We've all admired someone whose horse was so in sync with her that it looked as if he was reading her mind. In our ongoing series on developing perfect ground manners for your horse, we'll show you how you can develop that kind of control of your horse, and without even picking up a rein. You'll find plenty of times when this training for your horse will come in handy, from catching your horse in a field all the way through halterless leading.
You can use "round pen reasoning" to improve your horse's ground manners, whether you have a round pen or just an ordinary corral. By using a series of easy questions that the horse can answer "Yes" to, you can build his confidence and get him in the habit of cooperating with you. "Will you move forward?" "Yes." "Will you turn to the outside?" "Yes." And so forth.
One of the keys to successful training is being really specific. I used to think that when I was giving a general command, I was being lenient with the horse. But it's much harder to obey a general command than a specific one.
If I told you, for instance, to go move my truck, that would leave you guessing, especially if you thought you'd get in trouble if you parked it in the wrong place. But if I told you to park the truck in front of the garage door, you could do that confidently.
You Are the Cue
- Use body language to form simple questions that your horse can easily respond to with a "Yes" answer.
- Apply pressure and immediately release it when your horse responds correctly.
- Mentally divide your horse at the withers. Position yourself behind that line to encourage forward movement; step in front of it to encourage the horse to stop or turn.
- Start by focusing your energy on controlling just two spots, the nose and the tail.
- You can use any cue you want, but be specific about what you're asking so your signals become clear to your horse.
- Kissing sounds and flapping are useful for getting a horse to move, but you'll ultimately develop your own unique body language.
When we tell the horse to do something, we don't want him to have to guess about it. So we are as specific on the ground as we are when we're riding. Because of that, the horse learns quickly and without much stress.
This month, we're going to focus on the body language that helps the horse understand what I want. Next month, we'll work through the sequence of round pen lessons that I teach as preliminaries for the "spook in place" exercise.
Talking with Pressure
We use the same pressure and release-of-pressure concepts in the round pen as when we're working with the horse in hand in the bridle. We also use the same magic formula that we use for everything else we do with the horse: motivator, spot, direction and reward.
Rather than trying to control the whole horse, we pick one place on the horse about the size of a quarter. We call that "the spot," and we tell that spot to move in one direction. We apply pressure to motivate the horse to move the spot, and we release the pressure to tell him that he did what we wanted. By being specific about the spot and direction, and being consistent about our pressure and release of pressure, the horse quickly learns what we want him to do.
People always ask me what cues I use. I tell them to forget about any kind of sophisticated body language and just be themselves when they signal to the horse. The horse will figure it out much quicker than if they set up an artificial code.
I use as little pressure as I can to get the response that I want. How does the horse know that I'm pressuring him? He just does, the same way that you might be aware of someone staring at you. You feel that pressure, and you can also feel when the person turns away or leaves the room. Horses are far more sensitive to that than we are, so they pick up on our intentional focus faster than a person would.
A few basics make it easier for the horse to initially understand what we want. I draw an imaginary line across the horse's withers. When I move forward of the line, the horse senses that I'm blocking his forward movement, so his first guess is that I want him to stop or turn. When I'm pressuring him from behind the line, he's not feeling blocked, so he's free to move forward.
