Ep 85: Less is More
Horsemanship is the reflection of excellent communication between horse and rider. Excellent communication is the understanding of how to get more with less.
When training, we teach the horse to search for the release. But, we also want to teach them to find this release with the least amount of pressure possible.
There are a couple of key fundamental exercises that we use daily at our training facility to support this idea of teaching the release.
One Rein Stops
When doing a one rein stop, we go through a very specific four-step process to help the horse find the release point. When the horse stops moving its feet and gives to the pressure of the bit, we provide the release. But, what happens if the horse doesn’t find this release immediately?
Human nature tells us to apply more pressure. But, all this does is create more anxiety in your horse. If they do not immediately find the response and you add more pressure, all this does is create a need for even more pressure the next time you perform the exercise.
Instead, the correct method of communication is to simply hold the pressure constant. Our natural impatient tendencies can go against this methodology, but if we are intentional about our cues and the timing of our release, our horses will begin to recognize exactly how much (rather, how little) pressure is needed to earn the release.
Disengaging the Hindquarters
We tend to focus on the parts of the horse’s body that we can see (i.e. the head, neck and shoulders), and we often neglect everything behind the saddle pad.
Disengaging the hindquarters is an exercise that helps stimulate the hips and ribcage, and it is a movement that helps the horse stay fluid and balanced. Like the one rein stop, this exercise requires precise timing of the release.
Although this exercise requires very subtle movement from the horse, the positive effects of this exercise can be seen throughout other exercises in our fundamentals toolkit.
We have to be able to move our horses’ hindquarters out before we can move them in. It’s the exact same motion, only with the horse’s head tipped the opposite direction.
To see more detailed demonstrations of these key fundamentals mentioned in this episode, enroll in our Foundation to Finish online training program.
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