Word of the Day- Anticipative Horses

Anticipate- Many horses tend to be mentally ahead of where they are physically because of concern. The action or movements of the horse tend to be exaggerated and over-reactive mentally and behaviorally. 

Contributors causing a horse to become anticipative can include:

•  lack of confidence
•  lack of clear communication from the rider
•  riders that "drive" the horse rather than help them learn to think through scenarios
•  riders that don't offer a clear mental and physical release when the horse tries  

Because the horse is mentally unsure,  it limits his ability to be mentally available or willing to accept the human's influence. This causes excessive, undesired, and sometimes dangerous movement. This often leads to a vicious cycle creating fear in both the horse and human. 

Word of the Day: Accordian Effect

Accordion effect- shortening of the top line: from the tips of the ears to the neck, through the back along with the hindquarters, and into the horse's hocks.  This creates a stiff and resistant movement similar to that of a needle moving in a sewing machine; movement has a more up and down action rather than stretching forward in a relaxed manner.  The horse is lacking a "forward-thinking" mentality his entire body is scrunched up similar to that of an accordion rather than stretched out and relaxed.

Word of the Day: Tolerating

Tolerating- a horse's lack of mental availability despite his physical interactions. Often assessing for softness in his movement and his mental and emotional response towards the human will display a rigid, tight, and often dramatic responses.

Anticipation- In both the horse and rider

As we sat around in blustery WY swapping horse stories the other night I realized there was one common theme. Anticipation. The focus happened to be about team roping, but my thoughts on this subject still apply to ALL riders and their horses.


In this day and age riders are starting to expand their equestrian activities rather than just sticking to one specific discipline. This is great for both the horses and riders and encourages them to raise their level of awareness, their horse's mental availability when presented with different tasks (rather than the same routine,) and it allows them to evaluate and use tools to offer clear communication no matter when and where they are needed.

As I listened to the group I realized I was hearing horror story after horror story about people either having had experienced themself or having had witnessed roping accidents. The most common occurrence had to do with after a rider had caught a steer.
Once the steer has been caught the rider uses their coils in their hand to "dally." A coil is the excess rope that is held in neat and organized circles in their hand. Some of these are released as the rider throws their loop at the desired steer. A dally is when the rider has caught the desired steer they then take their rope and wrap it around the horn of their saddle in order to maintain control over the steer they caught.
In this sort of roping things happen very quickly because the riders are competing for who has the fastest time in catching both the head and the heels of a steer. This can become dangerous if the rider does not keep track of their coils and has caught a three or four hundred pound steer that is showing resistance towards having been roped. After the steer is caught the coils need to be easily and quickly separated from the rest in order to dally. If there is any slack between the steer and rider, if the coils are not neatly held or are accidentally dropped while the rider is trying to dally, a rider can get their fingers and hands literally ripping off from the force of rope tightening/wrapping around their hand as the caught steer is trying to make his get away.

As with anything, the faster things "have to happen" the more pressure and intensity both the rider and horse feels. Here are a few things I see happen all too often:

• Seeing a horse feeling pretty troubled in the box (the area they wait until the steer is released form the shoot and the rider begins chasing it to catch it.) Serious accidents have happened from a horse becoming anticipative about the upcoming run and they can get pretty light on their feet. You'll see this commonly in sports that require quick bursts of speed such as race horses, barrel races, team roping, etc.

• Often the rider is more concerned with their performance and accuracy with throw of thier rope they accidentally end up ignoring areas of horsemanship that need to be addressed BEFORE they head out of the box or to a competition.
A lack of quality horsemanship and awareness seem to be the worst contributors towards how a horse and rider handle ANTICIPATION.

There are many parts of clear communication with a horse that need to be established (not just on the day of the event or competition) so that going into an event the rider and horse feel confident and clear in how they interact with one another.

