From: Elizabeth Lasley
Hi Jessica! I have a mare around 7 years old- I've been riding her about two and a half years. We both started out green, and it's been slow going, but she's great.
My question has to do with how to handle her fears. Although she's much, much better than she was at our start, she is still pretty spooky. For example, just yesterday I had her in a group lesson with about five other horses, in an indoor arena she'd never been in before. (All of these horses are barn-mates and her best pal was in the lesson too). At the far end of the arena was a noisy exhaust fan and some parked trailers, and the strong outdoor winds were making lots of rattling noises in the arena.
Well, athough many of the other horses were a little nervous at first, they all settled down to work in time. On the other hand, my mare was still spooked by that far end of the arena after an hour and half of going round and round. Every time we took that bend, she'd stiffen up and divert all her attention from me to the scary corner.
Now, I'm not sure exactly how I should handle her when she's like this. I guess my present tactics are pretty ineffective if she never really relaxes. Yesterday I tried to keep her attention on me by talking to her and wriggling the reins as we neared the scary corner. If I'm not in a lesson I usually try to give her some unexpected command or something to do at the time I feel her stiffening up. Then I always pat her, reassure her, and congratulate her if she makes it past the scary bits without swerving, etc.
Is all this talking and cajoling the wrong approach? I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm actually rewarding her for being silly-- maybe she thinks that if she acts scared and tense she'll get extra attention and sweet talk? I think that when we started out together, and she was a true basket case about all sorts of spooky things, she really needed to hear lots of soothing talk and encouragement. But maybe I need to expect more from her now.
Elizabeth
Your instincts are excellent -- you do need to expect more from her now. She's not a basket case any longer, she's a grown-up horse that deserves to be treated with respect and allowed the dignity of a JOB to do.
Your best approach is not to comfort or cajole -- this will merely convince your mare of one or two things, neither of them useful: (1) that the corner really IS scary, and that you too are scared of it; of (2) that you WANT her to spook at that corner, since you praise her for doing it!
Talking to her and wriggling the reins won't do anything except convince her that you are nervous. Instead, put this mare to work! Decide what you are going to do long before you go past that corner, then DO it. This means getting and keeping her attention, not on YOU, but on HER JOB, which is whatever you tell her it is. ;-)
In other words, instead of saying "Oh brave mare, please go past that scary corner" or "Poor scared mare, that corner really wasn't all that scary," you need to be saying to her -- with your BODY and your breathing -- "Go forward, bend, balance, keep your rhythm, go a little more forward, steady up, bend, balance...." If you do this, you'll be able to add (just to yourself, not to her! "oh, was that the corner we just went through? no big deal."
In order for your mare to keep her focus where it belongs -- on what she is DOING, not on what she might be provoked to do if there were a dragon in that corner -- YOU need to keep YOUR focus where it belongs, on what she is DOING, etc. ;-) You can't make room in your mind for what she might do -- you have to be very clear, to yourself and to your horse, about what you DO want and what you EXPECT her to do.
Make clear demands and hold your mare to them. You cannot say to your mare "Don't spook here!" -- that makes no sense to a horse. You also cannot say "Oh, honey, let me try to distract you from the scary corner by wriggling my inside rein." It's a natural human instinct, but it just won't work as a training method. ;-) Neither will sudden unexpected commands -- she'll just learn that she need to worry about that corner, because whenever she gets there she'll get ambushed with a surprise demand. This might distract her briefly, but it doesn't do what you want, which is to get her focused on her job.
What WILL make sense to her is having a clear job to do, and knowing exactly what that job entails. If you're going around the arena tracking left, say, her job is to move evenly and rhythmically, with a very slight bend to the left, and her head and neck in "position left", which means that you can JUST see her inside eyelashes and nostril. Her job is to keep going until you ask her to do something else. YOUR job -- you knew you had a job, right? -- is to keep her in this position, keep her coming forward, and keep one step ahead of her -- as you come through your corner, think about your next ten steps.
It's very important for you to be aware of your own body and your own aids. If you lean to the inside as you approach the scary corner, for instance, or if you collapse over your inside hip, your body is telling her to go to the inside of the arena, AWAY from that corner. If you pull her head to the outside to "make her go into the corner", she will bend her entire body AWAY from the corner, and be going left bent right, which isn't very useful. If you pull her head to the inside, she will fall over her inside shoulder, lose her rhythm and forward movement, and move away from the corner -- again, not useful. If you hold your breath as you get to the corner, your physical tension will make her tense and convince her that there IS something really bad in that corner. So you have a very active role in this, but it's more to do with YOU than with the horse: sit straight, post rhythmically, look out and ahead, and BREATHE deeply and steadily. If you do those things, and your mare is already in position (very slightly bent to the inside), you will be making it easy and comfortable for her to do what you want, and you will get through the corners without a hiccup.
Be ready to add a little leg if she starts to slow down -- but that is probably ALL you will need to do. If there's any hesitation or uneveness, just keep breathing and push ON. Don't reprimand her if she hesitates -- send her forward. Don't comfort her afterward -- she doesn't need it.
It'll be easiest for you to do this at a trot, since her head position and your hands will be very steady, and you can regulate her rhythm by regulating your own posting.
Don't try to go into the corner by pulling her nose to the outside -- keep her IN POSITION, and send her forward into that corner, as if you were going STRAIGHT into the wall. Don't change your own position, her bend, or your posting rhythm, or your breathing (keep your breathing slow and deep and steady, in rhythm with her gait and your posting) and keep looking UP and OUT between her ears. When she is about to reach the new wall, look down the new wall and ride her through the turn without changing anything. Don't chat with her or comfort her -- just ride her through the turn and up the next wall in a steady rhythm, and then ride a circle halfway up the next wall. When you come back to the rail -- still in position left, still keeping the same rhythm -- come down the rail to your next wall and do the same thing. The circles on each side will prepare her for the bend through each corner -- you aren't going to ask for a sudden bend, all you want is for her to go where you send her and not change her position.
If you stay busy with YOUR job -- telling her with your weight and breathing and posting rhythm that you want her to go forward smoothly while maintaining her position and bend -- she will get busy with HER job, and be able to take some pride in her own ability.
Do you remember how when you were little and scared about doing something -- first time sleepover, first time at the skating rink, first time at camp, whatever -- someone (Mom?) told you to stand up straight and ACT confident, because ACTING confident would make you FEEL confident? It worked, remember? Standing up tall with your head up, your shoulders back, walking confidently and breathing deeply WILL make you feel more confident -- you can act your way into a feeling. And it works just as well with horses, although they don't act deliberately. If you can put your horse into the position that a confident, bold, forward-moving, focused horse would assume, and KEEP it there, then your horse will BE much more confident and bold and forward-moving and focused.
By putting yourself in the posture of a strong, confident rider, and by creating in your mare the posture of a forward, listening, confident horse, you are making it difficult and highly unlikely for her to spook, or for you to tense in anticipation of the spook. Instead of getting worried and trying to distract her -- and thereby making yourself incoherent to her, which will only make her anxious and MORE likely to spook, you are making it possible for her to BECOME as businesslike and confident as you insist that she SEEM.
And the day will come when you are coming through that corner, or a similar corner, and something scary WILL happen -- a car will backfire, or a bird's nest will fall from the arena ceiling, or a barn cat will pounce on something suddenly -- and your mare will either ignore it all, or she will startle for a second and then go RIGHT back to work.
Jessica
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