Ep 3: Understanding the Animal You Are Training
Whether you are a horse trainer or training your own horse in whatever discipline you choose, there are certain training philosophies that are fundamental to growth. In today’s show, we go over some of the experiences and struggles I’ve had during my past 30 years in the horse training business. My hope is that you can learn from my experiences and use these philosophies to shorten the timeline in which you advance your horse to where you want it to be.
Overcoming the Overwhelm
Overwhelm leads to paralyzation. Whether you are training a horse, working with a group of employees, being a good husband and father, or being a good friend, we all experience challenges in certain areas of our life from time to time. On the days when these challenges pile up, it can be tempting to feel overwhelmed and become stagnant because you’re frustrated and not sure how to move forward.
The philosophy we use at our training facility is “1% better every day.” Adopting the 1% rule helps combat this overwhelm and move the needle forward. This is a very realistic and achievable benchmark that we set each day.
Responding vs. Reacting
A key area of horsemanship that often leads to overwhelm and frustration is when a horse reacts rather than responds to you.
Anything that is a reaction is typically negative — things like kicking, biting, rearing, or pulling back. When a horse reacts instead of responds, the horse is acting out of instinct rather than out of knowledge. The first step toward progressing a horse’s abilities is to activate the “thinking” side of their brain instead of the “reacting” side.
When your horse doesn’t understand how to respond using the thinking side of its brain, it doesn’t understand how to control its body. When the horse doesn’t know where to look for that point of release, it will get stiff and brace up. When this happens, we are tempted to brace up, creating not one but two stiff animals. We are essentially playing tug-of-war. This creates a downward spiral that keeps us from progressing.
You have to have an understanding of that animal and attempt to see the world from their perspective. Once you do this, everything will begin to make a lot more sense.
We are not strong enough to manually control an animal of this size, so we have to create opportunities for the horse to find the release and understand what we are asking it to do. You want to establish the habit of consistently using the thinking side of their brain.
When the horse is using the thinking side of its brain, you can develop trust, respect, and confidence. If your horse does not see these things in you, the switch will keep flipping back and forth from the thinking to the reacting side of its brain. Responses will come so much more smoothly and quickly. Apply contact and hold it until they find the answer. If they are in that mindset, they will find the response much quicker.
It doesn’t matter if the horse is 2 or 22–each horse can benefit from fundamental exercises that we do to help the horse engage the thinking side of its brain. Training starts from the moment you step in the pen to catch your horse.
Horsemanship is a thinking game. You’re training something that has its own mind, its own emotions. It is a management program to help the horse understand what to do with their bodies, but also what to do with their minds when you ask for a response.
“Be Your Best Horsemanship” is brought to you by 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.