In this case, if a rider is solely focused on the actual roping of the steer- how are they ever going to GET from the box to the steer with any accuracy, speed and control if they're horse is worried, anxious, insecure, etc. Too many times because of patternized (click link for blog definition) practices (i.e. practicing by riding the horse numerous times out of the box trying to attempt a catch rather than focusing on doing it a few times with a calm, confident and quality ride.)
Instead if the rider took the time to create clear communication through the use of their aids rather than reactively riding (click link for blog definition) or responding after the fact, they can "tell" their horse while the ride or run is happening what they need their horse to do. If a rider winds up being hopeful (see blog definition) that their horse will do what he's supposed to do they have no clue as to what and how their horse will respond as they come out of the box.
Because the horse gets used to not being told by his rider, he winds up taking over and starts getting anticipative because it does not make him feel good to come out of that box "on his own." Just as with people, they like to know what the "plan" is.
The next element in this particular discipline is the steer itself. The rider and horse have no idea what the steer is going to do as he comes out of the shoot. So they have to be ready for whatever may need to get done in order to rope the steer. If the horse has only previously been taught that "he's on his own" then he will tend to anticipate (many times causing a time fault for leaving the box early, also known as "breaking the barrier.")
Once a horse reaches a certain degree of stress they typically reach an "unreasonable" state. This is where the horse takes over and the rider winds up "going for the ride." Again this is another undesirable and potentionally dangerous situation. Once he takes over, especially in an event like team roping, if you need your horse to quickly turn, slow or speed up, you have less of a chance that you horse is going to perform as you need him to when "you've got to get the job done." This lack of responsiveness, mental availability from your horse and unclear communication is the largest contributor to an accident waiting to happen that my have been preventable by taking the time to address the quality of horsemanship with your horse ahead of time.
So whether you are a roper or a Dressage rider, a trail rider or a barrel racer, the next time you head out to ride start to assess if you horse may have a degree of anticipation in him. If so, start to break down into little steps how and what you ask of him and then how he responds. He'll tell you if your communication is clear, and he'll certainly show you if it's not.
It's more "work" to be a safe rider, but in the long run it decreases the level of stress you carry with you as you step into the saddle and in turn the more relaxed and confident you are, so will your horse be.

Weathering the weather while retaining "Mental Availability"

Over the past few years Mother Nature has offered more than her share of natural disasters challenging both humans and animals in extreme situations ranging from devastating fires, floods, earthquakes, heavy snows, long winter freezes, to "long term" power outages/shortages. I was inspired to write about this topic after a wet wintery day.
I'm sure you've all experienced a day like today no matter where you live. For those of you living where I spend my winters (SW AZ,) the following weather report is rare and usually only happens once (yes, ONCE) a year because the norm precipitation is less than several inches for the ENTIRE year... According to the Weather Underground website it was reported today as follows:
"Very windy. Showers with a chance of thunderstorms. Rain will be heavy at times. Southwest wind 30 to 40 mph in the evening...becoming 15 to 20 mph after midnight. Gusts to 55 mph in the evening...becoming 30 mph after midnight. Chance of measurable rain 90 percent. High Wind Warning in effect until midnight MST tonight... Flash Flood Watch in effect through Friday afternoon... Tornado Watch 8 in effect until 10 PM MST this evening... "
I'm not going to give you the common "How prepared are you..." speech but rather something else. I'm also not going to focus on things such as riding on a windy day, or desensitizing a horse towards those "life threatening plastic bags" that whip past on windy days. I'm also not going to talk about evacuation preparedness for your four legged friends.
The point of this entry is to encourage you to be prepared by helping your horse ahead of time. As someone once told me "Expect the unexpected." You never know what you might face with your horse, but why "wait and see" how the both of you will handle an unforeseen event?
What I am going to address is how to get from POINT A (where your horse currently is) to POINT C (where he needs to end up) in an emergency situation while experiencing the least amount of stress possible (for BOTH of you.)

