Introduction
A little over 20 years ago I wrote an article called “Gentleness and Discipline”, which became a favorite with many of my readers. I haven’t looked at it since I first wrote it. Writing articles is my way of processing information and experiences. Some of what I write becomes a newsletter article or content in one of our online courses. And once I have published something I generally don’t look at it again, and I move on the next topic that I’m interested in.
Recently, Shana said I should revisit this old article and perhaps update it. Like all my articles it was written at a specific stage in my learning journey. It marks a transition from the old, more authoritarian paradigm that I had grown up with to a more cooperative approach.
In my youth, the general riding culture was still very much a product of the old military tradition. Obedience played a big role. One of my early teachers framed everything in terms of the “acceptance of the aids” and the horse’s “respect” for the rider and the aids. Another teacher told me: “If you say: Jump! All the horse is allowed to ask is: How high?!” This was probably the dominant culture in the 1970, 80s, and 90s.
One of the deeply engrained beliefs of the time was that if you let the horse “get away” with saying no or refusing to do something you would lose control over him because he realised that he doesn’t have to do anything because he is bigger and stronger than a human. The fear of losing control over the horse was actually pretty widespread in general, and riders sought to establish control through domination.
The idea of building a relationship and collaborating with the horse in such a way that he enjoyed the work enough that he didn’t feel the need to say no was not very common at all.
And the idea of giving the horse a choice and allowing him to say no if he didn’t feel comfortable or if he felt overfaced was only embraced by a minority of horse people, as far as I remember.
During the 1990s and afterwards, new voices emerged who challenged the old authoritarian paradigm, and very gradually a new way of thinking and working with horses made its way into the mainstream.
Dictatorship vs. Egalitarianism
However, I found that even if you want the horse to be your best friend and you don’t want to force him to do anything that he doesn’t want to do, the relationship cannot be egalitarian. For safety reasons, it is important that the horse will go forward, stop, and turn when the human asks him to do so, whether it’s on the ground or under saddle. Otherwise it would be as unsafe as driving a car without gas, brakes, or steering.
So, how do we solve this dilemma? Humans tend to go from one extreme to the other, and some riders rebelled against the dictatorial approach by not imposing any rules or not expecting any kind of discipline or obedience of their horses. Unfortunately, a complete absence of structure or rules is not healthy, either. Boundaries and clear rules provide security because the horse then knows his or her role in the “herd”, what is expected of them, what is allowed, what is forbidden, etc. And he feels taken care of or protected by the herd.
Without this reliable, solid framework, horses often feel insecure. This can lead to spookiness and a high stress level, especially under saddle. These horses are not really happy with their life and their relationship with their human.
In the past, we occasionally encountered horses who had become difficult or even dangerous to ride because of this complete absence of structure or consistent handling.
On the other hand, horses that are used to clear, simple rules and boundaries tend to be much more relaxed, happier, safer, and more enjoyable to be around. Horses that are raised with these boundaries and rules from a foal will never be difficult to handle.
So we need a certain hierarchy, at least some of the time. There are situations in which it is a matter of safety that we humans have the final say over where we are going and what we are doing. There are other situations in which we can find a compromise or go with the horse’s suggestion.
When horses were still used as weapons of war, they were essentially four-legged soldiers, and the outcome of a battle depended on the absolute obedience of humans and horses alike. Luckily, we are no longer using horses in the military in the same way. For most of us, riding is a much more recreational activity, and we can afford to make riding a more collaborative effort, instead of insisting on a strict hierarchy at all times.
Hierarchy and Responsibility
In our Western civilization, many people regard hierarchies as something negative, because they automatically assume that the higher-ranking individual will exploit everyone below him. That doesn’t need to be the case, however, because privilege comes with responsibility. The higher-ranking individual has to look out for and take care of the lower-ranking ones.
I have always believed that since we have domesticated the horse and taken away his freedom it’s our responsibility to take care of him as best we can and protect him from harm.
