The Art of Not Getting Bucked Off
Training young horses, or backing young horses, or developing horses, or breaking young horses, or whatever you want to call it, is not like anything else you do in the equine industry. What you expect of young horses must be so different, the victories are so much smaller, and your patience has to stretch much longer. There are skills you must nurture if you want to be the first person to sit on a young horse’s back. It’s true that many of those skills overlap with the skills you need to ride any horse, but there are certain skills that are unique. The first of those skills is controlling your body's reaction to fear.
When I work with young horses, especially the horses that are on the extreme end of the spectrum, whether that be incredibly reactive or aggressive, I do have moments of trepidation. I am not immune to fear. I am braver, or stupider (depending on who you ask) than most, but I do not think I am invincible. That fact has forced me to learn to keep fear out of my body, and for the most part, out of my mind as well. By controlling how I experience fear, I keep the whole process of starting a young horse quiet and relaxed. The problem is fear, by its very nature, is meant to be communicated to our bodies. Its easy to be relaxed when everything is going to plan, but when something goes wrong, and with young horses, something always goes wrong, you must override your fight-or-flight response. You have to keep your breathing even, all your muscles relaxed, and your adrenaline in check, all while this 1,500 lb baby underneath you has a meltdown because, I don’t know, the wind blew, or a car drove by, or it just decided it was not interested in playing this game anymore. You can’t go limp at this moment, you have to keep riding and responding, but you cannot react out of fear.
It took time for me to develop this skill, and it slowly became easier as my instincts got better. Let me tell you, though, it was hardest with the first two babies I sat on. At the time I had no idea what was normal or abnormal baby behavior. I wasn’t sure if the tension I was feeing from the horse was just normal baby nerves, or if they were about to explode, and that led to a lot of uncertainty. I was lucky though, the first two I started were pretty kind and easy babies, (at least for the initial backing process) and that helped me start to get a feel. After a few years, I started to hone that feel. “Feel” is a word that gets thrown around in the equine world. To some, it is synonymous with talent, to others it means having “soft” hands, to others it’s an amorphous term for people who are good with horses. For me, “feel” is actually very specific. It’s true there is some instinct and intuition involved, but it is more than that. It is doing the right thing at the right moment in time. I quite literally feel the moment in a stride when I need to ask for a canter, I feel the moment in a bend when I need to give the rein, and I feel the moment in a tense situation when I need to relax my body so the horse doesn’t panic. “Feel” is knowing the exact moment something needs to happen, and seamlessly doing that thing.
Even after all of that, the truth about horses, but especially babies, is you cannot predict ahead of time how the starting process might go. No matter how much feel you might have, no matter how many times you have done this, horses will surprise you. In other words: horses will often make a liar out of you. I have started babies where it took six weeks to just walk off a lunge line, and even then, it was done with lots of hesitation. On the other hand, I have had horses that cantered around calmly the third time a human sat on their back. Sometimes I see it coming. Just based on their behavior on the ground, I can start to size up what this horse might be like. Most behaviors transfer, so if a horse is spooky and jumpy on the ground, it will be the same when it gets started under saddle. If it’s unflappable and steady on the ground, there is a good chance it will be the same under saddle. There are, however, some incredibly important exceptions to behaviors transferring. Horses that have been abused, given a very bad start in life, or had some other traumatic event(s), are very frequently wild cards in terms of their behavior. These horses can have reactions that are abnormal and unpredictable because they are often acting from a place of fear. Those horses need extra time for everything, and extra skill and patience too.
Every horse you come across is different, and there are surprises along the way that you have ride-out as they come. Depending on who you are, that is either the exciting or the terrifying part. In case it isn’t obvious to anyone reading this yet, I am obviously in the former group. I love this work, partially because I find it very challenging, and partially because I really love horses when they are at this formative stage. The work demands a level of mental discipline that is completely overlooked by those who have never done this. Every time I work with a young horse, I am forced to put my skills, my feel, my experience, and the control I have over my body to the test. That is what makes the results so rewarding.