Our program is called PonyPros because we teach kids to develop horses. We are the “pony professionals.” In this video, you’ll see what an awesome job our students can do starting colts. For this year’s field trip to Mt. Dragon Pony Acres, we brought 8 students ages 9-15 and started colts and broodmares ages 3-11.

Sion is a 3 year old Section B Welsh. He was started by 11 year old Maddie during our 3 day field trip to the Evans breeding farm. Sion had never been ridden or ground trained other than the 3 days we were there last year. The Evans ponies are taught to stand tied as foals and get their feet trimmed but are otherwise unhandled. Sion and Maddie were able to do phenomenal things together. The footage in the video above was taken over our 3 day visit.

Last year, June 2010, PonyPros spent 3 days working with Sion as a 2 year old. At that time, 13 year old Elizabeth did ground work with him, had him carry a saddle, and sat on him. Then a year later, August 2011, Maddie, age 11, gave Sion a colt start, riding him bareback, then saddled. Maddie rode him at a walk, trot, and canter as you see in this video. Sion was handsome, loving, and playful. Maddie also rode Sion through water and trotted a small jump (we don’t jump 3 years olds, but it gave him an object to step over). Isn’t it great what nice ponies and kids can do with proper guidance?

Here is a video of Sion’s interactions last year as a 2 year old:

This field trip was a total experiment. Normally we have the kids do a ton of groundwork first but nowadays they’re pretty good riders and we wanted to see what ridden work we could accomplish. This year, we set the goal of having each kid trot a jump on their pony in full tack by the end of the 2.5 days. In part, we wanted to see if more traditional photos and video would better help the breeder find homes for her ponies in this tough market. In the past we’ve done footage with balls and tarps and bareback riding in more of a NH style.

To start the colts, what we did this year was basically go out there and ride them. We had the kids hop next to them, lay on them like a surf board, then turn them left/right and back up using the reins on the ground, tap lightly with a crop to teach a go forward cue, then hop on. All 8 kids were trotting their ponies by the end of the second 2 hour session. 3 of the 8 kids were cantering their ponies by the 3rd session – proof positive that a natural approach can be successful even when a traditional outcome is needed.

Q: (paraphrased) I have a rescue Arab mare, Cora, who often wears a sour face, which I think is really more of an apprehensive/serious face. She doesn’t seem to like a cowboy halter or bosal, so I tried using clicker to get her used to the “alter real” attachment on my rambo bitless. It took about 5 minutes, then I turned her out to graze for an hour. This session was our best yet – she seemed more engaged and happy – ears way more active, lips relaxed, lower eyelids more relaxed. Now I’m wondering, since bridling is a “big trick” for her, like laying down, do I always treat for it, or do I phase out the treats? Also, is treating her for ears forward too vague? I want her to loosen up and smile!

Koa seeing with her ears

A: I agree with you that a sour face is probably an apprehensive or serious face. A lot of the more sensitive breeds, Iberian breeds in particular, wear their ears partly back when they are focusing. Have you ever heard the expression, “Listen with your eyes?” It is a term used in Martial Arts to describe what horse people often call a “soft focus,” but I like “listen with your eyes,” and would add, “see with your ears,” because that’s what it feels like to me. Studies have shown that people “split” with their eyes and “lump” with their ears, but when I’m working with horses, I feel like the senses meld together. More sensitive horses tend to wear this expression of listening when they are really focused. Les’ mare, Koa, does it a lot. People ask us what’s with her ears all the time, but anyone who knows her knows that’s just who she is. She’s a sensitive gal.

Right now Cora might be feeling defensive because of her past handling, but you’re right on track with clicking her for smiling. I do that a lot. Because communication through facial expressions is so important to me, I tend to click for eye contact and a curious expression. Die-hard R+ people would probably tell you that what I do is too vague, but I think of it as capturing a behavior and also utilizing the click’s energizing power to change the mind state, and it works.

