#1 Training Without Release

We’ve all heard the adage that every moment you are training your horse. We all agree with a nod of the head but what does this really mean? It means, that any moment that you release pressure you are telling the horse that they just did what you wanted. Every moment that you are with your horse, you are communicating what you want and what you don’t want. If you are not aware of what you are doing, you could be telling your horse inadvertently to do the wrong thing.

There are two important ways to signal to a horse that they are doing what you want. You can reward them or you can relieve the pressure on them.

Release by definition is to grant freedom; to free from confinement. When we talk of release of pressure, we mean stop asking for anything from your horse for a moment. Direct or implied. That moment can be anywhere from 1–2 seconds to 1–2 minutes or longer. The release can be small like a give of rein pressure or a cessation of leg pressure or large one like free walk on long rein or halting and letting them relax and look around. 

Rewards are the addition of something the horse finds to be enjoyable in some way in response to something they did.  This can be a food reward strategically timed, quitting and going back to the barn or even as tiny as a small scratching on their favorite spot.  The combination of both release and reward is the fastest and strongest way to train.  Knowledge of both of these can help you train everything from stopping a horse from pawing in the isle to performing 15+ steps of piaffe.

Key Principles Of Release

You have to teach a horse what pressure means. Horses don’t naturally always move away from pressure. They didn’t come with a manual where brakes mean stop and gas means go. You have to teach them what the aids mean. Remember if your horse isn’t responding correctly to your aid, your horse either doesn’t understand or has been taught to ignore it.

You have to release immediately after your horse responds. How is a horse to know what you want if you don’t give him clear signals. A release or a reward immediately following the correct response is the only way to communicate. Also remember, when first teaching something, you have to reward the try or a close approximation of the behavior or movement. For instance, if your horse has never backed up to pressure on the halter, you wouldn’t expect him to take several steps back on the first attempt. He may just take a ½ step back or even just shift his weight back.

For example, let’s talk about teaching a horse to move away form the leg in a yeild. In correct training, you are signalling to the horse by adding pressure with one leg to signal them to move away from that leg and step in the opposite direction. How does the horse know when he did the right movement? If he steps into your leg, you increase the pressure. This way you are signally to your horse, “nope that wasn’t right”. If he moves forward, you keep the leg on him but ask him to slow with your seat and legs. Again that tells him, “Nope that wasn’t quite it either”. Maybe your horse backs up, then you really need to increase the leg pressure and add some pressure with the other leg. Finally, your horse takes a step sideways. RELEASE the leg asking. STOP ASKING. This is how your horse knows he did it correctly. To really seal the deal, now give your horse a pat or a treat. Give your horse a break. Let him stand there for a moment. Don’t immediately jump into training it again or into the next lesson.

If you keep asking, after the horse has yielded, you are actually not teaching him to yield anymore, you are teaching him to ignore your requests. Once a horse understand how to move sideways off the pressure of your leg then you can use pressure and release in small increments to build distance or duration. What I mean is after the horse moves off your leg sideways and you want the horse to take 2 steps, you release after 1 step but immediately ask again. Building on this sequence, you can teach the horse to leg yield across the ring. But it starts with clear communication on the first step.

You build duration or frequency later. First your horse has to understand what you mean, then you look for more steps, longer hold, or increased enthusiasm. For example, let’s say you are teaching your horse canter. At first you just want the horse to get the idea. You release and reward often when they offer it to your cue. As time goes on, you want them to keep cantering. In more time, you have them circling. In more time, collecting and extending. In even more time, pirouetting and flying changes. However, you wouldn’t expect a horse new to canter to perform complicated movements. Remember this in baby lessons like walking, backing up, or loading on a trailer. It’s not that you settle for less. It’s that you slowly build. You can only build by releasing and rewarding often. As the horse becomes comfortable with the movement you can always ask for a little bit more. The key is a little bit. Christine Betz has a great saying. She says “look for 1% improvement a day because that will be 30% improvement in a month.” That’s a lot.

Heads up.  This is more than one way to ruin your training…

 

#2 Nagging

The number way to ruin your horse is to nag, nag, nag. Nagging is the constant asking over and over without getting a clear response from your horse. We have all seen the rider who consistently uses her spurs every stride just to get her horse to barely trot around the ring. With every stride the horse is getting duller and duller. Every stride the rider is untraining the horse by teaching him to ignore her aid.

