I came across this excellent game from Carolyn Resnick and was adapting it to help a particular horse and then realized that it’s a game you might all enjoy. I’ve taken out Carolyn’s link cos’ it doesn’t work any more.
These are Carolyn’s words, with a few alterations that I’ll make clear, in order to integrate the carrot toss game with the things that we do here.
Find the golden connection through the 24 carrot toss game.
When I feel deeply connected to a horse in the moment and he wants to follow my lead our teamwork is extraordinary. To get to that place a horse needs to feel this same feeling with me. It can be normal for a horse when a horse follows the direction of his trainer that they can become nervous or unwilling or unfocused or overwhelmed. This game may help to overcome these attitudes.
It will cause your horse to see you more clearly as his leader. It will cause relaxation and a sense of well-being through the interplay you share with your horse while getting in sync with him.
This is a game that will develop a habit in your horse to work with you closely. When you ask your horse to do something, you can ask with small signals, because you will have the full attention and willingness of your horse to participate in the most natural way. It will cause a horse to relax and enjoy being directed by you.
(Me: some people may find it more useful to do the My Grass game first.)
How the game is played
You can train this at liberty in the paddock or the arena when you are in the paddock or arena too. But for really food oriented horses, to start off with, you can have a fence between you and your horse. Get good at the game first and then you can move into the same space as your horse more safely.
You don’t want there to be another horse in the paddock OR in the same place as you either.
The carrots are a decent size and there’s only 24 of them at the most – you don’t want a horse to get a sugar overload from too many carrots! Maybe half a small carrot. Or a 6 to 8 cm piece of a larger carrot sliced in half. For sugar sensitive horses, you will have to find another nice treat for them, because this many carrots could be very damaging to them. Oriana came up with peanuts still in the shell, which her horses love. Other suggestions people used were sweet potatoes cut into sticks.
Maybe have the carrots hidden to start off with and get the relaxation first by just sitting on the other side of the fence doing a relaxed Quiet Mind yourself, before you throw the first carrot in front of them – that will help them to get the idea of the relaxation. And then wait for the same kind of relaxation in your horse again before you throw the second carrot. Then it doesn’t matter if he figures out that you have a pocket or a bag full of carrots.
Go for relaxation by itself if you have to at first and then as the game progresses, you’re looking for attention on you – connection – as well as relaxation.
If you feel the game is getting out of hand by your horse progressively becoming more agitated then only do five minutes of it and stop. (Me: Back away, put the carrots away and go back to breathing and being Present.)
All you are doing is throwing a piece of carrot on the ground where he can find it easily, at the moment your horse is relaxed and connected with you and not trying to reach for the carrot.
Your horse will learn that you are in charge of the carrots and that you toss them in the moments [b]that he is relaxed, willing to wait, and focused on you[/b]. In this state your horse will listen to your leadership for you have his respect and his attention. Your leadership is fun to your horse because there is a carrot in it from him. (Me: No wonder Bobby rolled his eyes like a teenager when I tried it with him!)
On the first day and then again at the beginning of the second day, you could sit on the ground in between the carrot throws, signalling to your horse that relaxation is what YOU are doing and what you are looking for from him too. Then you could stand up while you are waiting for him to relax and if that takes too long, sit down again. I think that will help some horses to figure it out without getting too agitated. After a day or two, you will be able to stand up in between all the carrot throws. (I wrote these instructions for a VERY food oriented horse. 😀 )
Put your focus on when to toss a carrot and when not to. So it’s VERY important for YOU to feel relaxed and feel good BEFORE you throw him the big piece of carrot. This will help your timing in when to toss the carrot to shape your horse’s attitude to follow your lead. Having your full focus on when and when not to toss a carrot your horse will understand more clearly what you want him to do. When YOU feel good, your horse will pretty quickly figure out how to get you to feel good, cos’ that’s when he gets a carrot. (Me: Again I’m smiling here. Carolyn Resnick has phenomenal Feel which she wouldn’t over-ride while playing this game.)
