The language of horsemanship

Hola, entiendes Espanol?

I've been trying to learn Spanish on and off over the last few years. I have compared horsemanship to a language in the past but the process of learning a new language has made me think more about the analogy of horsemanship as a language. Horsemanship is a fairly unique language in the fact that it is the art of communication between two different species, humans and horses.

I'd like to give a shout out to Duolingo, I'm not sponsored by Duolingo and I don't know if it's the best online program for learning a new language but I like it and I've learned the bulk of my Spanish on it. I am learning a second language a bit later in life and didn't grow up with any Spanish influences so it's hard for me but in a way it's been good for my horsemanship as I think about how hard it must be for horses to learn to speak our language with fluency. When I see a horse struggling to come up with the right answer, I can sympathize as I've tried holding conversations with Spanish speakers and I find myself struggling to understand and make myself understood.

#1 Balance of understanding

Horsemanship is almost primarily body language made up of two parts; the horse's body language and the human's body language.

In my experience in learning Spanish, due to my lack of understanding of the language, I have found that the more English the person understands, the better the communication I can have with a Spanish speaking person. This would seem like a no-brainer, however, when it comes to horsemanship, people who don't have a good grasp of understanding horse's language don't always understand how important it is for the horse to be very “fluent” in the human language to fill in the gaps where the human lacks understanding. The greener the human, the better broke the horse needs to be and the same is true for the flip side, the more experienced the horseman, the greener the horse can be. Over the years, I have watched accomplished horsemen do things with green horses that I didn't know was possible and that was because the person was so good at filling in the gaps that they are able to get by quite well with horses that don't know that much.

For this reason, it is very important to remain objective about your level of experience when shopping for a horse.

#2 Fluency over time

Because I'm not fluent in Spanish, when speaking with someone in Spanish, the other person needs to speak slowly and clearly to me in order for me to comprehend anything at all. My recall is slow and not always accurate so I have to think a lot about what I'm trying to say.

With humans and horses alike, it is more effective to practice a little every day over a longer period of time as opposed to binge studying with too much time between lessons. Both horse and human brains can only absorb so much information at a time and information overload followed by too much time to forget will only result in the brain just dumping the information and not retaining it. Forgetting is a big part of learning and the more frequent the relearning happens, the better it will be retained in the long term memory. This is what trainers refer to as “muscle memory”, when practice takes place over a long period of time, the horses recall will be sharp and correct. Horses that haven't practised something frequently over a long enough period of time cannot retain the information very well long term and will need more time to think about what we're asking of them and will often give us the wrong answer.
I feel like it's actually fairly inconsiderate to send a horse to a trainer for a month or two and expect them to be “fluent”. For those who expect a lot out of a month or two, I suggest downloading the Duolingo app and taking a couple months of lessons in a foreign language, then go out into the real world and try to communicate solely in your newfound language. If you're like me, you'll be lucky to be able to ask for a glass of water or where the bathroom is all the while butchering the pronunciation. That is exactly what we're doing with our one to two month colt starting. As stated earlier, only those with enough experience to balance the understanding can fully benefit from a colt getting only a month or two.

#3 Younger brains learn quicker

Kids that grow up learning a second language seem to learn a lot easier than someone trying to learn a second as an adult. Horses are no different. Leaning begets learning, so horses that develop good learning habits young are easier to train and learn faster than horses that mature without much mental stimulation. The same can be true for people wanting to learn to ride as older adults without any experience as kids. It's still doable and very much a worthwhile venture but it may be a bit harder and take longer than someone who grew up around it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Till next time,

Dios te bendiga!
Jess