You may be asking why I called my second point "C." This is because there is also a POINT B that too often is forgotten about or not addressed with enough priority because typically during times of stress, panic, worry, fear, chaos, bad weather, and traumatic situations all too often people's and horse's brains check out. This of course is the WORST possible time for this to happen.
Point B that I've mentioned could be various situations. It might be the actual loading into a horse trailer to evacuate a property. Or it may be needing your horse to cross (while you lead him) the ditch/stream/river to get to higher or safer ground. It could be needing to have your horse ponied, roped, hobbled, tied or herded somewhere for his own safety. Or how about when you get that flat on your horse trailer or have engine problems and need to unload your horse on the side of a busy road. It could also be having SOMEONE ELSE having to handle your horse (they may not interact with him the way "mom" does) but he will still need to be participative.
You'll find if you've read any of my past blogs or if you've visited my website one of my main focuses is working on creating a horse's mental availability. So how does a horse's mental availability have anything to do with bad weather or an emergency situation?
I have found a horse's physical actions are a reflection of his mental and emotional status. If he is feeling confident and relaxed on the inside, he'll be physically cooperative and happily participative on the outside. I wrote a recent post about not being "hopeful." You might take a moment to review it. Being challenged by a stressful situation and still having to "get the job done" with your horse is NOT THE TIME to start neither “training him” nor when you want to be "hopeful" in how you interact with him.
The point of this blog is to stimulate YOUR thinking about "POINT B." I'm not going to explain literally "how to" prepare for point B. There is no way we can ever expose our horse to ALL the situations he might experience in life. Instead if AHEAD of time (who knows when the unexpected event will occur) you have built a trusting partnership based on clear communication with your horse he will be mentally prepared and available under any circumstance presented to be helpful and REASONABLE. This will eliminate unnecessary stress for the both of you.
Your goal should be to encourage our horse to "TRY" to think about what it is that you are asking of him (even if he's never experienced the scenario before.) On the calm quiet days you will need to take the time and put in the effort to build a solid foundation with our horse by teaching him to mentally address and focus on whatever you may present.
By preparing ahead of time and without the stress of a "crazy" situation you will have established the tools in communication necessary to SUPPORT (not physically manhandle or force) your horse to explore his options and then participate in a reasonable manner during a stressful situation. Your end goal is for him to be mentally available to search for the "right" answer no matter the situation, circumstance or stress level without him having a complete mental break down.

Keep Warm! Sam

Today's Chuckle...Cliches of the Equine World

Some of you may have seen this before and others may not have... I have EXPERIENCED most of the following scenarios, whether it was a competitor, trainer or student... I hope you can chuckle at the cliches used to describe the riders of each discipline. When people ask me "What TYPE of training do you do?" or "What's your method?" I find many are frusterated because they can't easily catagorize what I offer into one grouping. It's the same for my clinics; in one clinic we may have as participants an unstarted horse, a Dressage schoolmaster, a trail horse, a green broke horse and a "bomb proof" one. People are astonished that they can all LEARN from one another no matter their experience, background, discipline, etc. The following has been reprinted with the persmission of the it's original author. Enjoy! Sam

THE BACKYARD RIDER:
Usually found wearing shorts and a sports bra in the summer; flannel nightgown, muck boots, and down jacket in the winter. Drives a Ford 150 filled with saddle blankets and dog hair. Most have deformed toes from being stepped on while wearing flip-flops. Has a two-horse bumper-pull trailer, but uses it for hay storage, as her horse hasn't been off the farm in 6 years. Can install an electric fence, set a gate, and roll a round bale, solo. Rode well and often when she used to board her horse, 5 years ago. Took horse home to "save money" and has spent about 50 grand on acreage, barn, fence, tractor, etc. Has two topics of conversation - 1) How it's too hot/cold/wet/ dry to ride. And 2) how she may ride after she fixes the fence/digs drainage ditches/stacks 4 tons of hay.

