Continued from last week.
Purpose Play One – Circles
have your horse circle around you maintaining gait and direction
Once the mare has taught the foal the basic skills of survival, the job of further education is turned over to the rest of the herd. The foal will need to find its own place amongst the hierarchy of the closely-knit family unit. As we have discussed in previous articles, the safety of the entire herd relies heavily on the whole herd, to know and respect their leader and their own place within the herd. Dominance games will begin almost immediately for the foal, as he begins playing with the other youngsters in the group. Other mares will often remonstrate the youngsters if they get too rough or disrespectful and the foal soon learns to read the body language of the other herd members. If he doesn’t, or decides to test his metal, he will either figure out how to dominate others, or be on the receiving end of a ‘contact’ or ‘no contact yield’ himself … in the form of a look, a bite, kick etc.
As the alpha of the herd, the lead mare will have her eye on all family members. If one of them seems to be causing trouble or showing disrespect, she will push them out of the herd, leaving them feeling vulnerable and unprotected. The reprimanded horse will circle the herd looking for a wayback in, however the alpha mare will keep him out there until she feels that he has shown enough respect and asked permission to come back to the fold. She will look for signs like lowered head, softness of demeanour, mouthing or lip popping, an ear firmly fixed on the herd and politeness as he returns to the herd. Sometimes this process will take minutes, sometimes hours, even days.
Our first purpose play is to send our horse off and ask him to circle us until we are ready to ask him back in. We then disengage his hindquarter to shorten his flight response, further proving our alpha status to him. In Lesson 5, we learnt to stand our ground and pass the rope behind our backs while our horse maintained the circle at the gait and direction we asked. To our horse, the alpha is the one that controls the speed and direction of the other horses while doing very little herself.
Purpose Play Two – Sideways
send your horse sideways
About the only time that a horse will go sideways, is either when he is yielding someone else, or being yielded himself. When we ask our horses to go sideways, it can be seen then as a very dominant move on our behalf. If they recognize us as the alpha, they will go willingly and respectfully. If they still see us as a predator, they can feel extremely threatened and feel the need to protect themselves. This is why we have you do this task from section 1 in Level 1 and not move into section 3 / 4 until Level 2. Generally, by Level 2, our horses are seeing us as less of a threat and more of a partner, and are willing to try what we ask them to do.
For a horse to go sideways, he has to let go of his hindquarter, effectively turning the power over to you. How well he goes sideways will depend largely on how willing he is to give you control over him ... how much he trusts and respects you. As with backwards, which is also a very submissive thing for a horse to do, the better your horse goes sideways, the better he’ll do everything else. Recognizing the importance and meaning behind your horses effort to perform these tasks for you and rewarding him when he does, will go along way toward building trust and rapport between you.
Purpose Play Three – Flight Test
send your horse calmly through narrow confined places
If a mare perceives danger, she will often try to protect the foal by putting herself between it and the danger. To a horse, which relies on the ability to flee for survival, being caught in a narrow or confined place is a frightening experience, one which it will go to all extremes to escape from. All thoughts of comfort will evaporate if safety is non existent. Unless of course the protection is provided by mum!
Once again in the flight test, we put principle to purpose by applying our 3 Basic Skills to teach our horses to pass calmly between us and a narrow spot, whether this be between us and something, over or even under something. By sending our horses through flight tests, we are simulating what mum would do and she would only ever ask her foal to go somewhere that she felt to be safe and okay. This is why it is important for us to build our flight tests, starting with something small or simple and building progressively. If you ask your horse to go over a large jump for example and he still sees you as a bit of a predator, mentally and emotionally it may be too much of a stretch for him. More than likely he will just see you as even more of a predator for making him try it.
Getting your flight test so good that your horse will happily go wherever you ask him to go, is proof of your good leadership and of how your horse perceives you.
Hopefully now, having looked things from your horses perspective, you will have a greater understanding and appreciation for what you are asking of your horse. Getting good at these tasks and recognizing your horse’s slightest try will go along way in building his trust and respect for you as both his leader and partner.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.