About the bridling – It’s been my experience also that you can teach bitting super quickly with clicker training. Here’s a vid of one of the EQxpressionists teaching bitting. Some horses do seem to be very sensitive on the bridge of their noses and I have wondered if in those situations a bit is more humane. It’s hard to say. The answer to the question about whether or not you’ll have to treat her for bitting indefinitely is whether or not the bit is a poisoned cue. A “poisoned cue” means that as soon as the bit comes out, what happens next makes her not want the bit in the first place. For example, picking up the reins is often a poisoned cue in riding. The horse learns that if she take the reins away from the rider, the rider can’t pull on her and make her go to work, so she learns to avoid letting the rider take up the reins. If Cora has such a sensitive mouth that after you put the bridle on, any kind of contact feels like pain to her, you’ll probably have to treat her indefinitely. But at that point, I would look at doing something even gentler, like a jumping hackamore with a fleece nose band, and see if maybe she really is just that sensitive. Of course she could have a tooth problem or an external factor like that, but I’ve known several healthy horses who seemed to experience a lot of discomfort from just a rope halter who did really well with a padded set up. (Here’s one of them – 3 year old rescue mare, had a really hard time when she lost her caps, too). I’ve also known healthy horses who seemed to react badly to things on their face as part of an underlying fear problem. You know how it is often very hard for children to let someone wash their hair in the tub? They startle and gasp sometimes when the water is poured over their heads. That is how some horses react to things on their nose – almost like they are drowning. In those situations, I spend a lot of time conditioning them to crave touch. They learn that a touch from me on the nose is comforting and reassuring, and eventually become my most reliable, devoted horses.

My guess is that Cora does not have the touch issues, but I will describe them just in case… I think your plan to teach her about head gear using clicker makes perfect sense and that clicking for a happy expression will have good results.

Heather, the mare who taught me about the importance of touch

From what I can tell, clicker training won’t help with conditioning a horse to crave touch. You can teach a horse to make rational choices regarding touch using clicker, but as far as teaching the to really seek contact, that’s something best done through attuned pressure and release training. I think that doing stretches with your horse and clicking for leaning into the stretch is one way clicker can make teaching about touch easier, but ultimately the way the click activates the brain will get in the way. For example, I have worked with a couple ponies by the same sire who are very odd about their faces – they react to touch like a child being doused in the bathtub. What I did with them was to round pen them at a slow jog and invite them in when their expression changed to one of relaxation. When they came in, if they had truly worked through some of their anxiety on the rail, then they would often want to be held. They would rest their heads in my arms and ask me to cuddle their faces, similar to what Temple Grandin describes with a squeeze chute. If they hadn’t worked through their anxiety, the slightest touch from me seemed electrifying. They would fling their heads and push on me. Sometimes you see anxious foals do this to their moms – they head butt them a bunch and nurse frantically. It is very hard to be around horses when they are like this. You have to be able to be with them and support them while they work through things but not let it rattle you. The only reason I can do it is that I’ve been through it enough times to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

This is a photo of a pony mare who can be a very bad head flinger. The first time she met me when she was a yearling, she asked to have her head cuddled. When I saw her again at 3 after some training, she was a different pony. We worked through the head-flinging, but that drowning type reaction is something she defaults to when she is nervous. Not a flattering photo, but you can see what I mean. Endo-tapping and CAT-H are other good tools for working with these horses who have a hard time with touch.

Bobbing and weaving

When I’m working on teaching a horse to be more playful (which I can do while they’re still working through touch issues, but may not do as vigorously) I use a lot of bobbing and weaving. Studies have shown that all species initiate locomotor play with a “play bow.” So, I do a play bow towards the horse, then run backwards, and click for smiling or athleticism. Running backwards allows the horse to take my space and creates a feeling of equality. Usually we start with cutting moves, then go to a little forward and back, then make the rope longer and add in sending out around and some changing directions, and some grapevine. Each time you add a new movement or more distance, the horse will lose some confidence, but it’s important to develop each movement as the name of the game is Locomotor Play. In locomotor play, animals practice the movements necessary for life or death situations in their species – prey animals run and buck, predators pounce and tumble.

It might be worth mentioning here that animals of different species can learn to play together, and part of that is made possible by the play bow, bobbing, and weaving being universal elements of play. I’ll post some of my favorite videos at the bottom. Arabs, I’ve noticed among the various breeds, can have a particularly time learning to play and learning tricks because they are so attuned to human body language and emotion. They are so careful that they don’t want to take their focus off of the human long enough to engage with a toy. They can have a little bit of a martyr outlook – “I will bear this ridiculousness to the best of my ability.” Chase the Tiger is my favorite confidence-building, play-drive building game and it would probably be a good one to try with her. Actually, there is an Icelandic Horse at our barn right now who has been my assistant’s project. After months, she is finally chasing the Tiger, standing on obstacles for fun, and playing with the ball and bean bag. It was a combination of endo-tapping and clicker that helped to get her calm enough that she could play with the toys. She is very emotional and has a tendency to bolt.

2 Interspecies Play Vids

Q: My horses can do quite impressive things using Natural Horsemanship and cookies, but I felt like something was missing. They weren’t really excited about playing and I didn’t want to use more pressure to up the ante. I’ve started introducing clicker and it’s making a big difference. Do you have any ideas for balancing pressure/release and click/treat?

