06.05.07
leading is horse yielding to pressure
[From email conversation with HorseGal about problems leading Princess, when the mare rushes ahead and tries to pull away from her handler...]
Princess’ problem is that she’s never been made to understand that it’s not acceptable for her to act the way she has been and drag a person around. They don’t bother about finer points like that on the track. Our thoroughbred Moose, gotten a month off the track, started out high-headed and dragging poor Em AND me around like that but he learned better with training. We even had Moose with Joann (our trainer) for a couple of weeks. First thing he had to learn was to yield to poll pressure which the halter places on him, in other words lower his head when you pull down on the leadrope. (You may know that when the horse lowers his head he relaxes.)
Well to teach Moose this first step, Joann placed one hand on the leadrope and the other on the top of his neck behind his ears (his poll) and applied pressure. Similar to when I got Glendale to back up from flicking his leadline like you saw, his reward was for me to STOP flicking the rope as SOON as he showed the slightest indication of backing up. The timing is critical. Pressure, in whatever form it takes, is the signal to the horse to do something; RELEASE from that pressure or stopping that pressure tells him he has done the right thing.
So Joann’s method is to release the pressure on Moose’s poll as soon as he relaxed and gave in to it by lowering his head the slightest fraction of an inch. Then repeat. He was so tall she had to stand on a bucket to reach his high=headed poll. She started the pressure and he pushed against it, so she continued the pressure. Well he’s too strong to push his head down, so she had to continue the pressure till he untensed his neck.
She told me this herself– one HOUR after she started this, he FINALLY relaxed his head slightly and she released her hand! She said she was dying, her arms were killing her, but she knew, being the expert trainer that she is, that she couldn’t give in before he did or else he’d learn just the opposite of what she was teaching. She was in the barn doing this, I assume he was on crossties so he couldn’t back away to get out of the pressure.
The second time the lesson was presented, he relaxed sooner, and each time more quickly so very soon he had learned, but the first time was a killer. The next thing they did was make him lower his head before they turned him out, and probably before they fed him too. (Doing this before turnout enables the handler to remove the halter, or unfasten a chain, or whatever, safely.) Artie (Joann’s husband) said Moose got so that whenever he saw Artie walk towards him he would drop his nose down to the ground.
Another trick we did with Moose, once he got the head-yielding thing, is to carry a crop or dressage whip in your left hand while leading him and hold it across your body in front of his face or chest, wherever most effective. It is a visual barrier and cue to wave it in front of his face when he starts walking faster than you and getting ahead, or can be used to tap him lightly on the chest for the same reason. All intent is to teach him his neck is supposed to stay even with your shoulder, and also that his job is to stop as soon as you stop walking, Helpful with this is to face your body towards him each time you stop, and be sure your body is facing forward whenever you’re walking. You practice starts and stops over and over. You also teach him to back away from you when you step towards him, that might come later on.
PS. This sort of training should be done when the horse is NOT hungry ie. totally fixated on getting to grass, so she has a chance of learning something. ALL training is best done when the horse is satisfied and calm, not worried and distracted.
It’s the horse that needs the learning. Rather than forcing or intimidating or trying brute strength, you want the horse to respond and react to the SLIGHTEST amount of pressure possible and that is your ultimate goal. It’s more a matter of getting the horse to pay attention to YOU and be aware of people at all times, and you have to teach his MIND that by being smarter than him!
