All of us have done puzzles. And for me, puzzles are the perfect analogy to the importance of paying attention to the smallest piece. The picture is not complete until all the pieces have been assembled correctly. Now imagine somebody giving you a puzzle, but they lost the cover, and you have no idea what it looks like. This changes the story completely.
In training horses, especially starting them from the beginning, or when re-training bad habits, you have to have a clear idea of how you want that horse to feel and respond to your intention, intuition and aids, somewhere down the line. You are setting the precedent of how you want him to show up in the smallest piece of your training just like that puzzle is assembled by a thousand small pieces. Unlike with the puzzle, where only the correct pieces will fit together, very often, with horses, a lot of pieces that don’t really fit properly together are still being repeated until they become a habit, in this case, a bad habit.
It starts with how you show up at the barn, where your mindset is, how you approach your horse to put on the halter, and how you lead him to the grooming area as well as how you groom him. Very often in new students, in the basic steps of horsemanship, I already see so many things that could be improved which will then set the tone for the bigger things to come like groundwork or riding. Let’s start with how you approach your horse in the paddock or the stall. Are you rushed because you are on a timeframe? Are you connected to your horse? Do you take the time to greet him before that halter even comes into play, or do you just march straight up to him, throw that halter on, and start pulling him to the grooming area?
How can you be your best self in these first few steps? When I walk out to my horse, or approach him in the stall, the first thing that happens is for my body language to connect to my horse. Remember horses respond to energy, so I want my energy to be neutral, low, calm, and inviting, because I want him to want to be with me. The next thing is putting on the halter. Do you kind of throw the leadrope over the neck and then pull on the halter? If the horse’s head goes up, do you just keep following it until you have to get on your tippee toes? And then, once that halter is on, do you randomly pull on the leadrope, and yank your horse out of the stall or drag him out of the pasture to the grooming area?
Let’s see what we can change in order for that horse to want to be with us. Once I’m in the stall or in the paddock, and I am close to my horse, I usually don’t do anything with the halter or leadrope for the first few minutes. I just spend time greeting him, stroking him on the neck, petting him on the forehead, and maybe even giving him a treat. During that time, my halter simply rests on my shoulder. Once I’ve greeted my horse, and I have taken inventory of where I am in my body and mind, hopefully at my authentic self, and not still caught up in whatever went wrong or right in my day, I can then invite my horse to meet me at that place. Once your horse has arrived there with you, his head will lower, his eye will soften, and hopefully we will see a lick and chew, and maybe even a soft exhale. I would probably rub my horse on his forehead, then fold the leadrope over his withers, and then quietly slide the halter on from the side. If at that point, my horse’s stance changes or head goes up, I would pause, give him time to adjust and if need-be, my right hand would rest quietly at his poll, and if necessary, apply a little soft pressure there to lower his head again. Once I get the softness back in my horse, I will slide the halter on, and then again just pause for a moment and reward him with a soft stroke on the forehead.
The next step would be walking forward and inviting my horse to follow my body energy. All my horses have been taught this and will follow my body without the need for pulling on the leadrope. Should your horse not want to walk forward, do not just keep pulling, which I see so often, most of the time with the horse braced on his front legs, and his head and neck stretched out, while the rider is still pulling on the leadrope, because, trust me, the horse will win that tug of war. Instead of finding yourself in that place, where your horse does not want to walk forward, just change direction. Walk sharply to the right or the left, and you will make it much harder for your horse to brace his legs because when changing direction, he has to shift the weight off his front legs and follow where you are taking his head.
Cross ties are a whole other topic for me. I am not against cross ties, however, I am not a very big fan of cross ties when they are so tight that the halter almost gets pulled apart. I find it inconsiderate and rude to have a horse cross tied like that because they have to use a huge amount of under neck muscles and other supportive muscle structures in their body to even hold their head in that place. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen too often, in big, successful training barns, where horses spend long periods of time cross tied in this manner. Once they get untied, you can usually see them take a deep breath, and immediately lower their head and neck to stretch out those tired muscles. So, if you need to use cross ties, make sure they are long enough so your horse has a range of motion up and down as well as sideways, to be comfortable. I did not even know what cross ties were until I came to the United States. In Germany, where I grew up, we only front-tied horses. I’m sure that has changed by now. Cross ties are a convenience for the grooms, not for the horses.
Most of our horses stand ground-tied in the cross ties or with the leadrope looped around the cross ties, tied to themselves. They have learned that from early on, and they will stand there just fine. My own personal horse, Maximillian, will stay there because he does not know that he is just ground tied, he has learned to stay in that physical space.
Now let’s talk about grooming. Grooming should be relaxing, and comfortable for horse and rider. It is not only about getting the dirt out of the horse’s coat, but also about the physical interaction of two bodies. Again, it is how do I want to show up, intentionally, and physically, and how do I want my horse to feel during that exchange? Often, I see grooms just knocking the dirt off the horses with fast, crude strokes, not taking into consideration how the horse feels about that. It makes a huge, big difference if you are only using your hand and your forearm for grooming, or if you actually allow your whole entire body to participate. The first method is abrasive, the second is embracing. Very often, I will take a curry comb or a brush, and groom the new student’s back, and then let them decide which one feels better on their own body. They certainly never want to do wrong by the horse, sometimes it just happens, because nobody has shown them a better way. Once they understand the difference, and have felt it on their own body, they always want to go to the right method when grooming their horse.
We can continue this same line of thought to tacking up our horse. Do you slap on the pads and the saddle, or do you gently lower them? Do you use a girth which is a little bit too snug, so the horse has to blow his belly up to be comfortable, or do you use a big enough girth so it can start out on the looser side, and be tightened later? Then we go to putting on the bridle. This should happen the same way that we put on the halter when we first met our horse in the stall or in the paddock.
We haven’t even put our foot in the stirrup iron, and we’ve already discovered a myriad of small puzzles pieces that could have been put together incorrectly. Put together properly with authenticity, congruency, softness, connection, and a trusting dialog between horse and rider the pieces should fit nicely. However you choose to show up, just remember you are training your horse with every interaction you have with him, be that on the ground or in the saddle. So if he eventually no longer does what you expect him to do, be sure to look at your own behavior and how you have interacted with him for possible mistakes you have made and how you could correct those. The horse does not know the difference between good or bad or right or wrong, he only knows what leaves him safe and secure and wanting to be with you, or what makes him want to have no part of you. Horses certainly can get used to anything; you have to decide what kind of a partner you want to be for your horse.
Very often, I see riders bringing their horses all kinds of treats: carrots, apples, expensive horse muffins, some of my horses even like bananas, but they forget that the biggest way of showing your love for your horse is not necessarily in a treat that they are getting, but in the way you are treating them in your interaction with them.
Juliana Zunde 