A: We actually performed at a natural horsemanship event last May. For this event, I gave each of the 9 performers three cookies to use for the 1/2hr performance. The cookies were for big tricks like laying down, but the kids, only ages 8-13 with ponies ages 3-11, had no problem performing for that solid 30 minutes in front of 2000 people without really doing any clicking. However, at home there are days when we click our way through whole lessons. Our principle is straight forward: “Use the simplest method for the horse to understand.”

The biggest determinant in when we click versus use a rest reward is whether or not we want to activate or quiet the brain. Clicking gets horses really focused and motivated, but sometimes we want them to enter a migratory sort of brain state and just cruise. In those situations, clicking just complicates things. The main things we click for are canter departs, obstacles, stretches, sideways, back up, jumping, and tricks. Things we don’t click for are longeing, the cloverleaf pattern, figure 8′s, snakey bends, or head down/long and low type exercises.

The way we determine how the click or rest reward is affecting the horse is to pay careful attention to the horse’s facial expression, which is partly why we call ourselves EQxpressionists. Particularly when you are using CT, it is important to watch little things, not just gross motor signals like cocking a foot and yawning. For example, I can start to yoyo my horse through a gate and click when he looks back to size it up. In that situation, I am clicking the intent and that is very powerful. With NH, if the horse was looking at the gate and not at me, it might be hard to capture that. We do find it helpful to use a lot of “keep going signals” in our NH, like “good, nice, pretty,” etc. Once your horse has developed an auditory sensibility through clicker, KGS’s are really helpful. We are also careful to use tilting our head to the side to disengage the HQs as a marker in our NH.

The thing 2 things I think are most important to develop with clicker are:
1) The horse’s use of her eyes – you want to teach her to look at what you are
showing her, then to look back at you to communicate her feelings.
2) The horse’s willingness to try something, even if she can only do it with
baby steps.
…you can see how overall this is focus and motivation but it helps to break it down into more tangible actions.

The things I think are most important not to lose with clicker are:
1) The horse’s ability to enter a migratory state (basically to have a quiet
mind)
2) Your ability to communicate true appreciation to the horse and have it be
reinforcing
…If you use the treat to make it so you don’t have to really be there for your horse in situations where he really has to put himself on the line, you’ll miss out on some bonding experiences. There are some situations where clicking cheats you out of a powerful heart-to-heart connection.

Anyway, that’s what we do. Hope it helps!
Kali

Spring is just messy. It’s definitely hard on me. Fortunately after 3 years of acupuncture treatments, I at least have an understanding of why that is.

Aside from the fact that Mercury is retrograde for most of April and the fact that tomorrow is a full moon coming unusually close to the Earth, Spring is Liver season. The emotion associated with the Liver is anger, either at self or others, so we feel more irritable and agitated during Spring. Wind makes you extra Livery. We have a LOT of wind in Central Oregon in the Spring – many days with 20mph steady and 40mph gusts. I am a Spleen constitution, meaning that I am prone to excessive worry when there is Liver excess. So during Spring, I go out to barn in the wind, feel frustrated the whole day, and come home worrying. Then I wake up in the middle of the night feeling irritable and worrying about why I can’t get things right, while trying not to hear the wind carrying on outside my window. The Liver time of the night is 1-3am, so of course I wake up right about 2am.

The seasons don’t just affect people; they affect the ponies too. Ponies often act Livery in the Spring, pawing, shaking their heads, nipping, rushing, or having a case of the “I don’t want to’s”. When we’ve been hunkered down all winter, it’s hard to come out. Feeling pressured and taken advantage of, to the point of having emotional outbursts, is common this time of year when we are experiencing Liver constraint.

Physical symptoms of Liver constraint include poor circulation, rib pain, constipation, indigestion, redness in eyes, bloating, jaw tension, and shoulder tension. If during the winter you were perpetually anxious, felt ungrounded, had insomnia, and body aches, the Spring will be extra hard because your Kidneys didn’t get any down time. Even if you did get some down time over the winter, Spring can still be trying.

So can be done? At the barn, I wear two hats and a scarf, the hats to keep the wind out of my ears and a scarf to keep the wind off my neck. When we’re in the indoor, I turn the music up loud to drown out the sound of the wind. We do bombproofing exercises that desensitize the ponies’ ears and our own, and help us stay present. Then we move. Getting the Qi moving helps you feel less constrained. If you’re feeling frustrated and stagnant, you need to move. Sometimes you’ll feel cranky for the first 20-40 minutes that you move. Just keep at it. When you feel the clouds break you can stop.