That means that:
We are not asking anything of him that he is unable to give.
We don’t ask him to perform any unnatural movements that would be harmful to him.
We don’t start him too young, and that we don’t work him to exhaustion.
We let the horse determine the rate of progress.
We explain things in a way that he understands what we want him to do, and that we don’t interfere with him when he does what we are asking.
(The list can probably be continued)
Then he doesn’t really have a reason to say no to us.
If you have done everything in this list and the horse still seems to object strenuously against what seems to be a fair or simple demand, it’s likely that there is an undiagnosed pain issue, and you should try to investigate this hypothesis with the help of a veterinarian or another health care professional.
Collaboration and Cooperation
Instead of relying on the old concepts of “command and control” to get the horse to do what we want, it is much more elegant and more fun for the horse as well for the rider to present things whenever possible in such a way that the horse wants to do them because they seem like fun or interesting or like a relief in comparison to what he is currently doing. In other words, we should try to create a situation in which the transition or the movement that we want to ride becomes the horse’s own idea.
You can build a ladder of small learning steps with exercises for your horse, in which your intended transition or movement seems like the most logical next step to the horse, so that he will draw the right conclusion by himself and offer the transition voluntarily. It’s a little bit like solving a mathematical equation for the horse.
This works really well for up transitions, flying changes, and the piaffe. The more you explore this concept the more situations you will find in which it applies.
You can use the principle of the economy of motion, that horses will always try to do what they are being asked with the greatest energy efficiency, i.e. they will look for the easiest, least strenuous way to do anything. It is often possible to set things up in such a way that the intended movement appears easier to the horse than whatever he was doing before, so that he is happy to perform the new movement or transition.
For example, in certain walk exercises the horse may diagonalise his steps because this is more energy efficient than staying in the 4-beat footfall sequence. This can become a path towards half steps and piaffe. Or you can ride forward into the trot.
If you collect the trot or the canter as much as the horse is capable of for a few strides, he will be very happy to lengthen the strides because it feels like a relief.
If you ride a passade in the second corner of the long side, the inside hind leg has to support a rather large share of the body mass, and if you immediately ride a half pass back to the long side, the half pass will seem much easier for the horse than the passade.
When you present the next movement as a relief, the horse will be happy to do it, whereas if you ask for it from a much easier starting point, he may not be as enthusiastic.
The principle of the economy of motion sometimes leads to misunderstandings because the horse is looking for an easier alternative to what you are asking him to do and tries to evade in some way. These situations present opportunities for the rider because we can allow the evasion, and then use it to gymnasticize the horse.
For example, if you ask for the canter and the horse picks up the counter canter, you could either return to the walk or trot and start over, or you could allow the counter canter, but continue on the same line of travel and leave it up to the horse to negotiate the turns in the counter canter, change leads, or drop back to the walk or trot. This gives the horse an active partnership role, and it helps him to improve his body awareness and coordination.
Sometimes horses switch to a higher gait when the work gets more demanding. If you’re riding an exercise in the trot and the horse moves up to the canter, you could ignore the change of gait and continue the exercise in the canter and only insist on maintaining the same line of travel. The horse will either be able to do it, or he will realise that the original gait is less work after all, and he returns to the lower gait. It’s a win-win situation.
In these situations you could tell the horse: “if you want to do this exercise in a higher gait, I’m fine with it. But I’m not making the pattern easier, and I want you to do it correctly.” Then the horse can choose whether he wants to go through with his idea, or whether he would rather return to the rider’s original idea. Either way, it’s gymnastically beneficial, the horse feels like a collaborator because we give him a choice, and we are not telling him that he made a mistake.
Conclusion
When you apply these psychological strategies that I described above, you get away from the old command and control paradigm that revolves around the horse’s “obedience” and “respect” for the rider’s aids. Training becomes much more playful and more interesting that way. Conflicts can be largely avoided, and you will very rarely feel the need to “discipline” the horse, and the relationship between horse and rider becomes much richer and more fulfilling.
