IMPORTANT: If you've not visited in a few days, scroll down past the entry with the link to the Hightide Blues video to the post labeled "What we're learning" and start there. Don't click on the videos in this entry until you've seen the one there and read the text. It's important that you get this all in order.
What's the goal when training a horse? I want a horse that's calm, responsive, and soft. Calm meaning that she doesn't freak out over the small stuff and the goal is not to freak out over the large stuff, too. By responsive, I want a horse that listens to my aids and isn't a couch with legs, barely moving along; a horse that moves off my leg and responds to weight shifts and breathing changes. A soft horse is flexible and moves easily when asked, doesn't hang on the rider's hands, is balanced. All of these make a horse a joy for the experienced rider.
Ok, now that you know what I want, how do I get it? Because a horse is a prey animal, their first instinct when faced with something scary is to run away. Even a couch with legs can give a surprising turn of speed when faced with something scary. Say a feedbag with rocks inside for weight and noise coming at them on the end of a rope? This is scary, especially if the horse is tied to a round pen.
Just like tying, the first few times India experienced the Very Scary Feedbag on a Rope flying at her, she was NOT tied to the round pen, but the rope was looped around the horizontal pole with a human on the other end. The human holding the rope was paying close attention to POTU, letting out rope as needed for India to escape, but not letting her get away. Also, if India threatened to rear and fall over backwards, the rope holder would keep her head from crashing into the ground. Was it scary. Heck yes! I was terrified that something bad would happen and there's no guarantee that it wouldn't, but, and this is a BIG but, we did everything we could to keep bad things from happening. The first time India had this done, it was done by Bob King http://www.cowboyschool.net/ and Jenny was the person on the other end of the leadline outside the round pen. Bob's done this more times than you can imagine and the benefits, what it could teach India, far outweighed the possibility that she would get hurt. He knew just how much pressure to put on India so that she learned something from this. What is she learning?
Just like tying, she's learning that she can move her feet and get away from the scary thing and not explode in blind panic. When she moves away, she's rewarded with the scary thing moving away, too. She's also getting used to the idea that weird stuff happens and it is not the end of the world. I want a horse whose philosophy is "No Big Deal Unless the Human Tells Me It Is." India's getting that world view and it's precisely because of these exercises.
Ok, here's the first video (not the first time we did this, but the first time I recorded it) and I warn you that about 8 seconds in, it's scary. India is freaked by the scary bag with rocks on the end of the rope. But before you get freaked out too, pay attention to what India does: She gets to the end of her rope and she keeps moving! She moves the other way. She does not get to the end of the rope and pull back or explode upward. She uses what Jenny has taught using the flag. This is good! It's scary to see, but I've seen the end of this video more times than you can count and let me spoil you for the end: It ends well!
Ok, I admit, that's scary to see. But it ended well. Take a deep breath. This video was taken over a month ago.
Now, watch this. A week later and look how well India does!
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