Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Rewards and Punishment

This week's post will be a little bit about reward and punishment. Will this be the horse? or myself? I think I was rewarded highly as a person, trainer and a breeder by attending the Minnesota horse Expo and the Midwest Horse Fair.
 
 I was there representing the RMHA. I met a lot of really great people my horses got some really good exposure and I had a lot of fun overall. These two events were the first time my stallion and mares attended a show or expo! I am so very proud of them and the accomplishments of my horses. This can only build on itself and become even better.
 
 But what about this punishment.? I think that I've yet to see what kind of new training challenges await me after coming home and beginning to retrain my horses from the two large events. Horse showing is an interesting thing, horses often become untrained at your event! Have you ever thought about this? I've experienced it before and definitely will so again. That will be my punishment. 
 
A highly trained horse will never stay so highly trained if you take them horse shows. Should I explain? I think part of it is the stress that a rider undergoes (transfers to the horse) when you think about much much more than the task of handling a horse.
 
One becomes concerned about the pattern you're riding or the people who are watching or external stimulus -causes your mind to wander instead of paying attention to what the horses doing/feeling/being trained to do. So all-in-all the horse is allowed to behave a certain way and softening exercises may not have been completed or the feet are never moved around properly when energy comes up. 
 
Unfortunately, our mind was never truly in the training game because we're doing something else. Sometimes as riders we pull a little harder stay on the pattern or we ride a little stiff because we are nervous- then allow our core to fall apart. Sometimes horses will will never allow this kind of poor riding or careless rein management or leg management and I'll just buck you right off! Luckily for me, I ride my favorite intelligent and forgiving Rocky Mountain horse.
 
The stallion, Cotton, gets strong kudos for being forgiving.
 
So now I'll go into a few examples from real life from my weekend. The kind of hurdles that I think I'm going to have to overcome in the next few weeks riding my own horse come from what I've noticed in the behaviors that we're falling apart at the horse show.
 
Now yes I am a perfectionist maybe I'm not giving my horses enough credit but I believe there's always something more to strive for and I can always do better next time. Again, they did Fab...
 
Example number 1 : During the course of the two weekends, Cotton and his mares were stall bound which isn't a common thing at R Squared Ranch but that would be a reward for us we did very good, horses were patient most of the time. However Cotton was next to his mares the whole time and he became rather herd bound since it was a stressful environment away from home.

He was so pair-bonded that he would come up and energy whenever the mares were away from him. I never had a good chance to work his feet because there were always other horses in the arena so the next choice was to somehow I manage the energy he had by using maneuvers lower energy tactics. I found myself using more and more rein because I had nowhere to go in the pen.

And because I had nowhere to go my body became stiff at least if I had a place to move my horse completely forward and not run into other animals in the pen I would feel more relaxed and I know my stallion would too. AHH the frustration...


This comes to the second problem- desensitization to rein pressure the whole time I had been trying lower his energy... All the training prior was to soften my horses to my aids! I think he he may be slightly stiff and unresponsive to the rein now... maybe I'm being a drama queen but I want that horse soft as butter!

I am definitely an advocate of using as little as possible and using the legs or forward movement to help gain that horses respect for the rein.

 
Oh boy did I ever have stallion issues as well he has his own personal bubble and even though he wasn't calling and nickering every chance he got - I couldn't control every other horse near me and therefor on occasion- yes got me in trouble.... so embarrassingly my stallion kicked out.... his bubble was burst! Another case of I can't adequately discipline and apply that punishment for doing something that could be so dangerous ...now I have to show my horse that kicks NOT to do this behavior somehow... by mimicking the scenario over and over again? And rewarding carefully?

 Definitely not something I look forward to but when you own a stallion and you want to ride him there's a certain sense of trying to be safe for you and others around you, and carefully preparing him for the next big thing..

Stay tuned for Cotton Adventures....


It has been a lovely break for Rainy!!

Here are some pics for our Cotton adventures this month...