THE NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP DEVOTEE:
Looks like a throwback from a Texas ranch, despite the fact that he lives in the suburbs of New Jersey. Rope coiled loosely in hand in case he needs to herd any of those kids on roller-blades away from his F-350 dually in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Cowboy hat strategically placed, and just dirty enough to look cool. Levi's are well worn. "Lightning" is, of course, this natural horsemanship guy's horse. Rescued from a bad home where he was never imprinted or broke in the natural horsemanship way, he specialized in running down his owners at feeding time, knocking children off his back on low-hanging branches, and baring his teeth. The hospitalization tally for his previous handlers was 12, until he was sent to Round Pen Randy; after ten minutes in said pen, he is now a totally broke horse, bowing to the crowd, and can put on his own splint boots (With R.P. Randy's trademark logo embossed on them) R.P.R. says, of all this, "Well, shucks ma'am, tweren't nuthin'! It's simple horsemanship. With this special twirly flickitatin' rope ($47.95 plus tax), you'll be round-pennin' like me in no time!"

THE ENDURANCE RIDER:
Wears Lycra tights in wild neon colors. The shinier the better, so the EMTs can find her body when her horse dumps her down a ravine. Wears hiking shoes of some sort, and T-shirts she got for paying $75 to complete another torturous ride. Her horse, Al Kamar Shazam, used to be called "you bastard" until he found an owner almost as hyper as he is. Shazam can spook at a blowing leaf, spin a 360, and not lose his big trot rhythm or give an inch to the horse behind him. Has learned to eat, drink, pee, and drop to his resting pulse rate on command. He has compiled 3,450 AERC miles; his rider compiled 3,445 (the missing five miles are the ones when he raced down the trail without his rider after performing his trademark 360.. Over-heard frequently: "Anyone have Advil?" "Anyone got some food? I think last year's Twinkies went bad." "For this pain I spend money?" "Shazam, you bastard-it's just a leaf" [thud]!

THE HUNTER RIDER:
Is slightly anorexic and trying her best to achieve the conformation of a 17-year-old male in case she ever has a clinic with George Morris. Field marks include greeny-beige breeches and a baseball cap when schooling or mud-colored coat and hardhat with dangling chinstrap when competing. Forks over about a grand a month to trainer for the privilege of letting him/her "tune" up the horse, which consists of drilling the beast until its going to put in five strides on a 60 foot line no matter WHAT she does. Sold the Thoroughbred (and a collection of lunging equipment, chambons, side reins) and bought a Warmblood. (Bought a ladder and a LONG set of spurs.) Talks a lot about the horse's success in Florida without exactly letting on that she herself has never been south of the Pennsylvania line.

THE DRESSAGE QUEEN:
Has her hair in an elegant ponytail and is wearing a visor and gold earrings sporting a breed logo. A $100 dollar custom jumper (also with breed logo) is worn over $300 dollar full-seat white breeches and custom Koenigs. Her horse, "Leistergeidelsprun dheim" ("Fleistergeidel" for short) is a 17.3-hand warmblood who was bred to be a Grand Prix horse. The Germans are still laughing hysterically, as he was bred to be a Grand Prix JUMPER, but since he couldn't get out of his own way, they sold him to an American. His rider fell in love with his lofty gaits, proud carriage, and tremendous athleticism. She admires mostly while lunging. She lunges him a lot, because she is not actually too keen to get up there and try to SIT that trot. When she rides, it's not for long, because (while he looks FINE to everyone else), she can tell that he is not as "through" and "supple" as he should be, and gets off to call the chiropractor/ massage therapist/psychic, all of which is expensive, but he WILL be shown, and shown right after he perfects (fill in the blank). The blank changes often enough that the rider can avoid the stress of being beaten at Training 1 by a Quarter Horse.

