And yeah, actually - in that picture that horse doesn’t look happy to me. His eyes are super tight.
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It is raining in the second clip which would cause pinned ears.
This one has to be the worst yet. The horse looks absolutely livid the whole time. Doing the most basic stuff!
I read a FB blog by Ross Jacobs, an Australian trainer. He often posts well-argued controversial views, and I remember one of them was that liberty training can be just as coercive and forced as any other form of training. It may look “natural and free” but it is not intrinsically so. That is just as dependent on the sensitivity and skill of the trainer as training with gear.
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And I agree with everything you all are saying. It IS possible and we definitely know their is PLENTY of liberty work where the horse is forced and would NOT be engaging with them. Definitely force.
What I LOVE is we are thinking and contemplating these questions. It’s all on the table for debate and question in my eyes.
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we had one gelding that always pinned his ears eating grain, really like that grain, he was a happy go lucky fellow that never was mad at anything
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If the person doing the liberty work does not understand that they must release the pressure when the horse responds correctly then the horse is going to get annoyed, tense, and look away. The release of pressure is the reward and being told yes that is the correct answer, just as we are suppose to do when riding. Look beyond the ears to determine are they pinned or at half mast. What is the horse’s body language saying: tense vs soft, bending thru the rib cage vs shoulders in a leaving position, head looking to the outside, etc. Using a round pen can be a cheat as the horse can not leave and you (g) can be fooled into thinking your horse is working with you. True test is in a large area with no holding barrier to see if you (g) and your horse are truly working at liberty. You (g) can also do some liberty work on a lunge line where you keep the line slack so you are not holding the horse in position.
You are probably right that many horses in the Tic Toc and you-tube videos are not happy as it takes a long time to learn how to have a good conversation with a horse who already understands the language while we are trying to learn it. Pressure and its release, drive lines, intent and our body position are just a small part of learning and being successful in liberty work.
I’ve noticed this as well. So all my horses work off of voice commands. Longe line slack (if they were pulling I’d be pretty cranky, I don’t like to be pulled on so we correct that quickly). On occasion, I have unhooked the longe and continued to longe them sans line. They all do it, it’s not magic. If they respond to your body language they respond to your body language. I get really irritated with the people who treat it like it’s somehow superior to or different than regular horse training.
Except this one horse. If he is off the longe, he gets…zesty. He will pin his ears and shake his head at me, yet still trots a circle around me obediently. It almost feels like I’ve broken the deal. He’s off the line, he’s supposed to have HIM time, and here I am asking him to trot a circle again. I know he doesn’t think like that, he’s a horse, but it does make me wonder whether it’s fair to muddy the waters. He understands what the different tack means, rope halter vs. flat halter, western saddle vs english saddle - he’s wicked smart - so it just makes me wonder.
I think that a lot of the people who are drawn to the idea of liberty training are not good trainers to start out with.
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It is a great way to have an excuse to not ride a horse for a very long time (or ever).
My mare pins her ears on the lunge during upward canter transitions right now. That’s because her hocks are sore (and scheduled for injections next week). Pinning ears is almost always a sign of discomfort or aggression. @clanter I knew some horses that pin their ears during grain eating, and all but 1 ended up having ulcers.
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A million years ago I attended a John Lyons clinic and he was asked why he was riding Zip in a bridle when he was so accomplished sans-bridle. He said he’d noticed that Zip was grumpier bridleless, having to rely so heavily on body/leg/weight cues but was more relaxed/loose with a simple snaffle bridle on - the addition of the neck reining and rein shift cues made him happier.
2 cents, that’s all.
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That’s a good horseman there, to notice that instead of showing off.
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I admire how happy and connected Ben’s horses look to be. And he’s not too shabby to look at either LOL
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There is good and bad liberty work just as there is good and bad riding with or without a bridle. If someone choose not to ride their horse it’s their choice. Just as if someone chooses not to do liberty work it’s their choice.
That’s interesting. I wonder if it makes it more complicated for the horse or if it seems more aggressive to them.