The result of playing the game is to establish a clear leadership with your horse to follow you effortlessly, easily, and naturally. Knowing when to toss the carrot will give you the key to the best teamwork ever. You will be teaching your horse to pause before you send him out to get a carrot, which will help to get your horse into a state of neutral.
You do not want your horse to have an agenda, the agenda being wanting the carrot and showing it through any form of nervousness or tension or high energy. If he is nervous or agitated when you toss the carrot, you are teaching him the behavior that you do not want. What you want is his full relaxed attention, with no apprehension.
That’s the key, to make sure that you do not feel any pressure AT ALL to throw the carrot out.
Your focus will be on watching to see that your horse does not cause you to toss a carrot out for him because he or she wants you to. That’s the key, to make sure that you do not feel any pressure AT ALL to throw the carrot out. Just wait, feeling inside yourself until you feel good, THEN throw the piece of carrot to him.
I see this happen with a lot of horsemen when teaching or asking a horse to perform a trick. The horse takes over the horseman from a flawed premise that a horse after performing a trick ALWAYS needs to be rewarded immediately. You can reward immediately for a couple of times but you must give up rewarding immediately as soon as possible for this reason – the horse will start performing the trick quicker to get the carrot. Then the horseman tries to meet the needs of the horse. When the horse sees this response from the horseman he gets more impatient and agitated. This can turn into rude behavior. The 24-carrot toss will fix this problem.
You want to put your focus on getting your horse to work at your pace rather than the pace he would like. If you work with the horse’s pace you most likely will lose your leadership position with him. What you are looking for is a seamless interplay. (Me: Carolyn’s goal was to be a leader, whereas personally I want co-operation and connection. I guess if we had a chance to really discuss it, we’d end up at pretty much the same place.
Some Side Benefits:
This game will bring you closer to your horse and improve your horse’s IQ by how the game challenges him to work with YOU. Practicing the game will develop a habit in your horse to follow your lead when you need him to. (Me: That fits with the lesson Pay attention to me please so we can keep each other safe” that we do both in the paddock, very gently around feed time – later on the lead and under saddle.)
Working with you will be the best part of your horse’s day, which will help to continue to deepen the bond.
The practice of the 24-carrot toss will also help to take the spook out of your horse when you go to ride him from warming up the connection and teamwork on the ground. The 24-carrot toss is a great way to promote your horsemanship skills. You will see clearly how to manage your horse’s energy and behavior to bring out the best connection that in turn will lead to a perfect performance in teamwork.
If this game is fun, the outcome will amaze you in how your working relationship will improve. If the game is not fun please discontinue it, make a comment here and we’ll chat about it and work out what to change. This exercise is particularly beneficial for horses under saddle in cutting events, competitive trail, hunter and jumpers, Liberty and any horse that needs to keep an eye on what he is doing and on you. It can help the Dressage horse not for developing his attention to a sight line but how it develops the team working skills needed for dressage.
(Me: I brought some carrots out to play this game with Bobby and had the feeling of him rolling his eyes at me (the way a teenager does) as if to say “you’re kidding?” – it was very beneath his dignity and the connection that we already have and his status as Master Teacher. 😆 So I gave the carrots to my grandchildren Bree (10years old) and Jayden (3 years old) for them to play the game with him. It took him about half a second to figure it out and he could barely be bothered to face up for the carrot. Ahhh well, the kids had a good time. It might be a good game to speed up the connection with a new horse or when the connection is not so strong already. 🙂
And don’t forget, leadership is never as important as co-operation. PLUS, my grandkids could have temporary control over Bobby if he had allowed it, but they would have lost their leadership in the next moment for all kinds of reasons, not the least because they’re not ready for all the other important aspects of leadership, like care for the herd, keeping them safe and feeling safe in all kinds of circumstances and a host of other things. :D)
Today’s photo My granddaughter Kiara, rainy day play with Oliver.