Whoa! Hold Your Horses! (and stop rushing them)

3y./o Milo escaping during a photoshoot while I flail in the mad panic surrounding the idea of him getting loose in a public park. Thank you to Quinn Saunders for continuing to shoot these photos even during chaos.

I can quite confidently say that the vast majority of major mistakes I have made in my training and handling of horses were initiated by the desire to move too quickly. Falling into the temptation to utilize gadgets like draw reins to force that desirable frame sooner than the horse offers it, or rushing to do the “fun” things like jumping so that I could step into the show ring that much sooner. The times were I grew frustrated with my horses and punished them for not keeping up with my schedule, all related to me being annoyed at the fact that a flight animal who didn’t understands my ambitions wouldn’t abide by a timeline that was solely made up and enforced by me or my trainer at the time. Let’s face it, the motive behind a lot of people’s choices is trying to get to the end goal sooner. People would not be so quick to suggest a different (often harsher) bit or whatever gadget is currently trending on the market if they were not motivated to achieve selfish goals as quickly as possible. If we were all content to meander at the timeline the specific horse may require, we would not have such a vast range of bits and gadgets that promise to fix all of our woes. That very market is reliant on the human desire to get greedy, demand too much and rush their horses.

Now, this isn’t to say that every instance where someone opts for a gadget or bigger bit is related to rushing. Just that an awful lot of them, in fact, far too many are motivated by their own goals and ambitions rather than what is actually best for the horse. I can promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that no horse on this planet actually enjoys a bit or a gadget that serves the purpose of holding them in a static position (usually before they’ve built the muscle to hold said position for extended periods of time) or a bit that is designed to increase discomfort until the horse succumbs to the force and softens faster than they might have in a snaffle. Think about our own muscular and cardio fitness and how long it can take to develop that, especially when we are referencing lengthy exercise sessions involving an array of muscles that all must be in action at the same time. Similarly, for those of us, such as myself, who lack flexibility (can’t even touch my toes, lol, I am sure we can all relate to the fact that it takes an awful lot of time to stretch our tight muscles to the point where we have the range of motion to do things that were once impossible or incredibly painful. Horses are no different than us in this way. They’re dynamic beings with a range of physiological processes that help them keep up with the tasks we demand of them, but since we cannot feel their discomfort or resistance due to weakness or lack of flexibility, we often overextend them and even cause pain at times.

Before utilizing any gadget that uses leverage or any type of force to put them into the “ideal” head position, we really need to think long and hard about what is fair to ask of our horses, and for how long. Sure, putting draw reins on your horse and creating a pulley system that leverages their head down will certainly make their head come down faster. But, for a horse who has never had to hold this position for any length of time, do you really believe it is fair to ask this of them consistently for much of the ride or for lengthy periods from the very beginning? Hint: it isn’t. Our lack of ability to feel the discomfort our horses may be experiencing renders us more or less blind to it, especially when horses are very adept at hiding said discomfort and it can take a very keen eye to notice the more subtle signs. We need to be more mindful of this fact and start to treat our horses training the same way we would for ourselves as we start a new workout regime, new sport or something we are otherwise not perfectly fit for.

Milo used to be a very dirty stopper and still is sometimes, I could have at least in part avoided this by slowing down.

Now, enough about gadgets. Lets talk about young horses and the stress that our expectations can impose on them when we demand too much too soon. With the age of social media, it is all the more tempting to move things along faster so you don’t have the “dry” or “boring” posts that tend to be associated with youngsters. Ground work generally does not get as many likes, especially if it is pertaining to short sessions with a weanling or doing the bare minimum basics like teaching a yearling how to tie. I’ve noticed that with social media comes the increased temptation to move things faster than one might be tempted to do otherwise. We see this even with prominent accounts, starting to lunge their youngsters during or before their first year, saddling weanlings, ground driving their babies that should either still be at their dam’s side or out in a herd with buddies. These instances are not at all uncommon but perhaps I have become more attuned to them now that I have my yearling colt who I have watched develop from birth. Like young children, young horses have lower attention spans and do not do well with lengthy, structured programs that require extensive focus. Similarly, they are more likely to act unpredictably than an older, more experienced horse. Because of this, I fail to see why people take risks like hard tying foals that are young and fragile enough that it wouldn’t take too much for them to do severe neck damage if they pulled back or starting repetitive circling on horses who have barely begun to have their joints start to fuse.

The excuse is often that horses need to be handled before they are “too big to control” or that if they don’t learn things early in life “they will walk all over you.” I think that this is a terrible excuse due to the fact that these thoughts are pretty much entirely unfounded by science. There have been numerous studies on practices such as “imprint training” which is a very invasive training program that involves extensive handling of extremely young foals. I have a detailed blog post on it here, with references, if you want to learn more. Anyways, studies on this found that the foals who were extensively handled showed no behavioural benefits compared to the control group when reassessed as yearlings. In fact, many of the imprint trained horses actually had more reactivity and nervousness. Imprint training is a very extreme form of rushing, if people follow the full original program, but I think that a lot of the mindsets surrounding training young horses stem from this type of school of thought.

