The Most Under Appreciated Training Challenge - Resilience

Training a horse is actually pretty easy the majority of the time (I know that’s a bold statement, but bear with me).

The principles are simple - you condition and shape behavior through rewarding with a release or an additive or both. Once you have developed a systematic approach, good feel and timing (that’s the hard part), it’s actually incredible how quickly horses can develop. A horse can go from being completely untouched to happily toting around a rider and understanding all the basic cues in the matter of a couple of months.

And that training may feel fully developed in the horse… but it begins and ends at home on your farm.

If you change a couple of environmental factors- from riding space, to type of rider, to situational dynamics… suddenly, your horse may behave as if it is barely halter broke.

Sure, your horse halts in the arena, but do they halt on the trail? Do they halt in the woods when a deer jumps out at them? Do they halt when their best friend leaves them behind? Do they halt riding in a group of 10 horses? Do they halt in a different bit or bridle? Do they halt with a less balanced rider? This situational variability becomes the crux of lifelong learning and behavioral training for most horses. And to be frank, it’s the number one challenge professional trainers face. Will the behaviors we have trained survive the trip home to the owner and riding in the owner’s home riding situations?

I’ve heard several terms used to describe this goal of training. One is generalization (Janet Jones) and another proofing (Andrew McLean). Both terms do a good job of describing the phase of learning in which a concept is put to the test in different situations.

A great example of generalization is the idea that the horse should be able to feel the same cue from multiple different riders. The feel of that cue may vary, but the horse can generalize that the message and intention is the same.

An example of proofing would be the horse performing the same engaged and supple gaits in their practice training session as in the show. This shows proof that the training done beforehand could withstand the pressures of the show environment.

To a degree, what we are creating as we train long term are resilient behaviors that can be generalized over time to increasingly complex and challenging situations. Unfortunately, many owners do not recognize the amount of practice this resilience takes to build. Many also underestimate the importance of avoiding unsuccessful situations that go beyond the horse’s emotional coping skills and break down understanding. The cost is high for putting a horse in a situation that they cannot cope through.

The horse’s ability to retain all its training buttons in new contexts is both a character trait and something they have to practice. Some personalities simply do better than others at coping with the stress of new environments, but even those have to practice it to get good at it.

As I have gotten older, my wariness of shifting contexts has grown, especially with inexperienced horses. Our horses that you can drop into any situation and be relatively sure they will handle it are all 15+ years old and have been traveling the US with us for a decade. I value those horses and the wealth of experience they have and the relationship we have built with them. I also value their character because some individuals, no matter how old or how much exposure, still struggle with new situations.

What I wish more owners would consider is just how much time and practice it can take for horses to develop the emotional regulation skills to be same horse everywhere that they are at home. How many people do you know can be dropped into any situation and comport themselves with easy confidence?