They key is understanding how to prevent this and how to correct it when you come across a horse that ignores your aid, whatever the aid may be. First you have to realize that you ALWAYS ask softly and if the horse doesn’t respond, he either doesn’t know the aid or he’s been taught to ignore it. So you have two solutions.

One:  Teach or reteach the aid as if the horse is just being started. Horses don’t inherently know to go forward from pressure with the legs. That is a learned response from their early training under saddle. I personally teach the horse voice commands on the ground through reward based training before I ever get on their backs.  You have to teach from the ground first. I want the horse to consistently trot off on the verbal command on the lunge before I teach it under saddle. Once the horse knows the voice cue for trot, I use it under saddle in this sequence. In the walk under saddle, add pressure with both legs, give the voice command to trot. Once the horse trots, I release the pressure of my legs. Reward the horse. Repeat. In this order.  Always put the new cue before the learned cue.  For instance, add leg pressure first then say trot.  In a very short period of time, you will be able to stop the voice command because the horse will have learned to trot off from the leg pressure.

Two:  Increase the frequency or strength of your aid until the horse responds, then clearly give a release. Repeat until the horse responds to the light aid. From the example above it would look like this. You ask the horse to trot off with a light pressure of the legs. The horse slowly and begrudgingly kinda starts to trot. You increase the pressure with your leg but the horse responds even less. You follow your leg up with light but consistent tapping with the whip. The horse finally responds. You STOP AIDING IMMEDIATELY. Let the horse trot 2–5 strides then bring the horse back to the walk and repeat. Starting again with the lightest of aids and only increase as needed. Once the horse responds to the lightest of aids, give the horse a break. I find that this combination of light leg pressure to increased pressure followed by LIGHT tapping with the whip gets the best response without having to be cruel with the whip or leg.  So to repeat it would be light leg pressure (no response from horse), stronger leg pressure but not a death grip (no response) then tap, tap, tap, tap until the horse responds.  With poorly trained horses that ignore all signals, you may have to annoy them with the tapping of the whip or go back and do halt/walk transitions to remind them of the correct response to your aids.  If the horse is really bulky, then retrain all of this on the ground first.  Remember to repeat the sequence if you run into problems again in the future.  Also, remember, don’t start with the strongest of pressure.  In the long run, that never teaches them to move off a light aid.

 

#3 Shouting

The third way to ruin your training is by always using too strong a signal. This is a variation of the problem we mentioned in lesson one but more subtle. Say your horse will trot off from your spur and will keep trotting but won’t trot off from the light closing of both legs. Hmm there’s a problem here. You are training your horse to only listen when you shout.

This problem sneaks up on you. At first you may not notice it. One day though you wake up and your horse needs a stronger bit to stop and long spurs to go. Your horse has slowly been desensitized to your aids.

The other large problem I see is that the horse isn’t quite getting what you are trying to teach it. Instead of analyzing and changing your teaching style, you begin to get louder with your aids. Maybe your half halts are stronger, your legs tighter, your reins shorter, maybe you’re using the whip more often, kicking, yanking, pulling and yes maybe even screaming. Whoa. Stop! This is a clear sign of miscommunication. It’s time to take a break. Back up and teach it differently.

Horses can feel a fly land on their skin, they can feel your legs squeezing. Again, remember if your horse isn’t responding they either don’t understand what you are asking or you have taught them to ignore your aids. Either way, it’s your problem, not the horses. If your horse is just ignoring you, why make your job harder than it has to be. Go back to teach the basic aids to be from light pressure. Reward the basics so when training gets more complicated the easy stuff truly is easy.

I also want to mention, that some riders get accustomed to riding duller type horses and then when they ride a “sensitive” horse, they end up over riding it. The horse gets more nervous and the rider get’s stronger. A vicious cycle I’ve seen over and over. Sometimes, it just takes less, not more to get your horse on the aids. Given that I have a sensitive horse, he has taught me how to be clear but quiet. With a sensitive horse you almost have to be more clear and definite with your aids but also quiet.

If you’re finding that your riding is deteriorating over time here are some symptoms that your over doing it. You may notice:

• increased dullness of the horse.
• increased nervousness or anxiety of the horse as you ride.
• your fit but your out of breath. maybe you’re working too hard?
• you get on other peoples horses and over ride them.
• your aids are very visible to onlookers.
• you are feeling impatient, frustrated or angry when riding.