THE EVENTER:
Is bent over from carrying three saddles, three bridles, three bits, and three unrelated sets of clothing (four, if she is going to have to do a trot up at a 3-Day). The hunched defensive posture is reinforced by the anticipation of "a long one" a ditch and a wall, and from living in her back protector. Perpetually broke because she pays THREE coaches ( a Dressage Queen, a jumper rider, and her eventing guru, none of whom approve of the other) and pays trailers/stabling/ living expenses to go 600 miles to events that are spread out over 5 days. She is smugly convinced that Eventers are in fact the only people in the world who CAN ride (since Dressage Queen's don't jump, the H/J crowd is to afraid to go OUT of a ring, and the fox hunters - a related breed - don't have to deal with dressage judges). Hat cover on cross-country helmet is secured with a giant rubber band, so she can look like her idol, Phillip. Her horse, (who has previously been rejected as a race horse, a steeplechase horse -- got ruled off for jumping into the in field tailgating the crowd -- a jumper, a fox hunter, and a polo pony (no bit stops this thing) has two speeds: gallop and "no gallop" (also known as stop 'n' dump). Excels at over jumping into water, doing a head first "tuck and roll" maneuver and her horse exiting the complex (catch me if you can!) before his rider slogs out of the pond. Often stops to lick the Crisco off his legs before continuing gaily on to the merciless oxer jump just ahead. Owner often threatens to sell, but as he has flunked out of every other English-riding discipline, it will have to be to a barrel racer.

Tip of the day: KEEP A RIDING JOURNAL

Whether you are a trail rider, a weekly "lesson" participant, or a die-hard clinic auditor/participant you can get MORE out of your time, effort, and money spent by keeping a riding journal.
Now, hold on and don't sigh yet... I'm not recommending a "write everything that was said or learned" journal. Instead think of it more as something to highlight 3 focus points from your session.
Staying Neutral
Don't focus on the big or obvious things and don't write your opinion such as "I like that my horse..." Write your entries from a neutral perspective rather than an emotional one and jot just several focus points that you worked on with your horse. The sooner you can make your entry after your ride the more accurate it will be. "Life" can happen and even just a day or two later you'll forget a lot of what you had noticed during your last session with your horse.
What to write about
You may want to include: what, when and how you asked something of your horse. Then observe the level of his participation mentally, emotionally and physically to your communication. You'll find his physical participation will be a reflection of his mental end emotional availability towards you.
Why keep the journal?
Many times we think we "know" our horses, but all too often the little details escape us. Once you start to make it a point to raise your level of awareness when working with your horse, you'll find that you'll also start to "learn" a lot more about both yourself and your four legged partner.
Examples journal entries:

• How long into a session when working your horse either from the ground or when riding does it take for him to sigh, like his lips or blow his nose?

• Is he "patternized" and require a "routine warm up" or is he mentally available to address whatever you offer whenever you might present it?

• Does he "always" respond in the same manner when you ask a specific task of him?

• Evaluate yourself when you present one specific task for your horse. What did you learn about you? How, when, and why did you do what you did? What are other wise you might be able to communicate the same desired result using different aids?

Keep in mind
Health Wise- if you notice odd physical behavior (coughing, runny nose/eyes, soft stool, etc.) make a note of it. A lot of times it can help prevent or diagnose an on-coming health issue. Keep track of worming, vaccinations, shoeing, etc. and notice if there's a correspondence to a change in your horse's health.
Lameness- if you start to notice your horse becoming sore after a certain type of workout you might be able to "break down" what is causing this and prevent any long term damage.
Learning from YOU
Learn from the past- REVIEW past entries in your journal once month. You'll be amazed at how fast your level of awareness and sensitivity increases once you make a point of noticing the small details. You'll also be amazed at how much you "thought you knew" but then had forgotten as you advanced on. It's always a good idea to go back and review the basics no matter what level rider or horse you have.
Enjoy! Sam

