Oh, The Drama! Using Over Exaggeration When Training Your Horse
Sometimes we need to over-exaggerate when teaching our horses to help them learn. Most of the time though, it’s not actually for the horse, but to slow us down as the rider and to make sure that we’re giving super clear cues to the horse, than the horse himself needing it. What he needs is a clear signal and while we think that’s what we’re doing, in all reality we’re more quick and blurry with our signals than we realize.
Horses are large animals and it takes time and space for them to comprehend and reposition their bodies. Just like a long bed pickup doesn’t have the same turning radius as a compact car, your horse needs room. So the more signals that you can give your horse to allow him to recognize and prepare for a change, the better.
The reins are the steering wheel, not the brakes. The reins are the last place the signal should come from. The signals the horse needs to feel first are in the rest of your body, meaning your seat, legs, and voice.
A horse needs 3 signals.
1 Change is coming
2 What change is coming
3 Being asked for the change.
A perfect example of this is when asking a horse to stop.
The other day I was working with a horse and rider and the rider said the horse was stopping front end heavy. So as I watched the rider ask for a few stops, I could tell that although their cues were soft and quiet, they were rushed and the horse didn’t have time to prepare to stop, so he was a little caught off guard causing him to brace on his front end when he had to stop so suddenly. It didn’t help that in this particular case, the previous owner was pretty heavy-handed with this horse, causing him extra anxiety to fast cues.
So often a horse becomes anxious not because of the specific task that you’re asking for, but because he is never allowed time to mentally or physically process and prepare for it. One minute he’s riding along and the next minute you’re pulling on his face and expecting him to be in a different place and position.
Horses hate surprise parties, and this is a surprise party.
How we used over exaggerating in this situation is I told the rider to glue their hand and reins to the top of the neck, they weren’t allowed to touch the reins. We were going to get this horse to stop and back without touching the reins.
This horse had a decent foundation of understanding these cues how to stop from a previous reining trainer, but after years of being ridden inconsistently, he just needed some clarification of what was being asked of him.
I told the rider to sit down deep, wait a stride, take their legs off, wait a stride, say whoa loud and firm, wait a stride or two. Then and only then if the horse wasn’t stopping and needed extra help, they could pick up the reins soft and slowly.
It’s probably no surprise that the horse never needed to get to step 4 of the rider touching the reins. That horse had so much time and signal to process what was being asked and reassurance that he wasn’t going to have his face ripped off if he guessed wrong, that by the end of the night as soon as the rider would sit down and take their legs off, the horse was rounding its back, transferring that weight to his hindquarters, and thinking back, giving a nice little stop. The horse also started becoming more and more relaxed and confident as the night went on.
It’s important to realize that soft hands do not make for soft horses, clear communication makes for soft horses, and this was the perfect example. So the next time you’re finding yourself frustrated that your horse isn’t responding how you want, stop and dissect your cues asking yourself, how can I slow this down and simplify it even more to help my horse?
