You Need The 'Try' To Get The Trust

What does it mean to have a horse with try?

What about putting the try back in a horse and why do you need the try to gain the trust from your horse..

Getting a try from a horse is really about the horses willingness to do something that might be against his own instincts when you ask him to.

For example crossing a tarp or going through a curtain or even loading into a box on wheels!

Often a horse loses its try.. this can be because the horse has not been communicated with or asked in a way where he has a choice so he becomes resigned and is often doing things due to force and pressure rather then trying for us from his own free will..

Or on the other hand he has learnt to ignore our requests and tune out..resulting in a horse that just quits and will no longer respond but stands his ground or resists whatever he is being asked to do.

Either way he no longer tries.

When he doesn’t choose to try we can no longer be proved to be trustworthy..

What do I mean..

Well if my horse chooses to put effort in and try something that may be against his natural instincts but he does so out of the respect he has developed for me and then discovers that the ‘thing’ whatever it was is not something to be wary of after all and is actually where he can find release and relaxation his trust is increased by miles.. but the try has to be there to start this process.

Sometimes it takes considerable contrast training to start a horse trying again.. but once the horse learns that his try will be observed and rewarded he will start to build a bigger and bigger try.

Rewarding a try can be a subtle as rewarding a thought.. a horse may not even move his feet but his expression and body language can still be rewarded..it can still be seen as a try..by rewarding the smallest of tries we start to create momentum towards a cascade of obvious tries.

By missing the tries and adding more pressure at the wrong time, we can literally kill the try.

Horses innately want to work with us not against us but we must become skilled at hunting for that try and then making sure we make it clear that we noticed it.

There is nothing better then feeling your horse choose to do something you ask rather then be forced. Conversations are what build relationships and the more you ask questions and wait for answers from your horse the better your relationship will be.

A horse with a big try = a horse that trusts in you and that’s worth the effort of learning how to reward the try and how to create one that has been lost.

Be Willing to See..

My horse can’t deal with that!’ ‘My horse is confused’ ‘My horse is opinionated ‘

These can be justifications for why your horse is stuck or troubled in certain areas or behaving in a disrespectful or dangerous way.

Justifications do not do your horse justice but addressing the obvious issues will.

The first thing we need to do if we want a braver horse is to believe in them-

What does this mean?-

Do I see my horse as a powerful, capable, intelligent creature or am I projecting my own insecurities and fears onto him and diminishing him or her in some way.

Having horses in your life is so empowering if you let it be, they will ask you to step up and be more for them and they show you clearly whether you are on track by the way they behave.

For example if your horse is threatening other horses while you are riding, that might not be because ‘She’s opinionated ‘ it could simply be bad manners in company based on either insecurity or aggression that you have not addressed-

if your horse shows resistance to the bit, is it really that he/she ‘can’t deal with it ‘ is it ‘I need another bit’ or I need ‘NO bit at all’ or could it be that the underlying resistance to pressure that your horse displays hasn’t been addressed in a way that allows your horse to feel comfortable and understand how to deal confidently with pressure in whatever form it takes.

If you get bucked off you can’t always blame the saddle fit.

How many of us have spent hundreds of dollars actually sometimes thousands on new saddles and guess what his ears are still back when we girth him up, he is still trying to bite us and we are still getting bucked off...

It can’t always be soft and fluffy when we are creating a brave horse and we can’t ‘make’ it that way either by letting our horse keep us quiet, we need to know how to be there for our horses as a real leader when it is smooth sailing and when it is not.

He needs us the most when he is troubled and avoiding those trouble spots only lets him down in the future.

Are we seeing the reality of what our horse truly is and the possibility of all they can be or are we holding them back because it’s more comfortable for us to keep repeating our comfy store of excuses and justifications for our horses troubles.

It takes courage but more importantly humility to seek the answers, but in the end for all of us it will become clear as our horse’s behaviour always reveals the truth no matter how we try to explain it away and it’s impossible to cover that up for long, especially when we actually have to ride and perform in front of others and can’t use a glossy still photo to hide behind.

Be willing to ‘see’ and let the real journey begin.

Teach them to think, not fear.

Your ground work has to be able to influence your riding!

Take your horses slow but be effective with them which means we are building their confidence all the time, we are wanting it to be their idea but also to be able to have some structure and some guidance and leadership along with that, where they don’t take over, so at the point where they get nervous or insecure that they will look for our leadership.

You want your horse to be sensitised with a thought process that’s linked to becoming relaxed -not desensitised to the point where they have given up in their thinking, their reaction, their awareness. It’s ok for them to be afraid they can learn not to overreact.

Foundation Training

Foundation training is all about rebuilding your horsemanship from the ground up. Digging down and exposing the weak areas, filling in the holes and sealing the cracks.

Building such a strong, unbreakable connection of leadership and trust between yourself and your horse that no external pressures can collapse it.

This involves real effort, strategy and dedication which is often who we would rather take shortcuts or avoid really examining our foundation... but for those of us that are willing to 'do the work', we experience rewards that far outweigh any discomfort we go through to succeed. These rewards are felt not only by us but most importantly by our horses.

Be willing to step back and re-examine your foundation so you can truly go forwards. Your foundation is the bridge you need to reach the next level. Foundation isn't anything, its everything!