THE TRAIL HORSE’S MIND
THE TRAIL HORSE’S MIND
We all have expectations for our horses. With trail horses those expectations are based on how we use a trail horse and it can be very different from our use and expectations of a performance horse or a horse that we may simply enjoy as a pet for example. First and foremost is the fact that we are on trail and trails have so many variables that place many demands on ourselves and our horses. We are constantly asking our horse to do things and in some cases it is as if danger lurks, literally, around every corner. From road traffic to water crossings to soft ground to brush choked trails to leading in tight spots to getting along with other horses to who knows what. Once I wrote a list of more than twenty ways that we can get into trouble on the trail.
During my grade nine year I did a long stint in a hospital from a car accident. The hospital became home for a time. One day a distraught mother asked me if I would help her with her son in a nearby isolation room. The unfortunate lad had been run over, literally, by the wheels of a semi-truck when a horse that the lad was trail riding along a road reared and tossed him. He had spent the summer working at his uncle’s ranch and the horse was payment. He was not expected to survive the night, the week, or the next week. His condition was, for me, beyond description, everything being pinned together and as I remember the only thing that could move was an arm, which was what he would try to use to turn off his life support and was my job to see that he did not do so. And he could speak and tried countless times to get me to end it all for him, although I suppose the hospital would have been quick to act had the systems been tinkered with. The point here is that I was the one imprinted for life. I remember wondering, even at that early time, what circumstances conspired to allow a young boy to be thrown under the wheels of a semi, and I remembered thinking that this was not the right horse for a kid to be riding.
We can talk all day long about conformation, breeding, training methods, but the bottom line is that when we take your stories and mine, and what happens on the trail, the trail horses mind is often the most significant factor in what makes or breaks our pleasure, our adventure, and our well-being. We can blame a horse’s disposition and behavior on countless things from past experiences, training, disposition, breeding, and rider ability, but it all tells us that the horse’s mind needs to be considered.
Let’s be honest, I do not know you or your horse or the abilities or nature of either. But I do know that no matter how many books or trainers tell you that to love your horse is important in the process of successful horsemanship it should never become more important than your willingness to be honest with yourself when you assess your own ability and the horse’s mind. You have personal baggage and so does your horse. Your job as a trail rider is to find the horse with a mind suitable for pleasurable and safe trail riding just as you would consider compatible qualities in your spouse.
The first quality that I would look for in a trail horse is calmness. The tight situations that you get yourself into are endless and a calm mind will see you through when a nervous disposition will exaggerate and even create difficult and dangerous moments. Calmness is often hereditary. Although no particular breed has corned the market it is safe to say that many of the cold-blooded working breeds are often calm-minded and the reason many horses are cross bred in order to produce calm minded trail horses.
Because you spend so much time with your trail horse, as it simply takes time to ride trails, you want a mind that is friendly toward people and other horses, and the two do not necessarily go together. You need your trail horse to be your friendly companion as you will be saddling your horse, getting off and on your horse, catching your horse, feeding your horse, and a host of activities that can be enjoyable when a horse has an affinity toward humans and taxing and frustrating when it does not. I may seem a simple thing to go out and catch your horse for a morning trail ride but many horse campers have walked many frustrating miles to bring in a horse that did not like the company of people, or not find the horse at all. We generally avoid adding horses to our string that look sour, pin their ears back or edge over to the far side of the corral when we approach. Keep in mind that hard to catch syndrome and unfriendly to human disease is catchy.
A trail horse and rider need a relationship of trust. When there is fear in either the horse or the rider things do not go well. A trail horse can sense fear in a rider by how the riders body tenses and how cues are given and this triggers fear in the horse itself, or confusion, or wanting to make its own decisions, and on the trail the rider must absolutely be the one making the decisions. A good, well-trained horse likes it when it knows the rider is in control and is the dominant being, and the rider/ horse combination must work to this end. That is why it makes sense to match an inexperienced rider who do not have confidence with an experienced horse that has confidence from its ears down to its toes.
Do not confuse building trust with being nice to and loving your horse. Building trust does involve time together, a hands-on attitude and affection but it has a strong element of respect. The trail horse’s mind needs to know that you are the dominant being and give you the respect and the space that you need to perform your functions as a trail rider. When you saddle, lead, and work around trail horses in general you need space. You need to be able to go into your horse’s space at will but the horse should not enter your space unless invited. This may not sit well with owners who have their horse snooping in their pockets for treats or who put their face into them for a rub but when a horse in our string constantly puts its face into a rider then that horse does not have the respect needed to be good trail horse and other issues arise, like the rider getting their feet stepped on, squeezed into a tree or another horse, or choosing to not listed to cues. Would a submissive horse put the most vulnerable art of its body, its face, into the space of the dominant mare? Not a chance, and trail riders need to develop the same level of respect. If you are trail riding with one or two horses you might tolerate a lack of respect but with a string of horses it means trouble.
In most horse groups there is a dominant horse. The horse that has risen to become the dominant horse has done so with behavior that you would not want to see in your children, and they will fight to maintain their position on the dung pile. This may or may not include the desire to dominate the rider on their back. Some horses that are dominant in the herd completely submit to the rider but some fuss and battle every command as the greatest insult in their life. Watch the behavior of horses together and if a horse displays dominance over other horses then fights the rider we generally avoid that horse.
A trail is a place of contradiction. It is a place of freedom, to let go and move freely and a horse senses this as well. A horse whose mind is well focused in a controlled setting, say a round pen or barn, may act quite differently on the trail. Barn sour, pushy behavior, fussing with other horses, and not listening to cues, are some of the manifestations with newfound freedom. More riding time and lunging on the trail are two ways to deal with an errant mind on the trail but again that calm mind that you started out with goes a long way to creating that ‘honest’ trail horse. The bottom line is that the trail horse needs to have a soft mind in any circumstance, in any tight place or in any surrounding.
