🐴 There’s More to It - Continued… · Get Good With Horses Courses

🐴 There’s More to It - Continued…

✨ Hi all, continuing on from my previous post yesterday in this category...

...let me ask you to think about something!

When you practice with your horse, are you only practicing during the exercise and training time or does that practice carry into everything you do together?

I mention this because I see this daily where the idea of this post hit me before I got out of bed this morning.

Here are a few examples of what I see going on:

Horses pulling their humans toward unattended feed buckets.

People walking along glued to their phones, dragging the horse behind them… then getting angry when the horse spooks and nearly runs them down.

Horses biting or shuffling during girthing, but somehow expected to be relaxed the moment the ride begins.

Horses that cannot stand for longer than 10 minutes to simply be groomed yet expected to stand for 40 minutes + for the Farrier.

A very good example is space clearance where during a training session, the horse must stay out of the human’s space. But as soon as the session is over, the rules disappear.

The horse can crowd.

Pull.

Shuffle.

Fall apart again.

Imagine how confusing that is and I will be very honest when I say, it does not work like that.

From the horse’s perspective, the rules seem random.

One moment space matters, the next moment it doesn’t.

Just watch them in a herd environment, the rules are very clear and if they are not, someone (other horse) quickly has something to say about it.🫣

That inconsistency is what often creates resistance, frustration, shut-downs, or horses that simply lose interest. Practice isn’t something we switch on for 10 minutes and then forget, it’s something that lives in the everyday moments of which I call General Skills:

Walking to and from the field/paddock/stable.

Enetring the grooming area.

Standing quietly to be tacked up.

Respecting space around other peoples feed buckets.

Horses are incredibly generous animals, but unfortunately they’re often left guessing…and sometimes carrying a little too much responsibility for human inconsistency.

Clear, steady expectations make their world easier - this is where I help you to be their parent, teacher and best friend AND in the appropriate doses. This can change form minute minute, hour to hour because we cannot be their best freind all day long, we also have to parent them when required and be their best teacher.

👉 Remember this: when their world becomes clearer, their willingness grows and that right there is where partnership and a strong substainable bond lives. The rest is just noise.

Share in the comments are you practing what you practice for always or only when the time suits?

It is a tough one but in the end that is actually what getting good with horses is all about and is the very ingrediants we need to eventually be good enough.

🐴✨🫶

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