When we can’t take the sound of the arena rattling any more, we go out on the trails and let the trees block the wind the best they can. Being in the trees is better than being in a wide open outdoor arena. During the first rides of the season, it is best to move like an animal coming out of hibernation. Move slowly but purposefully. Take in your environment. Spring is the season of “opening eyes.” Enjoy the sites and try to harmonize with the world around you.

Outside of work, there are many things I do to move with Spring. While it is important to avoid going outside when it is windy when possible, it is still important to reduce Liver stagnation by exercising. Yoga is an excellent option because the studio is warm and quiet, and the instructor coaches you right along in staying present. Thirty minutes walking or other low-impact movement every day is the bare minimum for staying healthy. I get that easily on days that I teach lessons, but on other days, I take my dogs out around the block and try to observe the coming of Spring – look at the flower beds, notice the tiny buds on the trees. Les and I also took up West Coast Swing dance lessons. It is very low-impact and gets me out of my head.

Most people need at least an hour and a half of elevated-heart-rate exercise at least three times per week. It is easy to get confused by stagnation and think you need to rest when really it is time to move. You have a 50/50 chance of guessing right, so try opting for movement! Not only does more vigorous exercise pump the lymph, which helps keep you from falling prey to colds and viruses, but it combats Liver constraint and gets the Qi moving. Yoga is especially good for getting the Qi moving throughout the body. Think of it as cleansing out all the musty junk that accumulated in your body during the winter.

It is also important to eat small meals and not eat too late at night. Bigger meals sit in your stomach and increase constraint. If you’re worrying a lot, steer clear of fried, starchy, or sugary foods, which are hard on the Spleen.

During Spring, I feel better when I try not to go against the wind but move with it, like the grass and the trees. Emerald Green is the color of Spring and of the Liver. I try to accept Spring stirring me into action and hang in there until Summer. I try to accept feeling like a little seed that must be prodded into growth. I start new activities and trust that everything will come together. When an outlet for Liver energy is found, negative feelings can be transformed into creativity, passion, and change.

We all bear a responsibility to help each other along, knowing that everyone else is probably feeling as groggy and frustrated as we are. The more we can work together to create a positive environment, the better it will serve us all. For example, Wednesday at our barn started off extra fun with Linnea teaching Lily to chase the ball, and inspiring us all to run and play. The rest of the day went well, too, with Maddie’s suggestion of playing “Follow the Leader,” and the kids joining in coming up with goofy ways to sit or lay on their ponies. If everyone can share just a little bit of creativity and imagination, the sum total will be something that has the power to trump the wind and the gray skies . One flower in an empty flower bed is just sad, but if we all perk up, we can make a bouquet.

PonyPros is not affiliated with 4H but we volunteered to give 3 presentations at 4H Idea Fair – Classical Dressage, Hunter/Jumpers, and Horse Agility & Trick Training. The kids were out of school Monday so we did a mini-camp where we worked on horse agility. We used a pattern that was designed by the International Horse Agility Club so the kids could prepare to enter online competitions. We did a lot of simulations for fun and to help the kids learn the course. Each of the less experienced girls was buddied with a more experienced girl who was there to help teach. That afternoon, we took a trail walk in the snow so the kids could work on migrating with the ponies. At the end, there is footage of the kids singing a song we made up. It’s a variation on “There were 5 in the bed and the little one said…” This is “There were 11 in the SHED and the little mare said…”

Q: Thanks, I have a feeling these exercises will really work! I am curious, though, how to get her to canter just when we are riding on the flat. I have jumped her a while back once over a 1ft vertical just to see if she’d do it and she cantered nicely out of it and went calmly back down to the trot after a few strides. But the real problems occur when I cue her for the canter on the flat. She just goes into her enormous trot then bolts. Or will all the jumping tips fix this?

Peanut and Maddie learning their leads naturally

A: The jumping will fix the canter depart problem. Bolting into the canter is actually a really common problem that generally comes from horses being rushed in their colt starts. People train them to canter from a trot by hucking into it and it is a habit most horses never lose. In our program, we take great care to keep our canter departs tidy from the very first day to avoid all those messy excess behaviors. We try to set the situation up so they canter because it is easy and natural – not because someone decided “it’s about time this horse learned to canter.” The two ways we teach our ponies to canter are landing after a jump or taking it on the trail. If you click it, the pony will, from that point on, recognize you cantering in your body as a cue for canter. We also condition the “smooch” for canter on the longe first so they are familiar with the idea.

So many trainers are taught, and teach, that there needs to be “aids” to get a horse into the canter – outside leg back, lift the inside hand, take a bend, blah blah – nope, the horse just needs to know what you want by recognizing the cue for it, then they can do the cantering part on their own Of course some horses won’t do it because it’s scary or too much work, but if you use clicker training they come around pretty quickly.