Being HOPEFUL: The missing link in communication

Hopefulness. Waiting and Seeing. Reactive Riding. Taking the "try" and willingness out of your horse.
What do all of the above have in common? They are a domino effect that occurs in the riding world far too often. Let me explain.
Each of the following three scenarios is acts of "Hopefulness" by riders:
Have you ever experienced or witnessed someone riding down the trail and seen something "scary" before your horse did? What did you do? A common response is the rider will hold their breath as their horse gets closer to the scary item, sitting very still in the saddle, and perhaps asking their horse to look the opposite way from the item as they "snuck by." Then they waited, and were silently hoping their horse didn't have a melt down as they passed by. Afterwards they let out a "sigh of relief" that nothing dramatic had happened.
Or how about the horse who was inconsistent about his willingness to load in the trailer. After he was caught as he was walked to the trailer the handler is chanting in hushed tones under their breath a message of hope "that today the horse would load willingly and not have it turn into the 5 hour fiasco like it had last time."
What about as you watched (or experienced) someone approaching a jump, half way through their barrel pattern or was building a loop while waiting in the box, what was going through your head (or what appeared theirs based on their facial expression) before the horse was asked to perform? And then what was the reaction from the rider AFTER the round? "I wasn't sure what he was gonna do..." "Whew, glad that's over with..." "Well THAT was a little scary..." "I hope that doesn't happen again..."
Many equine enthusiasts talk about communication between horses and their owners. This in itself is a whole other topic for another entry. What I want to mention is what about the LACK of communication between the rider/handler and the horse. All too often I see horses that have been deemed a "bad" or "ill behaved" horse. When I actually watch the interaction between the rider/handler and the horse often I find myself staring at a horse with a totally blank expression or confused look on his face due to "silence" from his rider/handler.
Then when the horse starts showing signs of worry, concern, stress, or other dramatic behavior, because he doesn't know what is gong on, he is punished or reprimanded for it. Instead the rider/handler ought to be having a CONVERSATION with the horse. The horse needs to be told AHEAD of time what is going to be asked of him. All too often the person winds up being "hopeful" and then after the horse offers a physical action does the person address him. By now, it's too late. The rider is REACTING after the event. This is what I call REACTIVE RIDING.
When people sit down in that saddle their brain tends to focus solely on themself. Instead if they treated their horse like they were "on the same team" and told the horse what the PLAN was ahead of time, the horse would have a better chance of offering the desired response to the handler or rider. BUT in order to have a plan, one must be THINKING (again, another blog topic) AHEAD of time of what, how and when they will ask something of the horse.
People tend to HOPE their horse will figure out what is going to be asked of them without ever offering any physical, spatial or verbal communication. Then when the horse doesn't respond as the handler/rider had wanted, the horse is reprimanded but never shown what the desired response had been. So the horse continues to stumble mentally and emotional, therefore physically, due to his continual existence in the "gray" area when interacting with a human. Eventually the feeling that he "just can't get it right" overwhelms him and he mentally checks out. Once he's mentally gone, there's no chance he'll physically comply.
When a horse reaches this point, people term them as being "naughty," lazy," "disrespectful, 'bad," etc., when in fact this is not the case at all. After trying all of his "options" if there is no communication from the handler/rider, the horse eventually gives up trying to figure out what it is that the person is asking of them. This is how people take the "try" and CURIOSITY (again, another blog topic) out of their horse.
In summary, by being HOPEFUL you will end up WAITING AND SEEING how your horse is going to respond in the future. This means you are now RIDING REACTIVLY which causes your horse to be operating in the "gray" area which will eventually TAKE THE TRY out of him and cause much stress to both of you.
So the next time you head out to visit with your four legged friend, please keep this in mind:

IF YOU DON'T TELL YOUR HORSE CLEARLY AHEAD OF TIME DON'T EXPECT HIM TO BE ABLE TO READ YOUR MIND AND PERFORM AS DESIRED.
Until Next Time...Sam