 

#4 Never Rewarding

The fourth way to ruin your training is by not giving them a clear reward. One form of semi reward we have already talked about is release from pressure.  But here I want to talk about actually adding something the horse finds rewarding.  This can be a food reward, a scratch on their favorite spot, or even quitting work for the day and heading back to the barn (and friends).

Each and every time we ask something from our horses and they respond, we must give them a release of some type to teach them.   Otherwise we are un-training them.  I repeat…Each and every time we ask something from our horses and they respond, we must give them a release and reward of some type to teach them.  Otherwise we are un-training them. As a dressage rider, I know this concept is not emphasized enough. Most dressage riders micromanage and go from one thing to the next, never really effectively communicating to the horse that what the horse did was right. They never give a full release. Remember, we are not talking about giving it all away but you have to be able to soften any aid, even your seat.

In addition, give your horse a break. Take a minute to stop, pat them, let them just stand still and chill.  After a good effort or a hard movement, take these moments of break to be friendly. My horse has a great work ethic and unlike some horses will keep going and work hard. That still doesn’t mean he doesn’t need this down time during rides to process, relax and get a long release.

I use food rewards regularly.  It’s called positive reinforcement and you can learn more about it by reading my blogs.  I carry sugar cubes on me all the time for those special moments or when I am working on something new, particularly hard or challenging.  I use sugar because of the ease of it melting in the horses mouth quickly even with a bit in.

I love how Jonathan Field talks about training. Like many natural horsemanship trainers, he has clear guidelines about communication with your horse through body signals. What I like about his approach it how much he stresses giving your horse a break. He teaches the idea of neutral. There is active neutral where you horse will maintain what he’s doing until you ask otherwise. For instance, when your horse is doing what you want, you leave them alone. He also talks of neutral where your horse will just stand still and hang out while you are friendly to him. Friendly is learning where you horse likes to be stroked and touched, so the horse associates you with friendly stuff and not just work. Spending the quality time with the horse without demands is how he creates draw, so the horse wants to be with him.

Love it!  I have noticed a huge difference in my horse when I started just giving him breaks to stand still and relax during the rides. Teaching this is key. For the nervous horse, it gives them a moment to be turned off; on purpose. For the lazy horse, it gives you the opportunity to train that they can also be turned back on.

 

 #5 Too High Expectations

The final way of ruining your horses training is by having too high of expectations in new environments.  Horses need to learn the same behavior in different contexts. Your horse at home without distraction may remember and know lots but when you take him off the farm, he forgets it all. It’s not that he’s forgotten, it’s that he needs to learn it in different contexts or in different environments. When your horse can perform the same in 5 different contexts then it’s safe to say your horse knows the behavior and will predictably perform.

Keep this in mind when your horse is doing something you don’t want. If your horse is acting up at the show, work on something they know well. This is not the time to “get after them” but work on simple things that will get them focused on you.

Don’t mistakingly release when the horse is being bad. Sometimes easier said than done especially if the horse is really acting up at a new place. However, many horses have learned to rear because “pushed” to do so and then only got release once they did. You’ve seen the horse that is clearly saying by it’s behavior that it’s over threshold. It’s clearly reacting to something in the environment or is totally confused. The rider keeps pushing and now the horse starts to pop up, mini rear, buck, start to runoff. Every time the horse does, the rider stops what it’s doing and gives the reins. Ahh release. This continues and the horse acts up worse. Again the rider gives. The rider has no choice, other wise they may get hurt. Every time the horse gets a release of pressure. Waalaa, the horse has now learned to act up.

This is why it’s so important to lower your expectations.  Go back to something the horse can do very easily even when it’s stressed.  Something you have trained at home to perfection.  Maybe that means schooling something from the ground or having a ground person to assist you. Get the horse focused and calm then see if you can resume what you were schooling.

 

Let’s Review

This was originally a min series.  I’ve combined all the lessons for your convenience.   As a quick wrap up lets review the top ways to ruin your horses training.

1. not releasing pressure or having poor timing in your release
2. nagging and bugging your horse instead of teaching them to respond to a light aid
3. shouting your aids too strongly and making your horse either ignore you or get nervous
4. not rewarding your horse for a job well done.  RFS is all about learning to use positive reinforcement to train horses more efficiently
5. having too high of expectations when in a new environment