Yes. I tell my students to hug their reactive horses with their leg. When the horse finally relaxes, we release the pressure. Thus, we’ve just taught them to relax with leg. If I were to touch a horse with my spur, and they overreact and I remove the pressure, voila! I just taught them to overreact to the spur!
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I think it’s a good rule of thumb to ride with spurs. Theoretically, you don’t use them if you don’t need them, and they’re available for emergencies.
But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds! If your horse hates spurs, and goes better without them, what’s the point?
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I’ll chime in.
I think that it all depends (great answer, right?). As a rule, I ride everything with spurs the first time. If I need them, they’re there, and if I don’t, then they never feel them anyways. If a horse hates spurs and gets very worried with them on, then I will leave them behind only if it improves the ride.
Same thing with a stick. I’ll always ride with one and it’s good to have, unless you know the horse very well and know it goes better without one.
Once at a lesson that George Morris taught, one of the riders forgot her spurs, and he said, “You wouldn’t go to school and forget your pencil, would you?” So I think it’s akin to that - a basic piece of education equipment. As you become savvier, you can tailor things a bit here and there for each horse.
I’d be curious to see what happens without spurs with this horse. Maybe she would be better. Or you could trick your trainer and wear some “fake” rubber spurs that look like spurs but are soft and mushy. Don’t ask me where to buy them because I think you’d have to make them yourself. I ride my Chestnut OTTB mare with “roller spurs” and mostly use them if she needs a reminder on lateral work.
