Why is it important to understand how horses learn?

This weeks Blog is written by Debbie Busby, Clinical Equine Behaviourist and is an interesting insight into the ways that horses learn and ways that we can help our horses to learn! Debbie is one of the guest experts in my Strength & Straightness Programme and is joining us live this month...details below! 

How do horses learn to do what we want them to do? We can understand this by exploring psychological learning theory....

Core strength and symmetry in your horses body and limbs are two of the most important considerations within training for our horses. And if you have been following me for a while, you will know these are topics I talk about a LOT!

And it's because I know how absolutely fundamental they are for our horses. 

If your horse isn't strong enough in their core, they are potentially not strong enough to carry a rider, as the core and back can't push up to carry the rider, and a negative spiral...

'Correct movement' is something that I talk about a lot, it's really important for our horses welfare, and to help prevent future injury and breakdown, that we learn what 'correct' movement is, how to develop correct movement, and the specific reasons we should focus on this with our horses. 

As an Equine Physiotherapist and Rehabilitation Specialist, with over 10 years experience of working exclusively with horses, one of the big pieces that I teach in my work is around horse...

Would you like to know some of my favourite 'go-to' exercises that I use with my own horse and clients horses, that I find the most effective for mobilising and switching on the important postural muscles in the horse body?! 

I have been working professionally with horses for over 10 years now, and have amassed massive amounts of knowledge and experience around horse movement and rehabilitation. And if you have followed me for a while, you will know that I love to share important...

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...

Did you know that your horse is either left or right handed? All horses are 'one sided', crooked, stiffer on one rein, whatever we want to call it...they are all crooked to one degree or another. And it affects the whole body unfortunately.

One sidedness is present in our horses bodies throughout their life, and it means that they can do movements in one direction better than the other. They prefer to take their weight on one hindlimb/diagonal pair more than the opposite hindlimb/diagonal...

Developing Correct Movement in the horse Part 9: Linking to ridden work

The final lesson in this series, is how all of the movement improvement work discussed so far in this series links to ridden work!

If we consider the horses natural state, we already know that horses are crooked in body, limbs and therefore their movement, and potentially have poor posture (gravitational pull is just one reason!). So already they have some significant disadvantages within exercise, and these are...

Developing Correct Movement Training Series Part 8: Developing symmetry in the horse 

Developing symmetry in the horses body and movement isn’t a quick or straight forward thing, it’s long term training work. If you’re continually coming back to the same point...your horse is crooked, struggling on one rein, can’t maintain straightness, struggling with certain movements...and none of this improves, then the issue is deeper in the body/limbs, and your current...

7. Developing bend  

I have talked about natural crookedness in some of the previous posts in this series, and the horses crookedness pattern links to bend too. Your horse will be able to bend more easily in one direction than the other, and this is part of their natural crookedness pattern affecting body and limbs. 

In the crooked horse, if they are heavy on the forehand, and their body and limbs puts them into bend in one direction and unable to bend in the opposite...