The appy lady and her mare had been experimenting in various ways with many moments of notable connection and successful presentations through feel.  Much progress was made, but with a kind of staccato in which the moments did not flow together for the whole to be seen.  One afternoon is not so much time, when you first dive into this. I wondered if the appy mare could help me help her owner see the bigger picture a little better, before we finished. 

I simply asked the appy mare to go out onto a circle. Then I released her to a trot from a spot on the wall 15ft behind her. She moved off willingly for a stride or two. . . as she also shifted her weight down and forward in the transition, and ultimately stopped her feet within the next few strides. I could have added some pressure, and she may have kept going if she could, but her posture did not support that. I asked the appy lady why she thought her mare had stopped. “Does this look like a spot where your mare plants her feet and says ‘no’, as you described?” It was. Could she see that the mare was standing downhill with a slight tightening in her back and base of the neck? This was a new level of observation for the lady, but she could see it now.

Each student commented at one point or another that their brain hurt – and this related directly to the mind-bending these stellar ladies did, to begin a different way of thinking about and approaching the challenges we all face at times with our horses. 

It is important to note though, that this is not such a huge mountain, there is no enormously difficult climb ahead.  The challenge is much more contained:  most of us have been taught to dominate, which taps into the hunter in us. But the other side of human nature is the nurturer/gatherer.

We just need to give the hunter a rest, and bring out our other instincts. This is not so new. Pressuring a toddler to get in the car seat is not always as effective as shaping his moves and leading his mind to that sweet spot where he thinks sitting in a car seat is a grand idea! Either way, the toddler ends up in the car seat, and there might be a place for both styles of request, depending on the circumstances. In the end, the more the toddler’s moves and mind are shaped through a pleasant feel, the better the connection will be, and the more willing the child becomes for the future.  It is just a question of whether he thought he was trapped in the seat, or had an adventure climbing that led to some interesting places.

The main vehicle for moving forward would be a shift of responsibility from the person expecting the horse to adjust to ‘find the release’, to the person adjusting for the horse through an ongoing ‘feel of release’.  This changes what the horse relies on for meaning, and therefore for clarity. If the meaning is in the release of pressure, we teach him to seek comfort in the release of our feel. If the meaning is in our adjustments, based on a commitment to present what we mean in a way he can understand, we teach him to seek comfort in our feel. 

The difference between the two is significant. If it is the release of pressure that teaches, then the communication of meaning depends on pressure to release. Clarity comes at the end of the communication, when the horse makes the right adjustment. Discomfort, and the promise of more discomfort, drive the horse’s desire to tune into that final adjustment for the correct response. 

If instead the person is doing the tuning in and the adjustments, until the horse understands and offers the correct response, then the meaning is in that person’s feel, not in the release of it. The horse learns to seek the comfort of mutual understanding in our ongoing feel, vs. in the release of pressure. 

The nature of the connection changes because the horse is comfortable from moment to moment with the person, vs. in the moments the pressure is released by the person.

A lot happened in the arena that day with those horses. A sizeable list of issues were raised in the introductory morning session - this horse plants her feet in response to the rider,  that horse bucks into canter, this one doesn’t pick up a right lead, and so on. One or two participants had been eager to know how much of the 3 hour session would be spent riding. It was understandable.  This was a plethora of challenges, perceived to be problems under saddle.

By the time we had observed all the horses at a standstill, and experimented with changing their shape at a standstill, a new landscape was hitting the canvas. We saw how each and every horse was heavy on the left front foot, and when asked to bring their head and neck only to one side or the other, all moved their feet.  This is a set up for lack of balance and straightness in the horse, and implies a lack of clarity – in essence does pull mean move your feet, stop your feet, or is the rein used for something else entirely to do with shape?

Each horse tripped at least once, when a mix-up occurred in their foot placement, rooted in a commonly taught foundation that sets the horse up to load the inside shoulder on a turn.

We explored why these things matter, what contributes to their creation, the confusion for the horse, and then for the person - and how to start unraveling things for a better and lasting connection. We set about re-building the ride from the ground up – with clarity for the horse that transfers to the saddle. We would focus on a connection with the horse that supported open communication and the horse’s unguarded try.