Episode 338.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Whenever you start making things more subtle and more layered and more nuanced, there is more complexity. But that complexity is the same thing that allows you to have more success.
Speaker2:
Podcasting from a Little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy’s goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Speaker1:
Hi, I’m Stacy Westfall and I’m here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your horses. Amber and I just completed our first off property trail ride. For me, this is a goal that I had last year. That feels like it was a long time coming because I really hoped to have it completed last fall, but I chose not to. And I talk about that in some past podcasts. So let’s focus on today. This ride was so successful, and there were a few moments on it that really stood out to me that I thought would be valuable to share with you. The first one that comes to mind is the fact that I’m walking right now. I am dismounted and leading Amber back from the trailhead, and this is just evidence of my abundance of caution when I am riding. I actually rode Enzo and Luna out here earlier and both of them. I ended up dismounting because there were these whatever UTV things that were zipping around the roads, and I wasn’t sure how the horses were going to respond. And because I’ve got shoes on the horses and I’m on pavement, I wanted to be dismounted, so I did. So one more plug for normalizing dismounting horses on the trail ride before anything becomes a problem. Another thing that really stood out to me about this ride was just how similar Amber felt out here to all the work that I’ve done in the arena.
Speaker1:
And that’s a big deal to me because I want to know how transferable the different skill sets are. And then it’s funny to me to see how she interprets the influences that are outside of my control. Let’s say the terrain. So, for example, she was really good with her footwork, stepping over her stones or roots or things like that, but she was very funny in the fact that if there’s a long, sloping downhill, she wants to naturally just gain speed. And it reminds me of when I was a kid, and I would see a long, sloping hill in a field, and I wanted to run down it because it sounded really fun. But have you ever tried that? You may remember that there’s a certain speed where when your legs get going, you’re really likely to wipe out. So I think it’s just funny to me that a lot of younger horses that don’t have hill experience tend to have that roll on with it kind of feeling when you first ride them. So you’ve got to train them to slow themselves down and then when they can actually balance. I’m actually fine with riding different speeds on downhill, but not with the inexperienced horse. But those are still not the moment that I actually wanted to pick up the phone and start recording. The moment that I really felt the urge to tell you about happened when I was out on the trail, crossing over some mud.
Speaker1:
Now, technically there was a trickle of water running through it, but it was more like a mud puddle than a stream where some water runoff was just crossing the trail, and other horses had gone through it. So it was a little bit chewed up. And as we approached it, it was the first time that she really offered to slow down and hesitate to cross something. And there was a particular moment where, as I was riding her through it, I thought, this is the exact moment right here when people accidentally teach horses to jump over mud. That’s not to say that horses won’t just offer it, but when I watch people ride, and when I ride horses that have been handled this way, your odds go way higher, like 80% higher if you do this one thing. So the moment came about as I was riding up to the mud and she slowed down to hesitate and look. And I let my horses slow down and hesitate and look. And then when I asked them to move forward, I use my legs gently and as they step forward, I soften and I let them hesitate again. So I’m very open to the idea of a step by step sort of a approach to crossing over things.
Speaker1:
I use this at home when I’m doing obstacles, or I use this in lots of different situations. But in this particular moment, what I want you to think about is when you’re crossing over water and that horse has that hesitation, and you’re asking them to move forward, and they feel like a coiled spring. And as they’re tiptoeing forward and you feel that coiled spring, especially if the mud or the water is not very wide. I see a lot of riders who are very tempted to say, okay, they’re going to go, let’s go and step on the gas pedal at that moment. And what basically happens is the horse is all coiled up and may have been willing to take a tiny step forward, or because they’re all coiled up and you can feel that willingness to consider going across. If you get graspy at that moment and you think go, you will be the one that causes the leap to happen because the horse is already like a loaded spring. Now, as I tell you this, it’s 100% true, and it feels like only half of the story because I believe the reason why I could feel Ember all balled up, and I could feel the moment where if I had surprised her, she would have jumped over it. But instead I used my legs and softened, use my legs and softened. And I think the reason it worked is because of the way she’s been educated to my rein, and leg aids in the arena.
Speaker1:
Many, many times I talk about the idea of elementary school, high school and college. When I talk about that, some of the signs of a horse in elementary school are that a horse in elementary school has to go from a walk to a trot, a trot to a canter, a canter to a trot, a trot to a walk so they can’t skip gears. So a sign of a high school level horse would be a horse that could go from a walk to a canter, or from a trot to a halt. So these are skipping gears. So this is a sign that the horse has a higher level of understanding. So because Ember has been trained for quite a while in the arena, she has a higher level of understanding of my Aids. And what that means is that she can read more nuances. So when I am in a situation like I’m ready to cross over the mud and I’m using my legs rhythmically and she has a particular movement in her body, one hoof moves and I stop using my legs. She notices, but she notices because this was trained in the arena through her noticing other small details. The horse that doesn’t understand the subtleties because they are legitimately in elementary school, where when you ask them to go, you pretty much push the reins forward and there’s no contact and they go, that’s great.
