Ive been struggling to get my head around why neurorigid black and white training is so popular. I think by thinking this through I've actually come to understand some things and so if you permit Ill lead you down the garden path of my mind...
If someone hypothetically were to train their horse consistently in a very black and white way, they would get a very neurorigid horse who would be able to respond without thinking to requests. This horse would be able to conserve mental energy. This horse would likely be able to respond rapidly without thinking even in a very high pressure environment, but would struggle with working out new things and listening to very quiet requests.
I think this would be a very practical training path to go down if someone needed a horse who could reliably go to war, or more likely, reliably haul around the country and go to a different 3 day show every weekend to pack a kid around the exact same show pattern in a very diverse range of loud chaotic environments. Not reccomending this path to anyone, just its helpful to me to understand the eptomlodgy here.
But since the horse won't be thinking - the trainer would need to be as precise and repetitive as possible. The trainers aid categories would need to be very small, and have very rigid borders. I imagine this as lots of little black boxes all over the horse, very small and precise.
Picturing little black boxes all over a horse makes me suspect thats why people get so up in arms about very precise, repetitive aids like exact placement of hand and foot and seatbone for every movement in many fields of dressage. Maybe thats why people have big arguments online about how to make each of the 50th million permutations of each rein aid or whatever. And maybe thats why you have all these different teachers who get angry if you want to cross pollinate with a different school of dressage - because it really could gasp confuse a horse.
Because maybe if someone wanted to train a very black and white, neurorigid horse who does the exact thing on the exact moment every time without thinking - maybe they would need their aids to be so dry and repetitive that their horse can do the thing in any situation any weather. And then that trainer would need to follow a defined system from the horses birth so they never confused the horse at all or make the horse think twice - the trainers aid categories would each need to be distinct and recognizable and the horse can do each one immediately without thinking or breathing or checking in with their body. Like programming a computer.
So when I try to visualize this - if I wanted to train a very neuroplastic horse who was allowed to think, have variability of response, encouraged to own the movements and stay in tune with their body - I would want to train them much more like what we were talking about in Homecoming with big broad aid categories whose edges overlap and fuzzy borders. Big watercolour splotches instead of hard ink borders.
Continuing my theories - So if neurorigidity means less learning and thinking, and learning and thinking take energy, then in theory neurorigidity requires less resources from a horse. This makes sense to me - a lot of black and white horse training is explictly just trying to make a shortcut so the horse responses off muscle memory without thinking.
Something I'd been turning over and over in my mind since moving away from escalating pressure and natural horsemanship was that I've occasionally seen horses who were in a very bad place physically, a very dysregulated place emotionally and a very inappropriate environment genuinely calm right down and settle when being worked by someone who was using a lot of force and pressure with a lot of precision and predictability. Not just shutdown, but find actual relief. On paper I thought it shouldn't work, but in practise it sometimes did. I don't know if it continues working, but I've certainly seen it offer short term relief.
If I look at this through the lens of learning taking resources, black and white being predictable and neurorigidity as a potential crutch, then I start to understand how some of this might work. Again, not recommending the technique, but it helps me to understand the eptomolodgy.
I was at a local horsey event recently and overheard a well meaning professional eventing rider explain to someone else where she thinks people go wrong with recently off the track throughbreds. "They need absolute consistency" she said. "If you can give them an routine and a ride which is completely predictable and never deviates, then they can come straight off the track and go out and event. But if you can't give them that structure they fall apart". I don't know the inner working of this ladies horsemanship but I suspect this is another instance of neurorigidity as a crutch for horses lack of 4 dimensionsal wellness *.
I guess this is why as well the horses who tend to do best with neuroplasticity are the ones who are very well in all of their life - they have enough in the tank body budget-wise etc to appreciate a more variable nuanced training style instead of being discombobulated by it.
I did have conversations about neurorigidity and black and white training with a very good dressage rider who is very involved with a particular behaviourism 'science based' horse training method. This was early in Homecoming, before I started to really think deeper about the aid categories and variability, and before we started to talk about assymetry and soundness.