Good training produces good horses. Good training is not overfacing horses and asking too much of them too soon just because they will more or less put up with it or because you can bully them enough to force them to put up with it. Basic handling of young horses such as leading skills, trailer loading and tying are really the only skills that I think a horse “needs” to know as a yearling. Some may disagree with trailer loading but from the standpoint of preparing for potential emergency vet visits or environmental emergency, in my opinion, it is necessary to get horses loading well. The extent to which you demand said skills matters, though. For example, it is ridiculous to expect a foal or a yearling to stand tied from lengthy periods of time without complaint. They are literal toddlers. How many human toddlers do you know that you could get to stand and stare silently at a wall for an hour without moving? Not many. So, why would it ever be viewed as appropriate to demand this of their horse counterparts? Rushing. Human desires overriding equine welfare. Forcing too much too soon is a very good way to sour a baby and for the most part, horses start out their lives with an immense curiousity and an enjoyment of time spent with humans, if their interactions are kept pleasant and as low stress as possible.

This is only really having discussed the psychological repercussions of demanding too much from youngsters, there are also a lot of physical repercussions. For example, most vets will recommend against lunging young horses, or if necessary, they will recommend short sessions with a limited number of rotations due to the nature of circles being hard on young, growing joints. There really is not any reason to be lunging a yearling or weanling, particularly if you aren’t start to break them until 3 or older. If you teach the basics of leading skills, moving their shoulders and hindquarters and basic voice commands, lunging is a skill that should come easily once they’re hitting an age where it makes sense to teach them. Even with 2 year olds, I keep lunging sessions short and fairly infrequent. Just long enough for them to understand the basics and always on as large of a circle as possible. I see no reason for people to be rushing to put their yearlings in surcingles and side reins and lunging programs throughout the week other than the selfish nature of personal ambitions. Don’t take this too personally, the vast majority of humans on this planet are selfish in some way. What matters is whether or not we try to learn and acknowledge what drives our ambitions and if they are taking precedence over what is the best next step for our animal.

My first photoshoot with Banksy is quite the contrast to Milo’s first one. Photo by Quinn Saunders.

In writing these posts, I want all of you readers to know that I absolutely am slamming myself for past mistakes and mistakes I will probably recognize and slam once again in the future. This is not me getting preachy and trying to condescend others whilst raising myself on a moral high ground. I made these mistakes and have had to pay for it by creating problems that are way harder to fix than they would have been if I had slowed down and not created them in the first place. I was impatient and wanting to rush, but ironically, things have taken longer due to my initial lack of patience creating problems that require even more patience to address. The mistakes that I made with Milo, my first “youngster” that I owned and brought up myself are evident when comparing him to my now youngster, Banksy, my yearling colt. While some of Milo’s problems can be at least in part attributed to his negative and neglectful start to life before my getting him, lots of them could have been addressed better and may have not existed in the first place if I had exercised more patience. I absolutely could have given him a better set up that provided more enrichment as a two year old, I could have prepped him for riding a lot better from the ground and I most definitely could have started him over fences better. Even the groundwork basics like tying and loading in a trailer were ill informed and too driven by force, at the time. I ended up creating stress where I could have been resolving stress and creating a more positive association.

On the flip side, when working with my colt, I am often taken aback by just how easy certain things are when I compare them to prior experience with Milo. He loads better than most of my older horses, ties impeccably and has excellent ground manners. The cherry on top of this is his natural curiousity and sensible nature when faced with potentially scary stimuli. I could have never been taking Milo on trail rides whilst ponying him off of another horse. He certainly was not loading with ease, walking in confidently either. While he is probably a more naturally reactive horse than Banksy, I could have handled said reactivity a lot better and made things easier for the both of us. It is a learning experience, though, and without making mistakes, you likely will not get the push you need to investigate other, better ways of doing things.

So, this is not to say you’re a terrible horse owner if you’ve made similar “mistakes” or even if you don’t view them as mistakes. It is simply a call for people to try to be a bit more mindful and to slow their roll a bit when they are motivated by ambitions that are human specific like showing or riding. Horses know nothing of these aspirations and are simply doing their best with the information that we give them. Trust me, I know more than anything how incredibly frustrating it can be to work with them when their reactions contradict with our goals, I have had plenty of breakdowns and much upset over such issues. But, at the end of the day, I am asking horses to partake in endeavours that generally speaking, are simply to benefit human interests, so it is my duty to try to take this into account and do better to problem solve without pushing on through unfairness or rushing unnecessarily. With horses, the saying “slow and steady wins the race” is often more true than you think. Once you’ve created negative associations from rushing, you have to work double time to undo them, so it is always easier and more successful to avoid these things in the first place. It benefits our personal goals more than you would think.