Let’s have a think about why horses are spooking and then we’ll talk about why you don’t have to settle for the behavior of even the spooking’est horse.
Spooking horses were created by being handled with fear and stress that became chronic for them. They’re solved by using the two way communication that we call Feel for your horse, to get rid of that fear and stress and its resulting tension.
It’s a sad fact that the vast, VAST majority of horses are trained and handled in ways that create fear and stress and tension and if we have a spooking horse, then we quite simply have one of them.
The Comfort Zone Model can help me explain how spooking horses are created and how it can act as a framework for changing it.
I learned the original version of this model from a great Tasmanian horseman named Philip Nye, except he doesn’t swear and I’ve expanded it considerable over the years.
The Comfort Zone in the centre of that circle is where everything feels safe and comfortable. I’ve heard people say that you have to come out of your Comfort Zone to learn anything new – and ditto for your horse. That’s… simply… not… true…
If learning itself is an enjoyable experience, then learning IS happening in the Comfort Zone – that’s what people learn how to do here in our programs.
The speed of a horse’s learning is FAST as well as enjoyable, in the Comfort Zone. It’s the same for us too!
The Not Too Sure Zone is where there’s a bit of stress and tension. Horses can still learn in this fear zone, but it’s not with the curiosity and ease that they experience in the Comfort Zone, so it takes longer for them to learn anything.
Each fear that our horse experiences that they can’t get away from, adds on to the next, getting bigger and bigger each time. Even the milder fears of the Not Too Sure Zone are slowly but surely escalating a horse’s overall fear and tension levels.
That there folks, is another holy shit moment that explains how spooky horses are created with that steady intensifying of all those layers of even the milder fears. And we haven’t even got to the terror stuff that so many horses experience!
Training of horses commonly takes place in the Not Too Sure Zone where the horse’s stress and tension becomes chronic easily.
Longer than 2 minutes in the Not Too Sure Zone and that stress and tension starts to become a habit. Longer than two freaking minutes! Keep going the same way and the stress and tension becomes chronic. And that’s when they’re not terrified, just a bit anxious, a bit stressed and a bit tense for too long.
Because they’re not in the curiosity and ease of learning that happens in the Comfort Zone, people think horses need to have things repeated over and over again to learn something. That’s simply not true. When we teach a horse to do something in their Comfort Zone, they only have to learn something once and maybe a second time to confirm it. The speed a horse can learn when they’re in their Comfort Zone is freaking awesome.
We’ve also been told that you have to repeat things on the left and right hand sides – that they have to see things out of the left and right eye to have learned it. Sorry folks, that’s just crap too. If you’ve taught a horse to do something on one side and they don’t know it on the other side, then they just don’t know it. They’ve learned to do something to shut us up but they don’t actually know it at all and they’ll have some sort of residual tension in their body from the experience.
Mannn that’s soooo big hey?
The Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone is exactly what it sounds like. No learning takes place in this fear zone, only reactions. The neural pathways in the brain that were established the first time they experienced that training or had that horrible experience, mean that whenever that thing happens to them again, they react in the same way over and over again.
Sometimes that reaction is useful to us, sometimes it’s not. And there’s one of my Aussie understatements right there. “Sometimes it’s not useful to us” is a dramatic understatement of the danger to us and to themselves of a horse in their Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone. No wonder so many people get injured on horses unnecessarily!
That same crappy reaction of the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone is repeated over and over again, even if that reaction gets them into trouble and even if it hurts them. For example even after the pain of a pulling back freak out when they’re tied up, or ripping their legs apart when they’re caught in a fence – they’ll keep repeating the same reaction once the neural pathway has been established.
I can feel some of the ahhaas from here…
But here’s the thing – we can change it.
I’ve seen some very skilled horsemen change horse’s behavior in the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone, in fact I learned how to do that too in the old days. But you gotta know the horse didn’t LEARN anything. Nothing… zero… zilch… nada… They just experienced terror and probably pain and it was almost certainly completely unnecessary.
We can help a horse to re-wire neural pathways gently, starting with releasing even old stress and tensions in a way that can solve even seriously spooky horses.
Even if the source of that stress and tension is way back earlier in their lives, we can still help them to change that so radically that it’s as if those stressful things didn’t even happen.