If you think about it, horses really only canter when they are emotional – either they are showing off or they are spooking. For that reason, when you train the canter, the hardest part is teaching them that they aren’t running from anything. Most horses are afraid of their own canters. Wrongly trained or inexperienced horses go up in gait following their emotion -  wtc = concerned, worried, freaking out!  If you can show them that the canter is just a movement, they can do it, but first you have to separate the emotion from the action.

When horses are taught sloppily, they develop “ritualistic behaviors” – or behaviors they think are a required part of the movement that aren’t. Cantering is often the best example because trainers really have a hard time teaching it. They either over-collect a horse and create a bucker, or they rush the horse and create a bolter. In the horse’s mind, the rider laid off the aids when he was taking a giant leap with a big tail swish and throwing himself forward with all his might, so that’s what he does every time you give the aids thereafter. The horse has no way of knowing you released the pressure simply because his feet went into a 3-beat motion. It’s only through the process of elimination that most horses eventually find out that the canter is this thing he does where he’s got the inside leg leading. If you think about it, that’s a lot of wrong answers to check off before he gets to an answer that keeps him out of trouble!

I doubt your mare will have any trouble with leads but the other 2 exercises that will help you out some would be walk departs and halfpass. These are pretty brainy and can cause a horse (and human) to over think things, so normally we don’t do much with them until we’ve already got a freestyle type canter going.

To do a walk depart, you stand halted, then using your rein, select the leg you want to walk off first. It’s probably easiest to start with a foreleg, but it depends on the horse. Practice until you and the horse can feel how the rein is connected to the leg and select for it reliably. Sometimes it helps to start out of a back up so you get the hang of where the feet are.

Halfpass is a great way to ask the horse to reach under so she is aligned to push off to go into the canter. To start working on it, all you have to do is practice pointing the hip. Pick an object and point the hip at it. Then pick a different object. We tell the kids to pretend there is a little leprechaun riding behind them who wants to see around their back. Then they pretend they are the leprechaun riding from the croup and give the aids to position the hips so they can get a better view. Whenever you ride halfpass, just concentrate on the hind-end. Use a little half halt to get the horse’s weight back, then get that hind-end offset from the shoulders using the aids that come naturally to you. The first time you really feel it, you will probably recognize the positioning as the shape your horse takes right before she does something difficult to ride

So basically, my first email explained how to separate the emotion from the action, which is a crucial first step. If you skip it, you’ll just get a different ritualistic behavior, like a semi-fast canter instead of a bolt, crooked body positioning, inverted frame, etc. This email should give you an idea of other ways to get the action and polish it out after your horse’s brain is on board. Hope that helps!

Here are the steps in bullet point format:

1) Separate the emotion from the action. Prove to her that you love calm. Teach her that athletic does not mean dramatic by rewarding zero-effort jumping at the trot on the ground. Train both sides evenly.
2) Teach her to land in a canter after a jump. Initially click and reward just one stride of canter. Build up to landing in a canter and maintaining the canter for one lap and taking the jump at a canter. Reward smooth, straight, calm. Don’t let it get messy.
3) Riding – walk and trot poles and small jumps. Click and rest-reward for relaxed, attentive, unemotional, verging on lazy.
4) Riding – Use a ground pole to cause her to jump round. Click for landing in a canter. Build duration one stride at a time. Continue to reward calm, straight, and smooth.
5) She should now recognize you cantering in your body as a cue for canter. If she is still confused, go back to the ground. Have her land in the canter after trotting in to a jump. Smooch to tell her to keep cantering and canter another lap over the jump. Build up to cantering 3 jumps on the longe in a row for one click/treat. Use the smooch to add energy.

Q: I need help with my Pony Dream! I have a mare I do Parelli with and I have owned her for about a year and a half. She is a Paso Fino/Arab X. She has all normal horse gaits; no pacing! She is about 17 and 14hh. I ride her almost every day and sometimes ride her bareback sometimes tacked up (mostly bareback! ). I have changed her from a full cheek slow twist snaffle to a broken kimberwick with a loose chain. She now almost constantly rides on a soft feel and everyday our leg yields and such get better! She is so much happier and relaxed and even her back pain went away once she learned how to use her body correctly.

So I bet you are wondering what our problem is! lol I haven’t cantered her under saddle in a while because, when I ask for the canter, she bolts off and runs like a wild mustang! She doesn’t buck, but she just runs and runs and won’t stop for a while. When I give her the signal to go, she goes into this HUGE trot then leaps into the canter! I don’t want to play tug of war with her and I don’t want her to transition like this or run like this. Now after a while of me pulling and trying to get her to slow down, she will slow down, but once I give her a loose rein as a reward, she takes advantage and starts running again. Her transitions at the walk and trot are lovely and smooth, but when it comes to cantering, all hell breaks loose… :/ Even on the lunge, her canter transitions are the same… she does calm down a lot sooner on the lunge though.

