So a little difficulty that pops up (lets be honest, mostly online when we we judging other people) is that horses make a faid similar face when they are concentrating really hard on something challenging, and when they are in pain.
Thinking this through made me realize how easy pain vs contentration is with a horse who I know fairly well and see in all sorts of situations, and how hard it is to do with a horse I only see in a 10s clip.
- How do you tell the difference between pain & concentration?
I think some of if is context, like I'm going to be faster to assume pain if say, the horse is doing something hard while wearing a tightly fitted noseband, a harsh bit and is visibily leaning on the reins than if ths horse is making similar facial expressions while doing something equally difficult in less restrictive equipment.
And then its also a question of - does the face match the effort? I'm not too surprised if a horse makes a weird grimace for a moment while trying something new or really hard for them in training. But then if a horse is continuously grimacing standing in the yard with hay and a buddy I might be concerned.
I also think horses who are having a bad time I can sometimes see the horse trying to permanently keep their attention away from the task at hand - either moving inward or outward. But horses who are concentrating seem very focused at the task on hand.
And I think if I stop asking the horse to do the hard thing, praise them and put the reins on their neck - do they go all soft and happy or do they keep grimacing?
Finally do I see a trend of the horse offering bigger effort from a smaller ask over time? Or the reverse?
- How much effort/concentration is ethical to ask from a horse? How can you tell if they are building up or breaking down?
I think its lots of little things. Here are some examples - If they are growing in positive direction - getting more physically, emotionally, mentally developed.
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I've noticed with horses who are in pain it feels like groundhog day training the same thing over and over and never moving forward.
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If after some hard work and a rest the horse is keen to be caught, tacked up and come into the arena for the next session thats a pretty good sign.
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If the horse is well in the rest of their lives... easy to handle, curious about the world, happy in the paddock with their mates, playful when inspired etc etc thats a good sign.
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How do you challenge a horse appropriately and without force?
Ok, so I'm just speaking for me and my very small sample size as a amateur rider. So I'm working with horses I know well and I don't have any deadlines that arent self imposed.
But I'm continually surprised by how many horses will try really hard things from small polite requests, when I start by asking for little things and then build up step by step so everything is a little thing. So thats how I do it lol, I just ask nicely ;)
I feel like if I have to really get after a horse about something its probably not worth getting.
Trying to expand on this more - I figure I have a cap in my mind of horse much pressure I'll put on a horse - and thats both pressure in terms of PSI and also pressure in terms of how much I'm willing to stress them out. And that level of pressure is pretty fair below what it takes to force a horse to do something. So I'll ask horses for things, and then praise them lavishly, and as the horses powers grow they become more and more confident yhings that were harder become easy and I can ask for more and more while still staying under my pressure cap.
I also think a lot about asking a horse to try, and then rewarding them for trying, even if their attempt was kinda shitty I make a big fuss over them for giving it a go and then next time they try harder. I don't hold the horse in the difficult place, we just dip in and dip out. I got to a lot of effort to make horses feel clever and proud and that makes them be willing to put in lots of effort.
Sometimes I think about 'acceptance criteria' like 'ok, I asked a question, my horse answered, it wasn't what I was expecting but it met the acceptance criteria so yay ok wow fun'
I also think I find it helpful to try build challenge and precision and sustained effort seperately, rather than asking more challenge and precision and sustained effort at the same time.
I also think I can inspire horses to a lot of effort and challenge by how I order exercises and flow from one exercise to another - I do think horses get into flow states and if the exercise before prepared them for the exercise at hand then they will often challenge themselves more. I had a mentor tell me once that we get the horses "slooshing around" and then we just sloosh them between movements - and now I think about then when I ride sometimes (sloosh sloosh sloosh).
Finally I reckon there is like an infinite number of things I want to work on with my horse. So if I come out and shes really resistant to trying hard thing X today, we can try hard thing Y instead - and we still do really cool stuff and keep moving forward and develop capacity and resilence but flex it to how she is that day.