Reactions
Starting your own young horse is the art of surviving, or should I say, teaching the correct reactions.
Continuing off my last piece, if the first natural reactions of a horse are based on genetics then everything else that a human introduces is training, whether positive or negative. Which means from it’s first interaction with a human a horse is being conditioned to human cues that will be with them the rest of their life. Horses don’t forget things. They are retrained to respond a certain way. They are never untrained just retrained to the human who has had the most interaction with them. As we all know the word dressage means “training” so being obsessed with dressage has lead me to want to breed and start my own horses.
Today was the 5th time I have been on the back of my coming 3 year old that I bred. Today we went on a trail ride!!! But it wasn’t as suicidal as it sounds. I have a plan to create reactions in my horse with positive stimuli so to work with my horse instead of against its instincts. Horses are herd animals. Horses will go forward when it’s friends do and they feel security in the herd. Now I prepared for this moment years ago. When he was weaned I pastured him with the horse that ponied me today. Then when he was a yearling I ponied him on the route that we took today with the same horse. In his 2 year old year he learned how to lunge and long-line, carry weight on his back, wear tack and to move from pressure. Plus countless things we do with our youngsters when we raise them that make them see us as their leader. Genetically this horse loves humans and attention as much as he is dull and unfazed by normal spooky things. I think his skin is as thick as a rhino. What better way to learn that forward is fun than to go out with his friends and explore the world. Today he learned that when the human squeezes her legs he better giddy up because his friends are moving faster too. By using the natural instincts of the herd and what he has previously been conditioned to he has transferred those reactions over to the rider’s aids. We did more than survive but have an uneventful positive experience.