I know they certainly don’t look particularly happy when they move each other around in the pasture. Both the mover and the movee are pretty upset. Does it trigger those feelings, which are mostly suppressed when not at liberty because they’ve learned that the equipment means something different?
After 60 some years of horse experience I have come to the conclusion that horses are happier doing what we want–when the horse feels compelled. “Because I say so” from me often satisfies this, the horse posted its objection, I heard the objection, but then I told the horse that it must obey, the horse goes “OK, if I must do so”, and as long as I am not torturing or hurting the horse it obeys and cheers up. I think that expecting a horse to obey us just because is a quick way to end up with a constantly questioning, anxious, and unhappy horse.
Does liberty training put some horses in an existential crisis? Do these horses learn to fake it–obeying without any hint of pleasure–just to get that darn pesky human to finally leave the poor innocent horsie ALONE.
Horses seem to be pretty clear to me on what they consider proper procedure for working. The horses do not seem to take any pleasure from “faking” obedience when there is no hint of compulsion from the human.
My riding teachers tell me I have very good hands, with both bitted bridles and bitless bridles. Yet I get better and more cheerful obedience using the bit (especially the bits with the double bridle) than I ever did with the 6 or so bitless systems I have tried on them. The horses relax more with contact, react to softer hand aids, and I get more obedience to my leg aids when using a bit, and when there has to be a “discussion” I can get obedience with a lot less brutality when I use the bit.
If I was trying to train a horse at liberty I would probably go back to using tack if the horse never looked cheerful about it. I have had horses look happier working around me on the lunge line with a lunging whip than the liberty horses in the videos.
Though one time sixty years ago I did see a lady free lunge a horse (in a riding ring) where the horse was obviously happy, really got into the work, and did not lay his ears back at all in the 10 or so minutes I watched him. I have never seem something like that ever since in real life or on video. If I remember correctly she did not even have a halter on the horse until the end of their session.
If a horse believes he HAS TO obey you the horse will probably be happier than if there is even a hint that the horse can “escape” its work. Also using tack the horse gets a slightly longer warning that a new command will be coming as the horseman gathers or lengthens the lunge line, moves the lunging whip and changes her (the horseperson in control) posture.
Maybe just maybe horses get “addicted” to the certainty of a super clear release when the horse obeys when tack is used, by a decent, knowledgeable horse person, of course.
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Jackie, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ll bet it’s the clarity.
Horses like clarity. Humans are muddy by nature. We use language as a substitute and we overthink things. Horses are really big on quick corrections and forgiveness. They store very complicated rulebooks in their heads in terms of social structures and what body language means.
I’ll bet that’s why the quick release with tack feels more clear than relying on our unclear body language. Because even when we are pretty good at it, we are nowhere near as sophisticated as the horses are at it.
That coalesces some things I’ve been noodling on for awhile, thank you!
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The presence of food for a lot of the liberty work I’m sure contributes to some of the attitudes seen.
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The videos posted by @endlessclimb are a great contrast.
The little haflinger cross horse with the Australian woman has been taught to lie down by putting him.off balance and then putting body weight on his head. My big Paint trick mare would kill you if you tried that. We have a cue for lie down and then lie flat and I use clicker training. She is super engaged when we do tricks with clicker. Anyhow, this style of laying a horse down shows the trainer has some brute force in their tool kit.
The Andalusian stallion with the French trainer is gorgeous and that’s more #goals as they say. But much of what that horse is doing is hardwired Iberian talent, and poor little Halfie is never going to passage at liberty or anywhere else., and Aussie girl is unlikely to be able to teach anything to piaffe. love that he let the horse go roll and then run a bit and made that part of the performance. He’s a talented trainer with a talented horse.
My oroject mare is half Lusitano and while we are still just working on the transition from pawing to Spanish Walk, I can see breed similarities in the focus on the person, the enthusiasm to get close, working on a volte. But never ever will I encourage her to rear near me (since that was one of the project issues with her).
