Has your horse ever given you a response before you could ask him for it? Perhaps you are riding along on the trail and you think about asking your horse to trot. Before you can give your horse the cue, your horse begins to trot. When it happens, it feels like your horse is reading your mind.
Horses have the ability to respond to much softer, subtler cues than we realize. They are very attuned to our body language, noticing patterns in our behavior and responding to our movements. Once we realize how horses are always looking for a sequence of cues, we can use this in our training to teach them to respond to less pressure and achieve greater lightness.
How Pre-Cues Work
We talked to Josh Lyons about using pre-cues in his training plan. Josh said that he sees pre-cues as a critical component, both on the ground and mounted. He defines pre-cues as "what you do before you give the cue."
As a trainer, you need to be aware of what you do. Think about the actions you take before you give a cue. If you perform the same series of actions consistently, the horse will begin to respond earlier in the cue sequence. If the horse doesn't respond to any of the pre-cues, you then give the cue, which is the strongest motivator. In the horse's mind, the cue becomes a correction. The horse doesn't want to be corrected and thus will begin to respond earlier in the cue sequence.
Josh explained how horses and people differ in perception. When training horses, he said, we think that we need to make a change big enough for other people to see. In fact, horses are much more attuned to body language, so they will recognize and respond to much more subtle changes.
Josh's round-pen demonstration illustrates this point. When Josh cues the horse to make an inside turn or an outside turn, the horse has easily figured out Josh's body language. However, the first question Josh receives from the audience invariably is, "What cue are you using to make the horse turn to the inside or the outside?" The people watching can't identify the subtle changes in body language by just watching. But the horse had figured it out.
Josh uses pre-cues as an integral part of his training. To continually improve his horse's performance, he adds pre-cues in front of his cues. He strives to find a way to add a lighter pre-cue to the horse's current performance level. Josh tells his students, "Don't keep doing the same thing. Always strive to make it better." Pre-cues are the key to this cycle of continuous improvement.
Developing Pre-Cues
- Think about the actions you take before you cue your horse.
- Decide which of those actions you can apply consistently as a pre-cue.
- Pause after giving a pre-cue so that the horse can learn to respond to the pre-cue instead of the cue.
- Pretend the pre-cue tells the horse what you want, and use the cue itself if he misses the pre-cue. The horse will view the cue as a correction and seek to avoid it
- Be sure to give a release when the horse responds to the cue and, as he earns it, the pre-cue.
Benefits of Pre-Cues
Josh explained that pre-cues give two important benefits: 1) the horse becomes lighter and 2) the horse becomes less aggravated. Josh said that horses become aggravated when asked to perform the same movement repeatedly with a strong cue. This repetition, without change, causes the horse's aggravation.
