Ep 191: Adapting Your Communication to Improve Your Horse’s Confidence
We all know that confidence is one of the biggest determining factors of success, both for ourselves and our horses. However, the path to building confidence is unique to each individual. On this episode, I’m sharing some examples of how I’ve had to adapt my communication style to help certain horses overcome extremely reactive tendencies and build confidence in unfamiliar situations.
Using Leg Pressure to Enhance Communication
I recently had a filly in training that was very reactive, fractious and would frequently engage in self-defense mode. With this filly, pressure on the bridle reins was a trigger that pushed her into self-defense mode. Even the slightest pressure would send her into a reactive state of mind. For her, leg pressure was the key to helping her build confidence. When I applied slight pressure with my legs to soften her body as I was picking up the bridle reins, I was able to soften the ribcage and make the response I was asking for with my bridle reins that much easier to achieve. Without the leg pressure, she would immediately go into a bilateral body position and brace against my cues. With this particular horse, using leg pressure was essential to enhancing my communication and clarifying the responses I was looking for.
Adapting Your Communication to Fit Each Horse
With this filly, the “signal before the signal” was leg pressure. But in contrast, I’ve also had horses that responded in a completely opposite manner based on this same cue. I remember one colt in particular that would instantly become reactive upon the slightest pressure from my legs. When it comes to horses, not every horse will respond to our signals in the same way. That's why it is important for us, as trainers, to be aware of these individual tendencies so that we can adapt our communication in a way that promotes a maximum level of confidence from our horses. By understanding the horse's needs and adjusting our communication style, we can create an environment that encourages growth, trust, and a sense of security.
Building Confidence by Listening to Our Horses
Building a horse’s confidence is reliant on our listening skills. If we are good listeners, we are going to learn something new every day. Horses are going to reveal what they need from us if we have the right level of self awareness. This doesn’t mean that we change our program every day; however, the application of our program may look a little different from horse to horse. There are going to be a lot of things that stay constant throughout your career, but there will always be areas that we need to work on and look at a little differently from horse to horse.
Enhancing Confidence Through Correct Balance
Horses feel very vulnerable if they get off balance or out of position. That’s why, when we increase speed, we often see more reactive tendencies out of our horses. It’s not that they don’t want to do things correctly; their survival instincts simply take over. That’s why foundational communication is so crucial to establish. Foundational exercises help the horse understand correct weight distribution and how to smoothly transition speeds and directions with balance, which enhances their confidence in competitive situations.
Building Confidence After Taking Time Off
For those who have experienced breaks or setbacks in their horsemanship journey, whether due to time off or injury, stepping back into the competitive arena can be daunting. When you come back into the competitive scene, confidence is crucial to have because our confidence as trainers directly feeds into our horses’ confidence. No matter what level you are starting from, I believe you have to start with simple wins and build from there. To rebuild your own foundation and regain your confidence, you can’t cheat the process. You have to start at square one and set yourself up for those small wins that will contribute to your confidence.
Make sure you are in the best physical shape you can be in. When you physically work your body, you mentally get stronger. When you have confidence in your physical ability, that takes a layer of pressure off of yourself mentally. Ensuring that you are in top physical shape reduces the likelihood of you sending unintentional cues to your horse because you are not in the right body position or you are just trying to “hang on.”
Work on foundational, confidence-building exercises. Work on things that are safe and user-friendly to start out. Even if these things seem very elementary and basic, it’s always a great place to start. Build confidence with the easy things, then continue moving upwards from there.
Remember, there’s no timeline to your comeback. Take the time you need to feel confident in yourself and your skills. Don’t let outside influences add pressure to your timeline. Take the time to prepare yourself and develop that communication and leadership with your horse so that you both feel confident in the task ahead.
“Be Your Best Horsemanship” is brought to you by Silver Lining Herbs, Classic Equine, Martin Saddlery, Better Horses Network, Purina, Healthycoat, CINCH, Starbar, and Clarifly. These brands have been part of the Phil Haugen Horsemanship team for many years, and their products continue to play an integral role in the success of our performance horse training program. To support these brands, visit our Sponsors tab.
