Getting them mentally with you

I’d like to share a few stories of experiences I’ve had over the years, some things I’ve picked up on through trial and error and other situations that some people have helped me through which influenced and helped shape my approach to horsemanship.
When I was a kid, I watched a guy at a ranch rodeo riding around bridleless. I never got to know the guy or had the opportunity to learn from him and I doubt he knows I exist but I remember being a little kid in the stands that was inspired by the possibility of being able to communicate with a horse bridleless.
When I was ten years old, my Dad helped me start my first pony which I rode for a few years. I enjoyed teaching him how to side pass and do rollbacks and eventually got him riding bridleless. Over the course of my teenage years, I trained a few horses to ride bridleless, some with greater control than others and each horse taught me something. I learned young that I couldn’t physically make a horse do anything and if it came down to an arm wrestling match, the horse has the advantage. I realized that I would have to not only clearly teach them their job but I also needed to develop the horses desire to get with me mentally. I learned that without a bridle, I had to make my idea become the horse’s idea. This is a lesson that I seem to have had to relearn several times.

Years ago I was taking some lessons from Kyle Shaw, he was helping with a stud horse that I was wanting to show. I was struggling with a few things and I felt like I had to hold him together in his spins and circles. I was trying to fix everything all at the same time and Kyle told me to start with the worst problem and fix just one thing at a time. He also kept telling me to make the horse more responsible by showing him what I wanted and then allow the horse to make the mistake before making a correction instead of trying to prevent him from making mistakes. I’m obviously not very smart because he’d tell me over and over but it went in one ear and out the other. I thought I understood what he was telling me, but for some reason, my desire for the horse to do things right prevented me from letting go and allow the horse to make mistakes and do things badly temporarily in the learning process. The worst problem I had with my stud was he wasn’t mentally with me, if I let go, he would fall apart. I was too busy trying to fix all the symptoms that he never found a place where there was no pressure and as a result, the root of the problem was never fixed.
I was doing the 60 day trainer challenges in those years. One day I pulled out my challenge colt to get Kyle’s opinion. I hadn’t gotten more that a few minutes into the ride when Kyle said something along the lines of “Jess, I wish you’d ride your stud the way you ride that colt.” I was planning on riding my challenge colt bridleless in the freestyle portion and was trying to prepare him for that. Subconsciously I was riding totally different knowing that I wanted to ride him without a bridle. That was a light bulb moment for me and I started to see progress right away. I realized that all the little things I was picking at were merely symptoms of the problem I was causing by bugging him and continuing to make him uncomfortable doing what I wanted. Horses don’t want to repeat something over and over that make them uncomfortable. Some horses go through life just doing whatever sucks the least for them because they are never offered a better deal when they are searching for the right answer so they give up trying. Anyone that has been around horses for any amount of time has learned at least the basic idea of pressure and relief. We’ve all heard some variation of the term “Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult” but one thing Kyle told me that has stood out in my mind ever since is that “ Horses know where pressure isn’t.”

Kyle Shaw on the far right was a big help with my reining.

I’ve had the privilege of spending a little time out west riding with Craig and Camille Reesor at their ranch and Craig has probably helped me with my horsemanship more than he even knows. I remember one of my trips out there, one of the horses I had along was a nice 2 year old that was coming along really nicely and he had a very good understanding of a lot of buttons already. I don’t remember exactly what we were doing but my colt wasn’t handling it as well as I expected. I found all my buttons had disappeared. It seemed odd to me at the time but Craig was riding a colt with less time and fewer buttons but his colt seemed like he was better prepared for the job. Craig gave me some pointers on getting my colt with me mentally by going with the colt and making that just uncomfortable enough that he starts searching to get with me then allowing the colt to find relief with me.  Pretty quick the colt wants to do whatever you want, at whatever speed you want. As Craig put it “the horse has no agenda of its own” because he learns there is no pressure when he gets with you. Once again, as soon as I got my colt with me mentally, the buttons I had on my colt at home came back.

Craig Reesor offering some advice in the banding pen.

I have seen this scenario play out time and time again with my own horses as well as other people and their horses. I’ve given lessons, done clinics and watched people having trouble with their steering, leads, collection and a whole range of other things. In some cases, the rider has worked on the symptoms for months to avail because the cause is not the steering, the softness of the horses face, the leads or the body control but the root of the problem is the horse would rather be somewhere else. Once the cause is addressed and the horse gets with the rider mentally, the other issues often seem to resolve themselves.

I hope this was helpful.
Till next time, God bless!