Speaker1:
It’s elementary school, it’s foundational. Or you pick up on the reins to ask the horse to slow down or stop, but you don’t use your legs. That’s fine. It’s elementary school. But the horse that understands collection understands that the rider can gather up the reins and use their legs at the same time, and can adjust the horse’s length of stride so they can shorten the walk step, or shorten the trot step without it being a complete stop or a complete go. I also frequently call high school the messy middle, because it does get more complicated whenever you start making things more subtle and more layered and more nuanced. There is more complexity, but that complexity is the same thing that allows you to have more success when you’re in situations like crossing mud or crossing water. Now, recently, I’ve been talking a lot about the rider’s mind, the rider’s body, the horse’s mind, the horse’s body. So I’ll go ahead and add a layer of that here too. I think it’s fascinating that when Ember is standing there contemplating this mud, and is having to split her attention between her focus being on the footing and the question in her mind about what to do about it. That’s showing up in her body that has her hesitating. That whole thing is a mind body loop that I’m observing.
Speaker1:
And when she walks up and she’s this coiled spring, think about what that level of thinking or that tightness, that coiled spring in the body. What is that going on in the horse’s mind? That horse that’s kind of like holding their breath, almost as if you’re watching a scary movie and the music’s going, dun dun dun dun dun dun. And your anticipation is building. That’s the very moment when, although the horse is looking intently, this is the very moment when a lot of riders think, if I just give them a little kick right now, they’ll just go to cross to and they often will. It’s just are they going across at the speed that you want it to? Because so many times people teach the horse to launch across the mud, because right at that moment when the horse’s mind was in the mindset of dunt, dunt dunt dunt, dunt dunt, they then boom, surprise the horse. So when I look at the body reflecting what the mind is thinking, this is not the time when I want to surprise the horse. But oftentimes the rider legitimately feels the horse considering crossing over the water, so the rider’s actually accurate in the reading of the physical idea of I might do this in the horse’s body. Yet they misread what the long term side effects are going to be because the horse’s mind was in this state when you then surprised them.
Speaker1:
I just recently sent out an email about Enzo and his first water crossing, and in that email I was talking about a common mistake that I see riders make when a horse has a hesitation. And this other mistake is the opposite of the surprise one I was just describing. It’s the one where when the horse sees something, the rider stops to let the horse look, but they also release all the aids and go completely neutral. And what’s interesting to me about that one is that if the horse is looking at something that they legitimately have a doubt or a hesitation or a question about, do I really want to say to the horse with my body, hey, do whatever you want right now. For me, the answer is no, because I am looking at a trail ride with Amber today as me guiding her through new experience, and as I’m guiding her through that experience, I’m also guiding her to make decisions that are going to serve us both long term. And if I go up to something and I say, hey, take a look at that, and she says, oh, I have no idea what to do with it. And I say, you know what? I’ll go completely neutral. You make any decision you want. And she decides to roll back, leave, turn around, go the other direction.
Speaker1:
If I truly just said to her, go ahead, do whatever you want and she leaves, I probably should just let her leave. But this is going to give her the impression that anytime she doesn’t understand anything. Sure, there’s all kinds of options on the table versus me saying, hey, consider this good job considering it. Great. Love that you’re being brave. This is very good. No, I understand that you want to turn around and go the other way, but I just want you to turn and stay facing here in guiding her body. I’m also guiding her mind. I’m transferring my belief that she is capable of crossing mud into my body. I’m transferring the belief in my mind that she’s capable of this into my body. To guide her, to say to her, you are capable. And I find it fascinating because very often when horses are looking at something scary and the rider says, I’ll just let you do whatever, and the horse turns to leave, they almost end up contradicting themselves shortly after. So they let the horse leave, and then they turn the horse around and come back. And then they let the horse leave, and then they turn the horse around and come back. And in a way, that whole cycle becomes very unclear to the horse because on one hand, the rider is like, hey, we get up to this point, do whatever you want, and the horse goes, I want to turn left and leave.
Speaker1:
And then they go back down the trail 20ft, and then the rider says, okay, let’s go back again. And they go back again. But the horse is not getting one clear, consistent story. Now, mind you, I’m not saying we’re going to force the horse to go over what again, many riders are missing is the subtlety of the communication. And this is built way before you end up in the situation like I was today with Ember in the mud. If you build this subtlety into your communication during transitions of gate in the arena, through being able to shorten and lengthen your horse’s stride, being able to guide your horse and have a level of contact where you can support the horse with the reins and ask them to round themselves up and collect and change their frame of their body. These things in the arena are what make moments like I just had with Amber possible. Okay, you may have noticed the sounds have changed. I am back home and I have a horse to bring in off the green grass. So I’m going to say thanks for listening. Be sure you sign up for my emails so you can hear the behind the scenes stories as they’re happening, and I’ll talk to you again in the next episode.
Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy’s podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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