship and to allow me to focus my thoughts on what horsemanship should be and where I would like to go in improving my horsemanship. I take this stuff very seriously and am constantly working on improving myself in numerous ways.  You can't be in this "sport" (I hate to call it that because it makes it sound like a game and it's so much more serious than that!) without maintaining your sense of humor about the horse's ability to regularly make you look like a fool.

So, I thought this blog might be a good time to share with you some of my recent foolish moments and what I learned from them just so you all realize that I have absolutely zero delusions of grandeur when it comes to me and my horses.

I've already talked a bit about talking on the challenge of learning to jump with my older gelding in the balance blog.  I'm still taking jumping lessons and continuing to work on my form and such rudimentary things as steering and stopping when I am in 2 point position.  My jumping lessons, besides being fun, are also incredibly humbling and exhausting.  It's amazing how much work it is to ride that way.  I can happily spend 8 hours in the saddle riding in the mountains and never really get to that point where I'm ready to get off my horse.  A 45 minute jumping lesson, however, leaves me exhausted and panting almost as hard as my horse. While my balance is getting better there are still so many things that I have to try to remember when all I can seem to think about is one thing at a time.  For instance, on approaching the jump you have to gather your horse, count your strides, keep your heals down, push your horse into a collected frame, prepare to get into two point position, keep steady light pressure on the reins, look towards the jump then at just the right moment look beyond the jump to the next jump, keep your right leg back so that he doesn't change leads and oh yeah, don't fall off!  (I'm sure I missed a few things in that list.  I'm still learning!)

My horse is taking the jump and I'm still somewhere at "keep your heals down".  I feel like a complete beginner.  It's just so different from the style of riding that I have been working towards the last few years and by golly, I'm not a kid anymore and apparently learning new things and retraining your body is a difficult thing! But, I'll keep at it.   I am nothing if not stubborn and I really want to get this.  Probably the fact that I'm having so much trouble mastering these things is going to make me want to master it all that much more.  It seems inconceivable to me that I can't keep my heals down.  Really?  How hard can that possibly be?

Pushing myself outside of my equine comfort zone has been so good for the rest of my riding.  It has helped me to remember that form and balance that you think is second nature needs work.  Just because you feel pretty comfortable in your western saddle doesn't mean that you don't have balance and form issues in your riding.  There is nothing like a new discipline to really make you think about your riding and your communication with your horse.  Even if you aren't switching disciplines, just take a lesson and have somebody there who can critique you and push you and correct that sagging shoulder that you don't realize you have.  I don't care who you are, you can benefit from it.

My other heaping helping of humble pie came last week as I was teaching my 2 year old how to back out of the trailer.  This is a hard one for me to talk about because it was a pretty traumatic experience for me.  It hit me pretty hard emotionally.  We got a new trailer this year and for the first time my horses have to back out. I have been turning my horses around in the trailer and leading them out and down a ramp since I as 16.  I've just always believed that was safer.

But our new trailer has a spiffy rear tack and so the horses can't really turn around in it.  I figured it was time for me and them to get this figured out and it's gone pretty well with everybody.  Then I decided it was time for the 2 year old to work on it.  I figured he'd be easy because he had few preconceived notions since he hasn't been trailered more than a handful of times.  He was a rockstar.  After about 15 minutes I had him backing out after I sent him in just by tugging on his tail.  I figured I would do it one more time just be sure he had it well cemented in his young brain.

For some reason, probably because he was getting bored with this repetitive game, he decided to try to turn around and look at me before he got all the way backed out.  He did that in the narrowest part of the trailer and got himself wedged and ended up flipping himself out of the trailer.  I was completely powerless to do anything to prevent what I saw coming and had to just stand there and watch it happen.  He fell out of the trailer into the driveway and thankfully landed on his hip and shoulder.  If he'd come out completely backwards and hit his head he probably would have killed himself.  (Not being dramatic, I've attended many of these accidents).

He popped right up and I put him right back into the trailer trying to prevent any traumatic memories from cementing and making trailer loading an issue and he went right back in.  He took way longer to come out this time but made it out eventually.  Then when we attempted to haul him to a ride it took about 20 minutes to get him out.  I was so disgusted with myself for letting this happen.  Here I had a 2 year old that was completely confident and backing out of the trailer like a champ and I ruined it by pushing it too far and letting him get bored and looking for a new way out of the trailer.  I was upset enough and so frustrated that Dan had to step in and help me out because I was emotionally shot.

Honestly, I am still pretty traumatized from the whole incident.  I just feel like I totally failed my colt and have had many nightmares about what could have happened.  He'll probably get over it much faster than I will.  I'm still processing exactly where I went wrong and maybe it would have eventually happened anyway.

The moral of these stories is that horses will provide you unending opportunities for making a fool of yourself. That's one of the beauties of having this as your life passion.  You will never ever stop learning and growing and improving because this is a life sport.  It's one that you can do your whole life and only a few will ever be considered "masters".  I'm willing to bet those "masters" have days where they feel like an idiot too.  That's just horses.

So, if you've been following along with my blogs and thinking, "what makes her think she knows so much about horses".  Believe me I don't!  I'm learning as I go just like we all are.  Just like in horses, I think one of the most important traits in a rider is try.  You gotta have try to grow and learn.  If I can say one thing about myself I know I have try.  The rest I hope I get figured out before I'm 80!