Horses are taught or trained by a simple conditioned reflex.
A simple conditioned reflex is the automatic response to a specific stimulus. If a bell is rung every time before a dog is fed food, at the sound of a bell, the dog will begin to salivate anticipating the reward of food even if food is not present.
Clicker training uses the sound of a clicker every time before giving the animal a treat. The animal then associates the sound of the clicker with a positive reward. That is called positive reinforcement. If a horse is forced to work harder every time it does a specific action, that is called negative reinforcement.
Positive and negative reinforcement are not always what a person might be think it is.
Yes, horses like food and treats, and a person can use it as a reward, but what horses want more is safety. They want to know what is going to happen next. They want to predict how someone will act and react. Remember they are prey animals and the unknown is scary.
In a herd dynamic, one horse will pressure another by threatening to kick or bite, and the other horse complies by moving away. Negative, the threat of being kicked or bitten then positive reinforcement, the threat no longer there because it moved away, also known as pressure and release. Humans ride horses because they want to; horses accept being ridden because they have no other choice; it is our responsibility then to make sure the horse understands and enjoys its work. When working with horses, people need to keep in mind how a horse thinks. Horses are geared to freeze, flight or fight when scared. A scared horse cannot think; it can only react. For training, you need a calm, relaxed horse, therefore you need to be calm and relaxed.
To achieve a calm, relaxed horse, remember that horses thrive on routine. If it is always the same, the horse knows what is coming and it feels safe as it will know how to react. No one likes to be scared, and a frightened horse cannot learn; its brain will prioritise survival, and the only thing a horse will learn in that kind of situation is to be afraid when it is exposed to that set of circumstances again.
To avoid setting the horse up for confusion and fear, the commands must be clear and the same, every time it is asked to perform that task, with the reward following its effort, then the horse will feel safe and it will relax. When the horse is relaxed, it will be willing to explore, seek out new experiences, and learn. When the horse can understand what it is being asked to do, and it is allowed the time to develop the muscles and coordination needed to do so, it will come to enjoy its time with humans and the work it’s being asked to do.
Horses and humans have differently conformed brains. Horses have a large cerebellum compared to humans. The cerebellum is where motor control, balance, and movement originate neurologically. Horses also have a highly developed situational and spatial memory, so they can remember where things are even in the dark or years later.
What horses lack is a large prefrontal cortex which enables a human to do complex reasoning. A must go to B and B must go to C, or the horse will become confused. A horse cannot jump from A to C in its thinking; they lack the prefrontal cortex to do so.
There is no such thing as a naughty horse. They cannot think that way. When they are resisting, or evasive, they are trying to communicate the only way they can. They are trying to say, “It hurts.” “It is hard.” “I don’t understand.” “Do I really have to, can’t I just do this, it’s easier.” or “I’m scared.” It is our job to answer those questions in the language the horse understands.
Most of the times when negative reinforcement is mentioned, the image of whips, spurs, and pain comes to mind. Negative reinforcement can be anything or any action that the horse does not want to experience. It is as simple as that.
Natural horsemanship uses the horse’s own movement as a negative reinforcement and allows the horse to rest as a positive one. To teach a horse to stand at a mounting block, a handler will make the horse move, and only when it stands next to the mounting block can it rest. The negative reinforcement is the work of movement, and the positive reinforcement is allowing the horse to rest.
The application of the rider’s aids is the negative reinforcement (or pressure) with the easier work of a straight line (the positive reinforcement) combined with the scratch and praise (which is a physical reward).
All training on horses is done by applying pressure (negative reinforcement) and when the horse moves away from the pressure, the pressure ceases (positive reinforcement). This is consistent across all disciplines, dressage, show jumping, western and casual riding.
The rider will apply pressure with their legs and seat aids, and the horse will either go forward if allowed, or sideways if the forward motion is restricted. The rider will apply a weighted seat bone to the saddle, which will cause the horse to feel unbalanced, and the horse will move its back away to the other side maintaining its balance; in the process it gives to the pressure.
Horses are not born knowing how to move away from pressure. When a person grabs the lead of a foal, its first reaction is to pull back. If the handler releases the pressure before the foal has accepted the pressure and moved forward, the foal has learned the opposite of what the handler wanted. It has learned that, to get away from pressure, it must lean into it before the pressure is released. A common method of teaching a foal to lead is to run a rope around its hindquarters so that the handler can apply pressure from behind the foal to encourage it to move forward away from the pressure.
Next, the most educated trainers start the backing process on the ground. They place the bit and bridle on the horse and give it time to accept the new sensations. Then they start teaching the horse how to respond to the bit by putting pressure on one side of the bridle through a rein and when the horse responds by turning in that direction, the handler releases the pressure. Pressure and release.
Horses are not born understanding the rider’s leg. They kick, rear, strike, and bite each other when they are playing. A human leg alone cannot hurt a horse enough that it naturally moves away from it. The horse must be taught. A whip touches on the hind leg repeatedly, in such a manner as annoying as a fly landing on its skin until the horse lifts its leg and moves away, then the whip stops. This teaches the horse to move when light pressure is applied. If the handler clucks or makes a kissing or clucking sound while using the whip, the horse will associate the sound with the pressure.
Then the trainer will most likely do some groundwork (I will cover groundwork exercises in another article) with the horse to teach the horse how to move away from pressure when being ridden. The horse should be desensitized to the whip and the saddle, to all the noise associated with the whip and saddle when it moves. This can take a long time with a reactive horse or a very short time with a non-reactive one. When the horse accepts the weight and the creaking of the saddle, first standing then moving, the handler can reward the horse with food or rest, and then next time start the beginning of groundwork and lunging.
The key to all of this is CONSISTENCY. The handler cannot use one cue one time and another cue a different time and expect the horse to understand. This type of training will cause the horse to be confused and fearful, and a horse cannot learn when it is afraid.
The idea is to repeat the same actions and when the horse responds or tries to respond in an action that resembles what the rider wants, then the pressure is taken off, and the horse is rewarded. This is repeated until the horse no longer thinks about it, he simply does it.
At home with the horse relaxed, a good rider can coax the horse or set up an exercise to produce what the rider is trying to achieve. A simple conditioned response is one that is automatic. When the horse is asked to perform a task asked by the rider and it responds correctly even when it is tense or distracted, every time it is asked, then that horse is conditioned to that stimuli; it is trained for that movement.Not by fear or force but by gentle repetition and conditioning.
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