Oh and I want to teach her to jump but I don”t want to even start on that until we get our cantering down pat! And I am an experienced rider and don’t grip or anything when she does bolt off. Normally I’ll just go up into my 2-point or half seat and and half halt until she calms down some.

Cinnamon learning to cruise as part of his colt start

A: Nice to hear your story. I rode a pony that bolted with me almost every day from age 9-12 growing up so I can relate! It is good that you want to teach you mare to jump because the solution is right there – it’s got to be at least somewhat the transition into the canter that scares her, so landing in a canter from a jump could turn things around.

What I would do is practice having her longe/squeeze over small jumps and click and treat her for doing it slow and smooth. The slower and smoother the better! She should put out zero effort. Do your part to make sure that each step is so easy for her that she feels like a huge success.

It is important that you change directions almost every pass so she has to stop and think each time she goes over the jump. You definitely do not want her to circle over the jump more than 3 times in a row as that creates balance problems and her brain will start acting like a hamster in a wheel. You’ll know it’s going well when she can send out smoothly, squeeze over the jump, turn-face-wait, then squeeze back over it for a click and treat. They key to good longeing is to hold the rope like you hold your reins – have light contact and steer just like you would under saddle. It should be like you are riding her from the ground. A good policy is to longe your horse like there is someone on her back!

As soon as your mare has mastered little 6″ jumps, raise the height, but do it so gradually she never gets stressed. Keep it suuuuuper tidy. It shouldn’t take her more than 3 times over a new height to be earning a click and treat consistently every time after that.  One click = about a quarter to a nickel sized amount of grain. For your treats, give yourself 1 cup of grain to use per 30 minutes. That’s how you’ll know your reinforcement schedule is on track.

After your mare can jump a jump and stop immediately on the other side when she hears your click, you can begin adding distractions. Anything extra is a distraction – the height, the spread, the number of laps, even her saddle or bridle. Try putting a tarp on her back, or in the take-off or landing area of the  jump. You can also tie plastic bags to the jump or, if you really work up to it, to her mane or legs. If your mare has ever been jumped before, your job will be a lot harder because she may have already learned to rush jumps. Hopefully she hasn’t! This approach will still work even if she has bad memories of jumping, but you’ll just have to start with something easier, like simply longeing between a barrel and the rail, over a tarp, or between two empty jump standards.

After you feel like she’s 100% confident jumping at a trot, you will simply make the jump big enough that it is natural for her to land in a canter. When she does, you will immediately look at her hind end to disengage her and simultaneously click! If you take super small baby steps, which I would recommend, she should be able to jump at least 18″ at a trot before you set it up for her to land in a canter. Our 12-14h ponies can jump 2’6 barrels from a walk/trot and easily land at a walk/trot. To get them to canter afterwards, I have to take a bigger trot in and run with them after the jump, so after proper desensitization, you can make the jump pretty big before a canter happens.

To get her to actually land in the canter so you can reward it, you will want to add a ground pole to cause her to jump round. Jumping round naturally induces a canter. To get a really round, scopey jump, you set the ground pole to make an equilateral triangle so the take off point is the same distance from the base of the jump as the jump is tall. In other words, if the jump is 12″ tall, set the ground pole 9″ from the base of the jump (because the ground pole should be about 3″ wide). However, since your mare is a little hot, I would suggest starting with the ground pole a little closer to the base of the jump, like maybe only 6″ out. If she really gets lazy on you (not likely with her breeding!), then you can put a ground pole both on the take off and on the landing, setting both ground poles as far out as would make an equilateral triangle.

After your mare can land in the canter and stop immediately when she hears your click, start building a little duration. Have her canter for a few strides after, then click. Eventually, she’ll be able to canter around the circle, jump the jump at a canter, then get her treat. Make sure you train both directions evenly!

One more thing I just thought of – if your horse is not really clicker savvy, she would catch on quicker while riding. If she is super responsive to a click, teach from the ground first. If she doesn’t really orient to the sound of a click, then teach it with some basic riding and go back to the ground after she really stops when she hears the click.