Yes you read that right – as if those stressful things didn’t even happen. That’s utterly, gloriously, joyously true. We can help horses release the stress and tension they’ve got bottled up, from even VERY old fears, both the Not Too Sure Zone variety and the Oh Shit I’m Dead variety.
I’ll get to “how” in a minute, but first…
Let’s summarize how spooky horses are created, using the Comfort Zone Model.
- Too much of their life with humans has taken place in the Not Too Sure Zone. Each layer of stress and tension from each small fear has added onto the next until there’s a ball of stress and tension just waiting to explode into a spook.
- Some of their experiences with humans have happened in the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone – like being tied up, or getting their leg caught in a fence, or being saddled for the first time or ridden for the first time. Some horse’s terrors have happened in what we think of as simple things like being haltered and being terrified when they’re pulled on and can’t get away.
- Some horses sadly experience their entire training in the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone, where they’ve had the crap scared out of them and they don’t really know anything at all. I’ve got some beautiful stories about their people releasing all that terror and re-learning in the beautiful gentle way that the training should have happened in the first place.
Horses don’t want to live their lives with spookiness – just like we don’t enjoy it, they don’t enjoy it either. Even with these seriously scared horses, we can help them systematically release even very old fears from our horse’s life, so thoroughly that a spook is rare. And if you do our ridden work here from the Fast Track program, your body would just flow effortlessly with that rare spook anyway.
The keys to success for solving spooking in horses.
The keys to success are based in the Comfort Zone Model and your Feel for your horse – that’s the ability that everyone has for two way communication with your horse. That communication, that ability to flow with Feel for your horse , is what elevates the Comfort Zone Model into an art of understanding, releasing, relearning and reprogramming all those old fears, changing those neural pathways, with you and your horse both enjoying the process.
And teaching that two way communication? That’s not a job for an article. Feel for your horse is what we are Masters of here. I’ve never met anyone I couldn’t teach to do it. I’ve put a link below the article to how you can learn it too.
Today’s photo: is Frederic Pignon with his stallion Templado.
Here’s the thing for all you folk with spooking horses to know. Frederic is one of the greatest horsemen in the world and he gets off a horse if it starts to feel tense. Frederic gets off because he doesn’t want fear, stress and tension to be this horse’s experience. He’s looking for the horse to enjoy their experience with him, whether that’s in training or in their performance together. He figures out what he needs to know or do about their fear, stress and tension – and then he gets back on. That’s why Frederic’s horses are so expressively joyful and why they turn themselves inside out to be with him and why they train with him so easily and so fast. It’s because he doesn’t allow stress and tension to be a normal part of their lives.
Frederic – and I’ll say this again – one of the greatest horsemen in the world, wouldn’t get on a spooking horse, because the odds of solving it on their back are slim to none. He’d get off, deal with wherever the fear was coming from, develop a relationship where the horse had confidence in him and off they’d go again with that confidence.
You can have that too OR you can have what most riders get … I’m not even going to complete that sentence, because by now you already know what most riders get…
If you ever get the chance to attend one of Frederic’s clinics runnnn for the ticket. I traveled over 1000 kms and spent a fortune getting there and it was worth every penny. We watched him take 6 ordinary Aussie horses, young, green, old, grumpy, one was even lame – and he had them floating around the arena (even the lame horse because beautiful horsemanship and healing go hand in hand), all those horses turning themselves inside out for him in just two days.
Here’s another big deal that you might like to think about. Templado’s constant challenging was the trigger for Frederic to elevate his skills as a trainer in a way that rippled out to everything else that he did with horses. You’ll hear me say this over and over again – the skills to solve every horse problem is going to be the same skills that you’ll use to reach your horse dreams.
Is a spooky horse YOUR pathway to the skills and an easier, faster way to a beautiful bond together and better results in everything else that you do too?
Our flagship program Fast Track to Brilliant Riding, is an on-line pathway to all that yummy stuff and there’s nothing like it anywhere in the world. It’s not what you get everywhere else. It’s NOT that you watch videos and try desperately to copy what you see and feel like a failure when you can’t do it like they’re doing it. Fast Track is an experience that delivers you your two way communication with your horse – your Feel for them in any given moment. It’s an experience of gently getting beautiful results by releasing even old stress and tension AND the healing that happens with that. It’s an experience of riding like the centaur of legends and a lot more. Have a look here…
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