LEADERSHIP Leadership is the most important thing you can offer your horse. Horses were born to follow a leader that can help a horse to stay safe and have some direction and harmony in the herd. Most problems we have with our horses simply comes from our own inability to communicate clearly with our horse and offer them some direction. leadership is important because we can use it to offer comfort to our horses whenever they find themselves in an uncomfortable situation like a new environment. For instance your horse comes off the float at a horse Show and is looking around for any potential dangers, this is a vital moment when your horse needs you to step up and be a leader and help him find security and if he doesnt find security , comfort and leadership with you ,he is going to have to look out for himself and that is when he will begin to get anxious and on edge looking for all the things that he needs to be cautious of. To be the leader starts with a game of WHO MOVES FIRST. Horses can only ever be a horse and only understand the langauge of the horse, so the best we can do is to interact with them in as close to their langauge as we can possibly get. So to establish leadership we need to prove to them that we can move them and we wont move. When horses meet for the first time they will test each other to see who is the most worthy to lead and each will put on their best intimidation show and the one that moves away will be the submissive horse and the one that stood its ground will be the leader. So to begin asserting yourself as the leader begins with lunging for respect and controlling your horses speed and direction. One of the biggest problems I see is that horses are moving their owners around and dragging them here , there and everywhere. These horses arent usually relaxed and calm but by showing them that you can move them around and offering them leadership ,you can watch them change into a relaxed ,willing and calm partner that follows you around on a loose lead rather then a reactive horse that you are holding tight under the chin doing your best to keep him under some sort of control. You can be the best rider in the world but if you cant get your horse using the thinking part of his brain and instead have him using the reactive part of his brain , you arent going to have a whole lot to work with. To get a horse thinking , you need to move his feet forwards, backwards, left and right. You need to preform exercises that get your horse focused on you. Focus is important because wherever your horses focus is, is where he is going to put his efforts. Focus on you the rider is going to stop him worrying about outside influences like a busy show. You want to give your horse things to do that keep his attention on you and letting him know that he neednt worry about all the things going on around him , just focus on you. Your horse will be alot calmer knowing that you will take care of everything. leadership builds trust, willingness and confidence. The more things you do with your horse the more he will happily go along with you without questioning the things you are asking him to do. Trust builds confidence in the horse and a confident horse gives a rider confidence as well. We ask our horses to do many unnatural things, we make them go over obstacles and through things that a horse will normally go around or avoid if it was upto them. It is a beautiful thing when a horse goes ahead and jumps an obstacle because he knows he can trust you and knows you wouldnt ask anything of him that would put him in harms way. However it is an ugly thing to watch a horse and rider that are not a partnership but rather have different ideas and something that could be elegant has now become an argument of desires. Being a good leader is also about knowing what your horse needs and not doing anything to break the trust and confidence of our horse. To often ambition gets in the way and we push our horses to hard , it maybe we increased the hieght of the jumps to quick before the horse got confident on smaller stuff or maybe we asked to much of him in the dressage arena before he had gotten confident doing loose rein work and now feels trapped and claustrophobic and unable to move out freely. We need respect without fear. Sure our horse needs to know that there is a consequence for not doing what we want , but he should never be scared of us. If you watch the dominant horse discipline another , the horse that was disciplined holds no grudge , he understands what he did wrong and excepts the consequences , he realizes he should have moved when he was asked and could have avoided the consequences of a kick or a bite. Being a good leader means being a good communicator, you cant punish a horse because he doesnt understand what it is you want him to do. If you put your legs on and ask your horse to go forward and he doesnt you would back it up with your dressage whip and your horse wont become scared or defensive because he understands that he did not do as you asked and knows he could have avoided it by preforming the requested task , however if you started to use the whip on him because you wanted him to do piaffe and you have never taught him how to , he is going to get scared , defensive and untrusting. Your horse needs to understand that it is his responsibility to search for an answer and if you destroy his confidence he will become defensive and scared to search for the correct answer for fear of getting it wrong and the negative consequences that will follow. A final thought on why leadership is so important to your horse and how much confidence he will get from it , is a word picture I heard a wonderful horseman Ian Leighton describe. If you were in an aeroplane that crashed in the wilderness that was baron with no apparent food or water and you were one of the survivors , you would be stressed and worried about your chances of survival. While you are worrying, another survivor steps up and introduces himself as Bear Grylls and he is a survival expert and knows how to find food and water in this God forsaken place and will be able to get you back to civilization. All of a sudden your spirits lift because of the leadership and hope Bear Grylls has offered you. This is how your horse feels in an unfamiliar environment, while it may seem hostile if you can give your horse leadership and have his focus , he is going to feel a whole lot better knowing he is with you and together you will make it. Always try to see things through your horses eyes from his point of view. Understanding your horse is going to give you the knowledge to be able to help him through whatever it is he is dealing with. Best wishes Mat The Horses View Horsemanship Nar Nar Goon 0401394479 thehorsesview@gmail
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 02:56:19 +0000
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