They need to know the answer before you ask the question… and want to say yes!

A thoughtful horse trainer understands how horses think and prepares them thoroughly to be able to “know the answer before you ask the question”.

This was highlighted on my recent trip to Australia. There was a particularly good rider with a very nice horse who had never been able to do flying changes on him. I explained to her how a horse has to be able to move their front end separate from their back end, in essence rub their tummy while patting their head, to change leads correctly. I asked her to do a few simple exercises that help get a horse really good at that. For those of you that took Barb’s and my Lead Changing webinar a couple of months ago, you should be familiar with those! For those of you who missed it, it’s still available though it won’t be live but it’s all there (you can access it here: Unlocking Lead Changes). Anyway, I’ve always been a firm believer in educating my horses by teaching them how to move all their body parts the way they’ll need to to perform a maneuver.

Then, I teach them any corrections that I might use if they need some extra
reinforcement. All of this before I even think about asking for the maneuver.
This way they know how to “answer/respond” correctly to my cues before I ever ask. They are planning to say “yes”, because they already know how. They’re like a kid in school who is well prepared and when the teacher asks the question, can hardly wait to volunteer the answer.

This method has never failed me, and I really feel like it helps to develop a confident horse who always knows that no matter what is asked, there is a correct answer followed immediately by reward.

Back to my story though. We prepared this horse thoroughly with lateral moves, good lead departures, counter cantering, collection etc, then put it all together and presto! We had several pretty flawless lead changes! It was seamless, stress free and just old-fashion gimmick-free, good, schooling.

I encourage all of you to harken back to your school days and remember what it was like to be thoroughly prepared and confident vs full of dread and anxiety when you weren’t. Which way helped you learn better? Were those the teachers that you liked better and felt like they had your back and made you want to try harder for them? Me too! I believe horses are no different to us in that regard.

Please share your thoughts with me about this!