With riding, what you’ll do is walk over a pole, click when it is right underneath her, and deliver the treat as soon as she stops. Walk back and forth over it until she tries to stop straddling it! Next walk over a 6″ jump and click her for just walking over it. Then trot a pole and click her as she is going over it so she stops immediately after. Change directions almost every time, or set up multiple poles in your arena so she isn’t circling over one jump. Most horses speed up more for a pole than for a 9″ little crossrail so don’t stay on the pole for long – move to a jump maybe even the same day you try the pole, or maybe the second day. You should be able to click immediately while going over the jump the very first time you trot at it and have her be so with you that she stops immediately for her treat.

If you can get her brain calm and focused on you, landing in a canter should happen naturally when you take enough speed into the jump and get enough height. The key is to make it so that she is so calm and loose that she just flows right into it and neither of you feels any anticipation.

Most bolters do much, much better in halter, bosal, or jumping hackamore than with a bit. I would consider riding her some in a halter and feeling things out. If you have got a good one-rein stop, you should be able to stop a horse at least as well, if not better, in a halter than in a bit. It may sound crazy, but it has been true for me. Bits tend to make horses reactionary.

If you have never jumped before, you’ll need to know about two-point and a crest-release. Just email me back if you’re not familiar with those ideas as they are essential.

Kali

*  Equine riding and training are hazardous activities, which may cause serious injury or death to you, your horse, spectators, or other participants. Kali Vanagas, PonyPros, and their associates will not assume any liability for your activities. This document provides general information, instruction, and techniques that may not be suitable for everyone. No warranty is given regarding the suitability of this information, the instructions, and techniques to you or other individuals acting under your instructions.

Q: I need some suggestions on what training technique(s) I can use on a mini mare that has a rearing problem in and out of harness.  I just recently acquired this 8 yrs old mare and until she came to me, had never had to do anything but look cute.  I welcome all suggestions and advice.

Sam, trained to rear on cue as a strength-building exercise

A: Rearing tends to be a reaction to feeling claustrophobic. Most horses are trying to jump up and over a perceived problem because they don’t feel like they can run through it or kick their way out of it (often the more common responses). Horses can feel physically, mentally, and environmentally claustrophobic….

Being physically claustrophobic comes from tension in the body. A horse who has a “hitch in her giddy up” might rear because her back, hip or poll might be out, and the result is that she feels like she can’t move. When she tries to go forward, she feels that snag and tries to lurch upwards to get past it.

Mental claustrophobia is basically feeling out of control. The pony doesn’t see enough baby steps in the process and turns to fight or flight. It’s like a person who goes to jump out of a building that is on fire and doesn’t even see the fire escape ladder because she’s so upset about the flames. The brain is so overwhelmed that it can’t think, process, or learn. Instincts take over because the task seems too big.

Environmental claustrophobia comes from feeling like “the walls are bearing down on you.” We’ve all heard the stories about a trainer who changes a barrel racer’s bit right before she goes into the ring, and the horse flips over backwards when the rider asks her mount to wait. Even what seems like a subtle change in tack to us can be very dramatic to a horse. If the animal feels confined by the narrowness of the space, be it a stall, a trailer, standing tied, or just wearing a blanket, the animal may become very fearful. If even one direction of escape is limited, a horse will be on alert. If there is a tarp under foot, a low barrier above, even a fence 30 feet behind her, the horse will keep trying to position itself to feel less claustrophobic. If the horse really feels trapped, the horse will go up and over whatever the problem is.

Rearing is usually accompanied by two other behaviors – pulling back when tied and balking when asked to go forward. The underlying problem is that any kind of pressure makes the horse feel claustrophobic. You give a cue and the horse thinks, “Ack!” The aid doesn’t get processed in the brain, the brain just squawks in surprise like it was poked.

There are 2 kinds of pressure that we use with horses – to and from, or pulling and pushing. A horse needs to know how to follow contact from your hands and move away from your legs. On the ground, even if you’re doing showmanship and just using a halter, the horse needs to know how to lead forward or back up off of pressure on the halter, which are pulling and pushing, to and from.

So, in order to address the rearing problem, you don’t even really need to know why she is doing it. (Although I can tell you that the underlying problem with rearing is claustrophobia of some kind). To fix rearing, get your hindquarter yields really good, teach the horse to lead by the forelegs, teach the horse to tuck her nose when asked to back, teach the horse to lead right into a trot off a gentle pull on the halter, teach the horse to go right into a trot of a cluck-cluck ground driving, and teach the horse to lower her nose to the ground from a gentle downward pull on the lead rope. If she can do all that, you’ll have gotten at the underlying problems and confusion.

Another exercise to do is wrap a soft longeline around a hitching post a few times and do something spooky. If you let the rope slide a little, the horse should learn that she can ask for more space when she feels trapped – she doesn’t need to go up. Practice until the horse doesn’t so much as fling her head during the de-spooking, because she knows how to work with the rope without becoming reactionary.

