The Relaxation Key in Horse Training
By Nikki Alvin-Smith
If years of training horses and riders has taught me one thing as a professional equestrienne, it’s that neither horse nor rider can properly learn from a state of tension and stress. While my husband Paul and I focus on the dressage riding discipline, this advice applies to training horses and riders across multiple equestrian endeavors.
It is essential that you begin training sessions and especially those that involve starting horses and riders, from a state of relaxation. That isn’t going to happen the first time around from the very beginning of the lesson. But the trainer can do much to encourage both horse and rider to relax and enjoy the training experience. After all. If it isn’t a fun and positive experience for all, then what’s the point.
Training horses well requires a lot of patience and understanding. There is always more to learn of course and we are never too old to embrace new methods and ideas, but it is always the central theme to start from a position of relaxation.
The walk is the ideal pace to begin because this is the one where heart rates are lowest for both horse and rider. There is time to think and time to digest the instructions without trying to juggle lots of different input all at once. As we Brits like to say, “Stay calm and carry on”. It is best to stay cool, calm and collected and the walk pace is conducive to that intention. This is not to say I am advocating ‘training’ the walk as I believe the horse’s natural walk is essential to preserve. A free active walk is the mainstay of all good dressage work.
If you are starting a horse on a longe, then start by leading it at a walk and show it the environment when you are close to hand and your equine partner can feel secure. Even trained horses need time to settle at the start of a training session, and a relaxed handler walking beside a fretful horse with a light contact can ease the angst. When it comes to tightening the girth or the surcingle, it is best to leave the final ‘holes’ until the horse has walked about a bit ensuring the tack is secure enough not to move about but not ready for mounting or more active work. This will help prevent/eliminate the tension and discomfort that horses often experience when girthing up.
Allowing a horse to move forward when it is worried is an important factor as it helps him relax. Aim to always allow the horse the freedom of movement and to look about his space. Especially when bringing a horse into a darker space from a bright light. For example, from sunshine outside into an indoor arena. Horses’ eyes can take 30 minutes or more to fully adjust to extreme light change circumstances especially entering shadowed or darker areas.
There are many nuances to encouraging relaxation; breathing rates; stance; how you move, where you look; how you hold the contact etc. And there are plenty of training help videos, books etc. out there to help you learn those (the Masterson Method and TRT are two of my favorites), so I won’t go into details here. All require diligent practice but can be ‘mastered’ with time and are all worth learning and knowing in detail.
When things don’t go smoothly between horse and trainer/rider, it is easy to become worried and bossy or loud. This is not helpful to any party as it increases the heart rate, shortens the breath and generally is unhelpful in remedying a situation.
Consider how hard it is to understand what someone is saying if they are repeatedly shouting at you in a foreign language you don’t understand? If you’ve ever been at an airport and had an overly enthusiastic security personage repeat an instruction to you in an impatient or loud voice then you know it gives you a momentary pause in understanding. Shouting doesn’t make things better. Just as intimidation or physical threats don’t help the learning process.
For riders simple exercises to overcome stress can include humming or singing in a low tone to encourage them not to hold their breath to making them laugh or smile with humorous comments. When we focus hard on something it is common that we hold our jaws taught and hold our breath. So throughout the training session the rider needs to be reminded to relax and enjoy the process. Positive reinforcement is important for both rider and of course, the horse. Don’t overlook the power of reward.
Though it is good to have a ‘safe word’ or sound that you make around the horse to let it know its behavior is headed in the wrong direction. This momentary sound can give a second of pause for thought. Proactive attention around the horse is useful. They do know when we are not focused on them, but make sure it is a soft focus. A line of people standing taught and upright viewing a horse with their eyes sharply focused on it will cause unease in the horse, while a glance and shuffling gait of person watching a lesson and moving slowly about pretending disinterest and breathing deeply with loud, long exhales can calm the horse. Useful to know when longe work is involved with a tense young horse though distraction should aimed to be minimal so the trainer can have the majority of the animal’s attention.
Another stress inducer is working too long and too hard. Muscle tension is increased by staying in the same circle or position. Use the full arena, change direction, take breaks to the walk frequently as rewards. Another technique to reduce stress is to change the subject. Go back to what the rider or horse knows how to do and executes with confidence.
Holding in any format is the enemy of relaxation. ‘Holding’ to set patterns like circles; holding your breath; holding tight on the reins; holding tight to one exercise and repeating it over and over and not mentally and physically moving on to something else all cause stress. Avoid all ‘holding’ habits.
Even holding on to one idea to train something from the saddle as the only method to do it can be bad. Horses, like us, each have their own idiosyncrasies and points of view, and all learn slightly differently. Don’t hold onto one way to do something as the only way. Be open to learning other ways of achieving the same goal. Repeating something over and over is not the way to learn. A great example is implementing the flying change. While the common method is to school it across a diagonal at a counter canter and then ask for the change of lead to the correct side when approaching the wall, for some horses they learn it more easily on the circle.
Strong reprimands with either voice, leg, hand, seat or a combination can all be seen as punishment and this causes the horse or rider to become worried. What’s the first thing we all do when worried? We stop what we are doing and freeze, or pause and go quiet. We focus hard on what is causing the concern. Our fight and flight adrenaline kicks up; our heart rate increases. All the usual stuff you already know happens. No-one can help being worried from time to time. But learning management techniques does help. Just as NLP works to help us focus and think positively about what we are doing our minds will follow where we lead them. And wherever that is rest assured the horse you are working with will follow too.
The mind is a beautiful thing to waste. It’s power is largely untapped and our abilities to communicate with others in various ways hardly explored. Our ability to communicate with our own true selves is even less understood by most. But it is always possible to learn more. Just as we can learn to follow our intuition or engage more positively with what is around us.
Self-doubt is a common human emotion and doubling down on it by working with a trainer that is abrupt or aggressive is a poor decision. If you suffer from a lack of confidence ( and we all do from time to time in different situations), then consider figuring out how to better focus your energies and work with a trainer that addresses your concerns. Communication is key in all avenues of life. When you know each other you can then build trust and develop a true partnership and mission together.
As a trainer always seek to quell the fears of both horse and rider. But embrace the exuberance in the horse because you want the horse’s personality to always be expressed. They key is you also want it harnessed. I believe horses do have a sense of humor, and love to see them figuring things out themselves with guidance but with patience too. A horse is always communicating something to us whether we are listening or not. Try to actively listen. Ironically the people that complain the most that their horses lose focus are usually the ones most guilty of doing the same themselves. Or perhaps, not ironically!
When you hear advanced riders talk about ‘good tension’ being needed for expressive gaits and movements at the FEI level realize what they are really talking about is contained positive energy.
As I like to say, “Start as you mean to go on”….. and for me relaxation and trust go hand in hand. If all participants involved are not enjoying the training process then there is something wrong. And as one of my German trainers back in the day, Gabriella Grillo once imparted to me when she showed me her latest arrived young horse, “The horse didn’t ask to be here in my yard. It is up to me to make sure I do the best for him. He cannot choose.”
