Under Pressure

Spicy and I were having one of our hour long arguments about getting into the trailer. He had two and a half feet on the ramp and was weaving his head around like an eel while I stood there, tap-tap-tapping his butt with the carriage whip. It's not that hard, I told myself. If you get in, I'll stop tapping you with the whip. Problem solved!

I should've realized then the gaping hole in Spicy's training.

But I didn't. I just kept tapping, more and more insistently, and he got more flustered, finally running me over as he leaped sideways off the ramp. I smacked him on the shoulder for trying to kill me with his escape and looked at him as he stood there, winter coat steaming and curly with sweat, his flanks actually trembling.

Do you see the hole yet? I still didn't.

That was the weekend I realized I didn't like how I was training, and that I wanted things to be different. I don't want my horse to be dark with sweat and terrified I'm going to smack him. I don't want him to run away from me when he sees me open the gate to his field.

I've thrown myself wholly into the reeducation of Spicy and really, myself. I got a new set of training books and I've been committing them to memory, watching videos, and reading articles. They all waved the flaw in Spicy's training in my face but I still didn't see it, so I started from the very beginning as if he were a halter broke weanling and went from there.

Our first two weeks of ground work were fantastic. His attitude completely changed. He's happy to see me - he even nickered at me! - and he's curious and easy to engage. I slowly started to step up what I was asking of him and then one day, in the dark on a rope circle on a fresh track of snow, I saw it.

I saw the hole.

Richard Maxwell, the author of my new favorite horse training books developed his own pressure release halter. I copied it by looking at all the pictures in the book and on this particular day I tried it for the first time. Spicy was out on a lunge line and was supposed to stop and change direction when I signaled. I had done all the homework up to this point so he should, in theory, know what I wanted.

He ignored my first instruction to woah and immediately got frenetic and started running. Max instructed when this happened to start pulling the horse in smaller on the circle until he stopped and faced me. I did so. There was still a lot of overwrought snorting and eye-rolling as the halter tightened on his face with every pull. I took a deep, icy breath and resolved myself to remain 'firm but fair', a mantra Max uses often. Spicy spun around me as I stood there, letting him figure it out. Suddenly I saw it click in his brain: if he stopped when I asked the halter didn't tighten on his face. Back out on the circle he went to repeat the exercise.

I asked him to halt and he did so immediately, swinging to face me. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and we both learned an invaluable lesson. Spicy wasn't trying to be naughty, even though it damn well looked like it. He just had no idea how to give to pressure, or that pressure was even asking him anything. Me tapping him on the butt with a whip meant nothing to him. I was just hitting him. He didn't know to try things to seek release from pressure. I'm not sure anyone ever told him. He's a biddable animal, so most likely people just shoved him around and held him where they wanted him because they could.

For a sensitive animal like a horse, particularly a Thoroughbred, being crushed under constant pressure doesn't make them brave. It doesn't help them learn. It's a quick means to a dirty end. You'll get your results, that one time, but the horse shut down already so he won't be able to access that information. 

I don't think I'll ever make the mistake of assuming that about a horse again. It takes two seconds to check if a horse understands pressure and release, and if it's not something they know it's something they'll need to know if they're going to succeed. I can see that hole in my past horses as clearly as I can see it with Spicy.

Now, instead of getting a view of his back end as he takes off across the field upon seeing me, I'm rewarded with this every day:


I'm chosing not to approach my realization of this shortcoming with guilt, I'm thinking positively of the horses I can help in the future, and the fair and solid relationships to come.

Comments

  1. I can't "AMEN" to this loud enough. I had a very similar epiphany many years ago, in much the same circumstance, and it completely changed how I think about EVERYTHING. It also changed how I raise and train my horses. We all have to learn somehow.

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    1. and thank god for the patient animals that allow us to learn this lesson!!

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  2. Ah I am glad that Spicy and You are already repairing that portion of the process together. It can be tough to realize what's missing when you are so close to the subject and when we get the horses from from somewhere/someone else. So don't be too hard on yourself for that.

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    1. someone said to me recently - it's all a training opportunity! no such things as failures. I've been sticking with that.

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  3. 1000 times this! Getting inside their thought process, even for a second is an incredible feeling. You guys are on the right path:)

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    1. we're a damn sight closer than we were a few months ago!

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  4. I too have had the same epiphany. First about pressure. My more recent ne was that a horse needs to understand that there is an answer. And then to look for it. I agree about dumping the guilt. We try, we learn and then learn some more.

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    1. the looking for the answer is where the engagement comes from, I'm looking forward to the kind of horse he's going to be now that he realizes its a game!

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  5. Yes yes yes! Also the guilt isn't helpful. I've found it muddies the waters of communication between my horse and myself. They read my guilt as anxiety, which is just a big no. Helps me forgive and forget myself.

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    1. that's a really good point. horses don't know what guilt is, lucky bastards

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  6. I'm so glad you guys figured out the hole! And even more glad that's he's happy to see you again. Congrats on the epiphany, and I have to applaud your attitude towards it too. It's so easy to feel guilty and want to place blame on yourself. But you don't know what you don't know until you know it. And now you do, so you can move forward.

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    1. turns out forward doesn't just apply to good riding, but horsemanship too :P

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  7. I totally get this. Working on trailering issues is tough. And I think its the biggest indicator that something is wrong, somwhere. Spotting it can be hard though.

    Going through issues with my horse and the trailering issues at the moment. But finding the problem is proving difficult.

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    1. that's so true. I think horses are generally very tolerant of our insane ideas, but seem to draw the line at being put in a (to them) tiny metal box.

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  8. I totally relate to being too close to the problem to see the hole. I'm glad you found it though. Spicy and you are going to be so much happier knowing that what you say means something. :)

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    1. I think the best part is I was/am not the only person to benefit from it. A lot of my riding revelations are very introspective on me as a rider and how I'm asking them. This was a lightbulb moment for him, too!

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  9. I’m so glad your new approach is working out for Spicy! I’ve never felt like it was worth it for me to just put a bandaid on and keep pushing onward as a means to justify an end, bc let’s be real. At some point my horse and I are going to get to a place where I’m going to make major mistakes or be nervous or whatever and I’m going to need my horse to be there for me. And the only way that can happen is if *I’m* there for my horse in the early days when he needs it.

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    1. YUP. so much that. the bandaid would've been tranqing him to ship, which I've done before for sure, but I'm not in a hurry so I'd rather figure out the WHY.

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  10. This is such a fantastic post and super well written too! I love the new path you guys are on <3

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  11. Really excellent and thoughtful post Megan. I can't wait to see what you accomplish with Spicy as you continue on this journey!

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    1. luckily there will be plenty of oversharing of our process. I'm really hoping at this point my life can serve as a warning to others

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  12. Yes, yes, yes! A great post and I completely agree. And seriously thank goodness for the horse(s) who teaches us this lesson.

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