Trainer's Tip:It's Not Anticipation, It's Pre-Cues
Often you will hear people complain that their horse is anticipating their cues and responding before he is asked. Horses competitively shown at horse shows often learn to respond to the announcer instead of waiting for their rider's cue. Barrel racers have problems with horses becoming overly excited at the sight of barrels set up in the arena. Dressage horses learn the dressage pattern and anticipate the next movement.
All of these behaviors prove that our horses are constantly looking for patterns in their life and are ready and willing to respond to them. That barrel horse knows that barrels standing in the ring mean he is going to be asked to run them. The dressage horse knows that a turn across the diagonal means he is going to extend his gait.
Once we understand how the horse looks for pre-cues in everything, we can adjust our training accordingly. When we want to train him to respond earlier in the sequence of events, we should always execute the same sequence of cues. When we don't want the horse to anticipate our requests, we must be careful not to establish a pattern. Walk that barrel horse around those barrels as often as you run him. Halt the dressage horse at various places on the diagonal instead of always extending his gait.
Most importantly, don't blame your horse for anticipating your desires. Once you understand how his mind works, you can avoid the pitfalls of pre-cues and enjoy all the benefits they bring to your training program.
To illustrate this point, think about asking your horse to trot. Suppose you have decided to use two cues, a voice command ("trot") and a squeeze with both legs. If you say "trot" and use your legs at the same time, the horse doesn't have a chance to respond to only the voice command. Instead, you should say "trot" first, pause and then apply the leg cue. This sequence, with the pause in between the two cues, will give the horse time to respond by trotting as soon as you say "trot," and then there will be no need for the leg cue.
Now let's return to our list of steps and add pre-cues to our training plan:
1. Select a desired response.
2. Give the first pre-cue and pause.
3. Give the second pre-cue and pause.
4. Apply a motivator to get the response.
5. The horse experiments until he gives the correct response.
6. Reward the horse by removing the motivator.
As in the previous sequence, the motivator has become the cue when the horse has learned the correct response. However, this training sequence allows the horse to improve well beyond the basic concept of responding to the motivator (cue). Because the trainer has added pre-cues with a pause in between, the horse has an opportunity to avoid being given the cue. He can act upon one of the pre-cues and avoid the actual cue, which the horse sees as being more severe.
The example we have shown here includes two pre-cues, but you can build as many as you want into the steps. As the horse learns these pre-cues, you can add an even lighter pre-cue before the first one.
Pre-Cues: A Practical Example
We asked Josh for a practical example of using pre-cues in everyday training. He mentioned training a horse to stop, something everyone in any discipline needs.
To begin, the horse needs to understand the stop cue. Going back to our previous steps, we can apply them to teaching a basic stop:
1. Select the desired response: the horse stops his feet.
2. Apply a motivator (cue) to get the response: taking the slack out of the rein.
3. The horse experiments until his feet come to a halt.
4. Reward the horse by releasing the rein.
Once the horse understands the cue to stop when you take all the slack out of the rein, you can progress to the next step, which is working with pre-cues to have the horse respond before you take the slack out of the rein.
In this training exercise, the goal is to have the horse stop when the rider says "whoa." Before you begin this exercise, the horse must be consistent in stopping his feet when you take the slack out of the rein and he must be able to back up on cue.
This is how the exercise works when you add pre-cues:
1. Select the desired response: the horse stops his feet.
2. Give pre-cue 1: sit deep in the saddle, pause.
3. Give pre-cue 2: verbal command "whoa," pause.
4. Give pre-cue 3: slowly pick up the rein, pause.
5. Apply a motivator (cue) to get the response: taking the slack out of the rein.
6. The horse's feet come to a halt.
7. Cue the horse to back until he reaches the spot where you said "whoa."
8. Reward the horse by releasing the reins.
Using a consistent sequence of cues allows the horse to respond to the pre-cues earlier in the sequence.
When you start this exercise, you will first see the horse responding to the halt command when you begin to take the slack out of the reins. As you continue to practice your halts, the horse will begin to halt when you reach to pick up the rein. As you continue to work the exercise, the horse will begin to stop when you say "whoa." If you continue the exercise beyond that, the horse will stop when you sit deep in the saddle.
Training with pre-cues works because the horse identifies what comes immediately before the cue. If you are consistent in your cue sequence and you give the horse time to respond between cues, the horse will try to anticipate the cue and perform the action on his own. This allows us to make our horses lighter, giving us more performance with less activity on our part.
As we have seen, there are enormous benefits to understanding pre-cues and incorporating them into our training program. To use pre-cues effectively, we must become more aware of the signals we give our horse. And we must use the same signals consistently.
Take a tip from Josh: "Don't keep doing the same thing - always strive to make it better." Using pre-cues is the key to that improvement.
