Although I didn’t start riding until I was in my late 20’s it quickly became an all consuming passion. Since I’d begun my riding lessons at a hunter/jumper barn I assumed that I’d continue down that path as I purchased my first horse, a Thoroughbred who had been raced and then retrained for hunters. All that was until I discovered dressage and I knew that was the direction my life would take. Or at least that is what I thought at the time.
Two years into my riding career I started riding with a dressage trainer who had competed at Grand Prix and I was inspired to want to excel as a rider. Eventually I would sell the TB and buy a 4 year old mare. And that would be the turning point that would cause me re-think everything–time and time again.
It is true what they say, that “the teacher will appear when the student is ready”. It was about the time that the young mare was telling me that I needed some better ideas that I first heard of the thing called clicker training. Interestingly enough, clicker training was to me, at the time, a dog thing not a horse thing. It took about a year for me to realize that what I was learning via clicker training applied to horses, too. Duh.
During that year I’d begun to explore this other thing called “natural” horsemanship–all this while still riding with the dressage trainer. This was important because it was the first time I started to realize that maybe in my efforts to train a young horse in dressage that I’d skipped some steps. Hey, who knew? No one told me that I was skipping steps! But looking back it was obvious that I didn’t even know what the steps should be much less that I was skipping any. Live and learn.
I will admit freely that by this point I was very frustrated with the mare. Why Why Why did she fight me so much? Why wouldn’t she just do it like other horses did? It all hit me like a ton of bricks when my dressage/horsemanship world collided with my clicker world.
After about a year of percolating in my head it suddenly became very very clear that of course clicker training applied to the horse. It also became very clear that the reason the mare was fighting me was because I hadn’t given her any better ideas. It was the first time that I knew that “if she knew what I wanted and knew she could do it, she be doing it.” IOW the only reason I was not getting what I wanted was because I’d failed to train her for what I wanted her to do. All I’d been doing was complaining about what she wasn’t doing! Duh!
So this is what clicker training did for me: It helped me to realize that all problems are resolvable when we can break them down into clear, achievable steps. It also helped me to understand what the old masters meant when they said stuff like, “reward the slightest try” or “it take the time it takes” or what is now one of my favorite quotes, “Ask often, expect little, reward generously”–Col. Podhajsky. These old masters knew what they were talking about!
Since that time, I’ve worked with many more horses and I can tell you that although some are more easy going in nature than others, they all appreciate being trained like a sensitive mare. 
My studies have given me a clear direction in terms of not only my long term goals (balance, suppleness, freely forward) but also a sense of where to start (horsemanship) as well as a means to get there (reinforcement). And that whole thing together is what “Getting to Yes” is about.
Intrigued? Got a horse who’s got you baffled? Contact me! Email me: sharon @ horsemansarts.com OR call me: 423-797-1575.
Other sensitive horses who continue to educate me (click images for stories):
Danke, Hann/TB mare
Dix, Lippizan/Swedish WB gelding
