I spend a lot of time Evaluating horses trained and unstarted.  The evalution consists of:

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• if the horse has been calmed

• how comfortable is the horse accepting rhythmic and steady pressure

• does the horse read my intentions

• emotional fitness

• respecting personal space

• speed control walk, trot & canter

• understanding yielding

• trailer loading

• catching

• proper round penning

• proper halter training

• is the horse trainable

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  Also helping people solve horse problems. Some of the most common problems are; buddy sour, speeding up, slowing down, bucking, bolting, head tossing, and spooky, hard to catch, distrustful, trailer loading and the list goes on.  In an attempt to “fix” these problems, some trainers and/or riders apply band-aid solutions like tighter nosebands, stronger bits, tie downs, and other equipment!  Horses with a solid training foundation, on the ground as well as in the saddle, and brought along at an appropriate pace are confident, relaxed, supple, balanced, and willing, and have learned how to learn.  The majority of these problems are caused by holes in the Foundations of Gound and Mounted training.

 

Training holes can show up when:

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• a new purchased

• a horse is moved to a new location

• a horse trained in one discipline is changed to a different type of riding

• a young horse’s training is rushed to get him ready for sale or competition

• a horse's past or present methods are failing

 

What are the root causes of the problems

There are definitive and effective things you can do to help a horse overcome these issues. We identify the causes by evaluating a horse's training and fixing problems, you can consider a number of factors, including:

 

• Physical health: Horses can develop undesirable behaviors due to pain or injuries, so it's important to rule out physical problems first. You can take your horse to an equine clinic for a medical exam and lameness evaluation. 

• Mental, emotional state: Horses can experience mental stress from fear, anxiety, or confusion. You can look for signs of tension or anxiety in the horse's body. 

• Equipment: Poorly fitting or adjusted equipment can cause problems. 

• Training history: Poor early training or inconsistent handlers can contribute to problems. 

• Environmental factors: The horse may not understand environmental factors that are contributing to problems.

 

Holes in horse training can

Lead to a variety of problems, including explosive behavior, spooking, and lack of confidence: 

 

• Explosive behavior: Training that looks good in front of an audience but leaves holes in a horse's training can lead to explosive behavior. 

• Spooking or fearful behavior: This can be a common training problem. 

• Lack of confidence: This can be a common training problem. 

• Conflicting signals from the rider: This can be a common training problem. 

• Inconsistent reinforcement of cues: This can be a common training problem. 

• Punishing the horse when the rider makes mistakes: This can be a common training problem. 

 

If your horse has holes in his training, you need to go back to basics to fill in those gaps and build his solid foundation.

 

Identify and Fix Holes in the training

Proven experience tells me an evaluation with written diagnostic reports is the best way to get you training off on the right foot or on track immediately   These are practical reasons for doing the evaluation; however, there are other reasons such as:

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• To help owners decide the direction of a present or future training method or process.

• Review past or present training program; does the program consist proper training plans with step-by-step progressive ground and/or mounted exercises with descriptions, purpose, objectives and goals?   Even though the goals or objectives or exercises may change, the implementation needs to be flexible to accommodate the horse person as well as the horse.   

• Identify whether the present training is; effective and does it match the goals of the owner or if the goals have changed.

• The evaluation will may suggest modifying, cutting or keeping a training program entirely. However, the evaluation itself will not suggest changing or disregarding training methods that have a positive improvement in the horse’s performance and the owner’s safety.   For example; if one or more parts of a training program are nonexistent or are ineffective, this is the portion that will need to be changed or discarded.

 

What is your goal?
Identify small goals that will lead to your ultimate goal, understand what your horse will need to do to accomplish these goals and prioritize your cues accordingly. It’s always nice to want to go somewhere, do something, or get better at it. But besides vague dreaming you need a target. Then you need a plan because “A goal without a plan is just a Dream”!  Before creating your training plan, the best way to get your training off on the right foot and immediately saving you from wasting valuable time, money and energy on unnecessary training is; for you to conduct a needs analysis by doing an evaluation to identify and assess: 

 

• Who your horse is?   

• What your horse knows? 

• What your horse offers willingly?

• What your horse needs?

 

Now that you have completed and identified the; temperament, trainability, emotional, mental and physical traits of your equine you can customize training plans. Horse Training plans center around two fundamental forms of horse training: sensitizing and desensitizing exercises:

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• To sensitize your horse, you teach him to move away from pressure. For example, he learns to step forward, "away" from the halter's pressure on his poll, or to step away from the "pressure" of your upheld hands. (Anything that moves or creates motion has energy coming off it; I consider that energy to be "pressure.")

• To desensitize your horse, you teach him to relax and accept pressure. For example, he learns to stand calmly when you swing a rope near him, and not to spook at fly spray, clippers or other "scary" things. When sensitizing, you apply pressure and release it the instant your horse responds, and then try again.  When desensitizing, you apply pressure and keep it "on" until your horse stops moving his feet and relaxes--lowers his head, licks his lips, cocks a hind leg, takes a big breath, or blinks his eyes. Then you remove the pressure for a moment as a reward, before resuming. This approach-and-retreat strategy helps build his confidence quickly.

 

Green and Ever Green Horses:

Green horses have very little training or have some training but have some behaviour issues.  Some of these horses could be 15 or 20 years old and still have Green tendencies; I call them “Ever Greens” and will remain ever green unless they are re educated.  Unfortunately, these horses have never been properly trained and are inconsistent; therefore, their Natural Character has not been preserved   so they are confused and often very frustrated.  Some horses may appear to be Nervous Nellies or Compliant as they are anxious, nonresponsive or flighty.  Although they may have the character traits of a particular personality it may be difficult to decipher the difference between character traits and traits caused by a horse not properly trained or handled.  During the evaluation; with these horses we assess the “Greenness” of the horse we ask how well they do Ground Control exercises. 

 

Once we know where the gaps are in the training and the personality traits of the horse we can then start using the appropriate training strategies to start focusing on the horse’s education and confidence.