I shared my concern with her that if we trained horses to obey us predictably and consistently their whole life, then that horse would continue to work for us even if they were lame or sick or sore. Even if the rider would never want to ride a sore horse, the horse might perform anyway - just because the horse would be very used to A=B doing the thing. I told her this thought strongly put me off wanting to train basic things with my horses. Interestingly that rider and trainer agreed with me and said she secretly shared many of the same fears around the effects of strict behaviourism accidently training horses to continue working even when it would be inappropriate for that horse.
Tangental anecdote - At about the same time I was trying to read a book on equine behaviourism recently which opened with the line "We strive for a horse... that goes whereever and whenever we desire". I then said aloud "Ew. No." and closed the book.
Worse anecdote - years ago I was having a dressage lesson on a lovely schoolmaster. Not my horse. Trained by a very accomplished grand prix rider from overseas. He was leaning a little on his right shoulder while trotting on the left rein. "Lift your right rein and ask for a little counterflexion to straighten him and rebalance the shoulders" came the instruction. I gently made the request. The gelding unhesitatingly, automatically, without thinking, complied. BANG. I felt a pop. He kept trotting, now uneven. I got off. He had strained his left check ligament.
Friends, I did not force him into that position. I did not hold him in that position. All I did was ask. But that gelding was so well trained, such a good boy, so used to doing exactly what he was told, that he let a stranger tell him how to hold his body even when he must have known that leg didnt feel right and suffered a nasty injury as a result.
One learning I could have taken from that lesson could have been "and so never try to influence a horses posture ever, even gently, because you will break their legs". And I think between that gelding and the fact that Sasha used to let me ride her (ride her! ride her! with a spine that looked like shattered icicles!) I did take the lesson for a time that I shouldn't try to have any influence over a horse.
But I have climbed down that rabbit hole, wallowed around in the apology soup and climbed back out again. And now I think I have a different lesson - neuroplasticity. Thinking horses. Horses in their bodies, owning their bodies.
For me, the implications on soundness alone are all the justification I would need to want to pursue neuroplastic rather than neurorigid horse training. I want my horse to be in tune with their body, to think before responding rather than run on autopilot. I want them to not let me onboard if they are feeling unwell. I want them to trot crooked to offload a bad tendon, or pickup the left canter if the right isn't available. I also want them to maintain this ability their whole lives - not to be girthy because they had ulcers one time a million years ago, or continue to go crooked in the half pass long after the abcess has healed or continue to spook in the same spot because they got a fright there 3 weeks back. I want them to evaluate their body, their situation, my aids etc etc all in that moment - and respond in a way which is considered of the situation at hand not the situation from the past.
I can see how the wider aid categories would encourage the horse to stay learning and thinking through their whole life. And accepting the variability of response would allow the horse to manage their own soundness and capacity. Then I wouldn't have to worry about accidently training the horse to feel they must perform for me extramaximally** and I genuinely wouldn't ever have to care what Grandmaster A or Grandmaster B said about the angle of my left seatbone in the half pass.
The last point about the angle of the seatbone in the half pass and the opinions of Grandmasters A B & C is particularly valuable to me personally. I had a lot of questions recently for a mentor at a clinic many of which essentially boiled down to variations on "I took the technique and I innovated on it in a bunch of different ways because I saw that would be a good idea in each instance. It worked great. Was that illegal/bad/wrong/sinful and/or evil?"
He basically replied "No its fine, go forth and be weird". This is of great value to me, someone who has frequently had innovative ideas, tried them on a couple horses then secreted them them away in a back pocket because they were not 'correct'. I am now actively practising not shutting down my creativity, and using my inspirations even without an authority figure giving me permission.
Anyhow reading this back I'm afraid I havent actually found anything particularly novel here. I think I've just taken a bunch of the stuff I've been previously taught and linked it together with many of my own experiences, and so developed a deeper understanding of maybe why some things work the way they work in different circumstances.
I have more thoughts on this subject but I don't want to make this post too long so I'm going to stop there :)
- I dont think its a stretch to guess an OTTB that goes directly from racing to competition with all the baggage implied is probably not feeling very well
** (extramaximally - a word I have made up which is the opposite of submaximally)