Many minis are so stoic by nature. They are very quiet, and when they get nervous, they just suck it up and soldier on. Next thing you know, they are having a meltdown and you don’t know what caused it. They can be hard to read because they are such little troopers. I would be very surprised if your mini had any kind of attitude problem but not at all surprised if it was hidden fear. If you want to confirm this, check for tension in her lips, ears, flank, and tail – those are the places extroverted horses keep their tension. The little troopers keep it in their belly muscles. Just feel her belly with your fingers and if you feel slick skin over really tight abdominals, that’s how you have a kind-hearted little soldier who just doesn’t know what’s going on and is afraid.

Lastly, spend some time playing “get together” with your little one in the round pen. Send her around at a jog and watch her expressions closely. As she starts to relax, call her in to you, so you are rewarding the calm mental state. Most of the “little trooper” types will be hesitant to come back in. They might turn and face but be too conservative to come all the way up. You can use a longeline or shake a little bag of treats and give her one when she approaches. Give her lots of love when she comes in, and send her back out when she gets distracted. Repeat until she can cruise around the round pen at a trot, calm, straight, smooth, and focused on you, and come back in happy to be with you and mannerly.

After you’ve got those things going really well, it shouldn’t be an issue any more. If you come to think the rearing is a true naughtiness problem, I have heard that a swift spank on the croup should bring a horse down from a rear, but that’s only in the moment – you want to fix the root problem or you’ll just get an alternate bad behavior after you punish the rearing. I have worked with several horses and ponies who rear and my experience has been that if you do your prep-work right and keep a tidy practice during your training, the pony should have no reason to go to such extraordinary lengths. Rearing starts out as a last resort behavior for most horses. It can become a default behavior, but only if not properly addressed.

Good luck
Kali

Q: What do you do with your coming 2 year olds?

A: The best thing to do with a young one, I’ve found, is to have a “tidy practice”. Bring them out and stay with them until you have the mental and emotional state that you want. If you get them out once every 2 weeks and you take a 1-3 hour walk where all you do is show them what calm feels like, you’ll have a dream pony in a few months. 1-3 hours every 2 weeks is at least as good, if not better, than an hour every day. If you’re one of those people who really does work with your colts 15 minutes 4 times a day, that’s great, but ONLY if you have the opportunity to get your colt out AND stay with him until you have the right mental state. The thing is, the mental state is the important part, not the training, because a calm, people-oriented, healthy horse has the presence of mind to learn so easily he can learn a new skill in an instant.

The opposite would be a horse who has skill but it’s messy with “ritualistic behaviors” – behaviors the horse learns to think are part of a skill because he learned the skill without “calm.” For example, horses who put their head down and really “huck” to take the canter with a saddle on, but don’t do that at all in the pasture. Hucking is just something they thought was part of what the trainer wanted because the trainer didn’t have a “tidy practice” while teaching the canter.

A lot of people make their youngstock kind of jittery because they get them out, teach them something, and put them away. Soon, every time the colt sees you coming, he starts anticipating the exhilaration of learning. Some of them become “learning high junkies”, where they threaten to make their own fun if you don’t keep them entertained. Others become worriers because they’re always on a little bit shaky ground with what they know but try to keep it together. Still others become “ritualistically hot” because people move on so quickly the colt learns he’s got to be really “on” or else the hour is going to go really badly.

The number one thing we do with our youngstock is just take them on walks. The exercises we do include everything you need for the vet/farrier (pivots, back up, sidepass, jog in hand), “travel together” (our version of longeing where you walk while the pony trots, focusing on long, straight lines, often with obstacles), “get together” (our version of calm “join up” at liberty), and “migrating” together (just walking in hand and seeing the sites). We start out with just a halter, then add a bareback pad, then have them carry a saddle, and do everything bitless. My belief is that a human doesn’t deserve to use a bit until they can’t imagine why they would need one. The key is to think of the exercises and tack as distractors – deliberate distractions you set up so you can “proof” for them. The focus should be on training a balanced mental and emotional state, which makes physical balance possible.

My favorite colts have been ones that I took this “school of balance” approach with right up through their first year and a half carrying a rider. I didn’t worry at all about what they knew, just let that evolve naturally. I kept them in the right mental/emotional state by doing as little as just migrating with them, hand walking for 3 hours, or as much as really getting going to music as they got older. The key, again, was to have them mentally and emotionally balanced, which makes physical balance possible. As soon as you have “whole balance”, you have your dream horse.

PS All the words and phrases in quotation marks are part of a new vocabulary I’m developing to talk about what we do. The vocab is unique to PonyPros. I’m super stoked to have words for some of these ideas!