Softness is born from trust, respect, a forgiving nature and good, repetitive training methods. Trail riders are there to enjoy nature and the unknowns of the trail and they enjoy riding as a low key, low effort affair. If a trail rider hits the trails looking forward to a fight then they are really missing the point. Sure we are always training as we ride but it needs to be a natural, enjoyable experience. When we train trail horses we need to constantly remind ourselves that preschool and grade one is really what it is about. Standing calmly, respecting our space, and responding softly to applied pressures, cues, is what school is all about. Pressures (cues) in the form of pulses, bumps, rather than pulls, and rewarding the horse with a release of pressure when the proper response is received, is critical for trail horses. Insensitive hands and poor training can set up pulling battles on the trail and if this situation develops on your ride then you or the horse or both need to go back to groundwork, and not now but right now. As we develop our relationship with our trail horse it is truly a joy to behold when with the slightest cue we get an immediate response. Old Dobbin and you will be on a telepathic journey like twins reincarnate. I truly enjoy riding along and the slightest pressure moves my horse from one trail to another or I stand and enjoy the scenery then subtly touch his mane with my pinky and he steps out.
Trail riders often talk about the age of their horse and how this affects their mind and ability on the trail. Opinion runs rampant here, some old timers would not even train horses until they approached five years old and others say a horse is not worth its salt until seven. Most of our best horses were best horses at three, five, seven, and seventeen. It is true that the younger the horse the shorter the attention span and when trainers say that a two year old can go in the round pen but make sessions short and let them enjoy it, it is so, but I would rather have a young three year old on the trail under light load, say packing a couple of sleeping bags, or just pony a two year old along for the experience, then a seven year old with a hundred hours of dubious training who is nervous, spooky, or disrespectful. The message here is that although there are many things that can happened to put that horses mind where it is at do not underestimate a mind that is calm and forgiving by nature or over estimate your ability to transform a horse with a disposition poorly suited for the trail into a solid trail companion. Remember those stories of riders injured along roads, in back yards, or on trail rides? Much of it can be credited to riders over estimating their ability or making excuses on the horse's behalf when for one reason or another the horse was simply not reliable.
You can be the judge of your own level of experience or confidence by your reaction to your horse when it does not respond to your cues when you are on the trail. For example, if you ask the horse to walk a straight line and it does not, or if you ask it to trot and it does not, how you deal with the horse tells you a lot about your self. If you accept the behavior because you lack confidence or experience and just ride along then you have lost respect and are setting yourself up for future battles. Make a decision at that point to do the proper groundwork, get help, or, if the challenges are too great, get an appropriate trail horse.
Remember that the point of a trail ride is to enjoy your time. Do not expect too much in the way of training, do most of that at home. Small requests and small successes are the key. If the horse shies at a white rock then ride back past the rock, even at a distance, and closer a third time until the horse is comfortable with the small success. Battling the horse up to the rock to remove its fear encourages more fear and the possibility of failure and reduces the effectiveness of soft, responsive cues.
When you have trail ridden with a good horse no other will do. Then and only then can you truly enjoy the trail, the wilderness, peace of mind, and what it was all about in the first place. Good luck with your adventures in your journey into the trail horses mind, and Happy Trails!
Pretty well everyone knows that a horse is a prey animal. There is much that has been said about this, but trail riders need to consider this fact in another dimension - genetics. Do not believe for a second that calmness and a forgiving nature are only achieved by training and developing a good relationship. Horses have been bred for good behavior as well as trainability and a working attitude forever. Although a draft horse that traditionally lived its life in harness, working hours each day, may be the epitome, all breeds have individuals with these qualities. We have had Quarter horses and Morgans with stellar minds, soft and forgiving by nature. Kudos to those trainers who bred for those qualities. As a trail rider, do not make excuses for difficult and dangerous behavior – assess the horse honestly before falling in love with it.
Assessing the horse’s mind as a trail riding prospect can be a challenge, and perhaps a bigger challenge is knowing how to train some of those bad habits mentioned above out of a horse - training that you can trust to last a lifetime. Horses that are dedicated buckers, pullers, and are nervous by nature may be difficult to trust even after proper training. I have trained well over a hundred horses including projects that I have taken on. I will give a horse 2 or 3 days of early training procedures – proper join up, desensitizing, applying pressure (cues), all the while assessing the horse's progress. If a horse, with considerable effort, improves with their join up, desensitizing, movement from pressures, then the next day or several hours later I am forced to repeat the process as the horse reacts with all the same baggage it brought into the pen to begin with – nervousness, spook, desensitizing issues, stubbornness, dangerous behavior of any kind – then the horse has to go.
But there is a caveat this statement. Once in a while I am faced with a project where there is a strong dominance issue with the horse, or the horse has lacked human contact and refuses to accept my presence. If the alternative is shipping the horse, because the horse should not be sold as is, then I will use a running W or similar method to safely lay the horse down and desensitize the horse while it is on its side. It can make a huge difference in the horse’s attitude and you can begin training again with a new level of respect from a very difficult horse. It is a last resort tactic that outfitters and horse riders from around the globe have used as long as there have been horses. I am telling you this not because you should do it, because you should not unless you have had a long experience training horses, but to understand that it takes that in some cases it is a final effort.
On the other hand, I have had horses, often a horse brought to me to assess and train, and when they come to see the results the horse behaves beautifully in the round pen – and I tell them, “Sell this horse, it is not suited for trail riding” This is because…..