Best training advice you've been given?

[kaileymindle]

Interpret this prompt however you please, I’m hoping it’ll turn into a nice little thread with advice we can all incorporate into our methods. Always something to learn!

Personally, one that has really stuck with me through the years, “he’s not giving you a hard time, he’s HAVING a hard time.” I heard it when I was showing the jr hunters as a teen, I had a pretty reactive horse in the ring (looking back, he was stressed and overfaced, but we do better when we know better.) A trainer at the in gate, that was literally coaching my competition, gave me that tid-bit of advice as we went into our second trip. And we laid down our best round in weeks…! Teenage me just needed to hear it wasn’t all about me, but it was about offering my horse a little compassion and a guiding hand. I still look to that line when I get frustrated with my horses, it reminds me to take a step back and remember they’re just 1200lb toddlers trying their absolute hardest to do the strange things we ask of them.

[SuzieQNutter]

It is better to ride 5 minutes a day rather than 35 minutes a week.

I was getting in trouble for not getting my work in time.

I told my boss that they had added riding a green mare for half an hour a day, so that me behind.

No they are paying for half an hour. That includes catching, grooming, tacking, riding, untacking and putting away.

With in a very short time that Green mare was working Elementary.

[nutmeg]

This opening post is so brilliant you hardly need to continue the thread!

[2DogsFarm]

“Keep the one you have fun with”
Not to me, but to a friend who had 2 & needed to sell one.

[colorfan]

@kaileymindle

they’re just 1200lb toddlers trying their absolute hardest to do the strange things we ask of them.

Love this!

[colorfan]

@SuzieQNutter

It is better to ride 5 minutes a day rather than 35 minutes a week.

This is something I really need to implement! I can really get stuck on well I don’t have ‘enough’ time so wont’ ride. I need to change my thinking. As it is I usually spend all the time doing chores that maybe could wait and I should ride instead!

[kaya842]

My two that come back to me all the time are:

“Nose goes, pony goes” - it was said in reference to getting a spin on Reiner but applies in infinite other ways.
And
“Horses learn that what happens before what happens, happens”. Confusing right? Thinking of a horse that has been to the vet via trailer a lot recently and now won’t load - he associates the trailer with the vet (the happening before what happens). Same goes for riding cues (though this starts to cross over into another one “let them make mistakes”) - in re-teaching my older mare to regulate herself and be accountable for her speed, we trot and if she breaks to a canter then we stop and start again. Soon, she realizes if she just continues trotting she won’t be asked to stop (“bothered”). Anytime I’m stuck on why they are or aren’t doing something I play out what is (or isn’t) happening before what happens and 9/10 times it solves my issue.

[Punkie]

Not every horse will be for you, but you can learn something from every horse.

[LazyA1]

From a western (yes!) classic by Mark Rashid. Learn to feel the try.

Also, it’s not the pull (more more generally, the pressure) they learn from, it’s the release.

[LCDR]

Same as I have posted on every similar thread.

Unless you are doing interval training to get your horse fit for eventing, don’t ride by the clock.

If you are training for a specific movement and the horse understands and does the movement for you after ten minutes, it is time to get off. Don’t keep repeating and repeating. Let the horse have the rest of the day off so she associates doing the shoulder-in, rein back or whatever with a meaningful reward.

[ZuzusPetals]

@LCDR, I have come to this wisdom very late in life. Suddenly it hit me: She did this, that and the other thing perfectly. What now? Hunh. How about … nothing now. How about we end on this good note, untack and hand graze?

[ShenanAnna]

Mine: whenever you’re riding a horse, you’re training him. Keeps me from being sloppy. Casual, relaxed is good; sloppy isn’t.

[danhelm441]

I think mine is similar to yours! It’s “a safe horse feels safe” — the idea that a horse that feels like it’s in danger tends to act dangerously. The difference between a sleepy, kicking quiet babysitter and a snorting, erratic looney tune can be as simple as the baby sitter knows the job and the venue, and the looney tune has never been off the farm.

[Night_Flight]

“Ride her like she’s a good horse” and “make it easy for them to be good”.

Both have served me very well.

Having the mentality of expecting a horse to behave the way you want discourages you from micro-managing, making anticipatory corrections, and being overly constricting in your riding style. Even if the horse is quirky, quick, green, etc., ride them like they’re a good horse and you’re much more likely to get the ride you want because you’ll be more relaxed about it.

Making it easy for them to be good is about setting the horse up for success so that you can reward the good behaviour. It means setting the exercise in a way that asks for 5% extra, instead of expecting the horse to make a 100% change from what they’re used to doing. It’s stopping before they get too tired to be able to do what you’re asking for. If you can set them up so that work is a series of releases instead of a series of constant corrections, they improve quickly.

[Trekkie]

It was not told to me by a person but by my horses through the years–always keep your goals and your training agenda for the day very flexible. If you go in with the mindset of “we are going to accomplish this today” but your horse is having a hard day and spooking in the corners or is tense and stressed you might just drop the reins and walk for an hour until they are relaxed and be done or you might never get to a walk/canter transition because they need to relax into the walk/trot or you might just leave the ring entirely that day or you might do lateral walk work all day or you might…you get the idea. Ride your horse of the moment, not the horse in your head or the horse of yesterday.

[OverandOnward]

Ride the horse you have on the day. Not the horse you thought you brought, or the horse you thought you bought. Or the horse you thought you trained, or thought you had trained by someone else.

Meaning, horses (reactive creatures) can be behave in unexpected ways – especially if they are at a show, or elsewhere off-property. Adjust your expectations. Deal with what is going on right now, rather than your hopes and dreams of what you thought would be going on.

[OverandOnward]

We see what the house will be like while it is being built and want to move in right away.

Heard that from clinician Jan Binny. About rushing the training of a horse.

[QuestionMark]

@Night_Flight

“Ride her like she’s a good horse” and “make it easy for them to be good”.

Both have served me very well.

Having the mentality of expecting a horse to behave the way you want discourages you from micro-managing, making anticipatory corrections, and being overly constricting in your riding style. Even if the horse is quirky, quick, green, etc., ride them like they’re a good horse and you’re much more likely to get the ride you want because you’ll be more relaxed about it.

Making it easy for them to be good is about setting the horse up for success so that you can reward the good behaviour. It means setting the exercise in a way that asks for 5% extra, instead of expecting the horse to make a 100% change from what they’re used to doing. It’s stopping before they get too tired to be able to do what you’re asking for. If you can set them up so that work is a series of releases instead of a series of constant corrections, they improve quickly.

I say this to myself like “make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.” This definitely came from some expert but I’ve forgotten who over the years of saying it 1 million times.

[Risuena]

[Willesdon]

Keep it simple