Giving your horse time to process

Whether handling, exercising, riding, rehabbing, whatever we are doing with our horses…giving them time to process is super important, and it’s easy to miss out if we are in a rush for example.

I spend time with horses on the ground a lot these days, in rehab as well as with my own horse in his in hand work that we do, and actually it’s a lot easier to work all of this out with them from the ground because we can see their facial expression, and sometimes even see the ‘penny drop’ moment that happens with new learning!

A lot of modern training methods and in particular the breaking-in/starting processes, are quite rushed, with steps like groundwork and long reining totally missed out, so horses can be rushed through their initial learning stages without any real time to process or understand what’s going on, before the next exercise or command comes in to them.

Because of my expertise in the rehabilitation process, I’m often looking for change within the way horses use their body, and looking to develop further levels of relaxation and organisation of the body, and this takes a slowing down for the horse, and processing time.

The way I like to teach new exercises/movements/way of moving to the horse, is to ask for the (movement/halt/bend etc) and once they have given it a little try, then give them a few seconds at least, just to process what they just did. So it’s just a pause before moving on…time for the brain and body to connect. Allowing space is how I feel it. If the horse rushes into the next step/movement/moves away etc, the processing moment can be missed.

So many times within rehab work, I see the horse have a real ‘working it out for themselves’ moment, I can literally see the brain working, then the body make the change - it’s amazing to witness!

Within the in hand work that I do with Azuro, my horse, because I give him the time to process, especially if we are working on something new, I can do a few repetitions, on a few consecutive days, and then give him a break for a few days, then come back to the new movement/exercise, and he will usually show me what he learnt and remembered…this is one of the parts of in hand work that got me hooked!! I’m not making him do it, he has learnt the exercise for himself because I gave him time to process his brain and body at each step!

So whatever you’re doing with your horse, it’s worth a try… slowing everything down, and giving your horse some space and time, it sometimes only takes a few seconds, to let them understand and process whatever is happening. It makes for a much clearer session and clearer communication between you too.

As always, if you would like to discuss this in more detail, or to find out how I can help you with rehab/training methods, please get in touch via the Contact page here on the site…Jenny x

AND if you’re ready to step into my training program, my membership details are here: Equine Training Membership