You may not get all the piaffe passage spanish walk out of an “ordinary” horse, and being a stallion gives oomph too. But that handler shows the right attitude of play.
There is clarity in liberty work if the trainer is clear. Just because the audience doesn’t see the cues doesn’t mean the horse can’t see them.
As far as ears and tension, if you watch horses play in turnout or you watch someone ride a challenging course or test or work cattle, ears are every where. Back and forth. Listening ears are not pinned snake head ears. Horses at play or work are also under tension, watching thinking etc.
I don’t think liberty work is magical. I don’t think it is somehow better than riding. I do liberty work with project mare because at the moment she’s not safe for me to ride. I do think it can be mystifying because most of us have been educated around horses in ways that run counter to doing liberty work. I am amazed how hard most people find it to just get the timing right on clicker training which IMHO is so basic it’s almost mechanical in application. But I lucked out into a clicker training genius in my Paint mare, and a natural liberty horse in Lusitano project mare. I also find it interesting how hard it can be for people to send a horse around at liberty without getting in the way.
Interestingly Paint mare, while she will run in turnout to get the wiggles out, dislikes liberty work, and longeing. If you try to “send her around” she will lie down and smile for a treat. The Lusi project mare on the other hand doesn’t have the sustained focus for clicker. She will learn a behavior fast but after about 4 or 5 repetitions she will switch it up and offer something different. So it’s harder to shape her behaviour for tricks.
I think where many trainers are misrepresenting the whole thing is in saying that because the horses are loose it’s all sunshine and roses, and this gets conflated with the idea that a horse should have a soft relaxed sleepy face 24/7. And also misrepresenting liberty work as magical.
There is a continuum in liberty work. Being able to free longe in a large arena w t c halt turn on voice and on body language, keeping the horse on a 20 meter circle, is absolutely the beginning. Being able to draw the horse in to a volte and then send them back out to a 2O meter circle.
Lusi project mare picked this up right away. Paint mare doesn’t want to work that hard!
Anyhow free longe is the basics, just like we’d recognize a person jumping 2 foot 6 is jumping, even if they aren’t headed for the Grand Prix circuit soon or ever 
Interestingly when I watched Cavalia they have probably about 50 horses, and each horse only does one trick or act. They don’t expect all the horses to do everything. Hence the saying “one trick pony” I guess!
Anyhow liberty work has become trendy and lots of folk on SM are invested in mystifying it, making it seem magical and difficult.and somehow “better.”
It’s not. There’s nothing as magical as the fact we can get on a horse and ride all day and horse doesn’t kill us, and horsey comes back for more the next day.
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I don’t agree with this as a rule. My mares make faces all the time and their feet don’t leave the ground. Two of my girls were “talking” over the fence this morning with their ears back and grumpy eyes. Moving their heads around but just standing there. My youngest has learned from one of the older mares that she can get my attention in the cross ties by making mean faces (I’m trying to break them of this habit).
I do agree horses at liberty often look stressed. They often have ears back and tight expressions. I’ve probably seen a greater percentage of horses at liberty look like they’re not having fun compared to ridden horses, who will occasionally have a stressful moment but then relax. This includes liberty professionals, not just laypeople running around with loose horses or chasing a horse with a stick.
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Hmm. I have had some nasty hematomas when I ignored mare ears! Mine really tended to get your butt or thigh when your back was turned.
I don’t think liberty is inherently more stressful than doing the same things while riding, but I also don’t think it’s less stressful necessarily. But you can see the “tell” in how a given trainer handles their horses in moments like in the Australian Haflinger video.
The reason liberty is even a topic is that it’s being oversold right now especially on SM as an OMG magickal connection to my free wild horse!!! In.a self congratulatory way. So of course we all want to react against that self righteous self promotion by both pros and teens and discount it. Even say that it is “worse” than riding
It’s not worse or better than riding. I do think it is better than longeing a lot, because horses get repetitive stress injuries being longed every day. It’s just another thing to do with your horse that most people don’t bother learning, and it is a good way to keep a horse you aren’t riding occupied and learning.
