Consistency is Key

Seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? Consistency is obviously key - we all know this to be the case when it comes to achievement. But what about in day to day riding and building a relationship with your horse? Ever heard the expression “Clarity is kindness”? This is such a key phrase when it comes to working with horses. They don’t speak our language, other than a few words here and there which they pick up along the way. We need to be extremely clear in our communication with them in order to bridge the language barrier.

Photo Credit: Mutt Love Photography

So, how do we become crystal clear? By being consistent in our behavior and expectations. We can help horses to understand us by learning to speak their language. But if we want them to understand ours, we need to make sure we are consistent in the messages we are delivering to them.

I once heard a trainer (I believe it was Doug Mills) say, it doesn’t matter what cue you use to teach a horse to do something, you just need to be consistent with it. This is very true, and is evidenced by how many different methods there are in the industry which work. Take cuing a horse to pick up a canter, for example. Some rides use their inside leg at the girth to ask. Others ask with their outside leg behind the girth. Some will only use their inside seat bone. And then there are the horses that will pick up a canter off only a voice cue. As long as you’re consistent in your method, then release and reward your horse when they do what you asked, they will figure out pretty much any aid you can use.

Horses are always taking information in. They are wired to be highly observant, since they are prey and flight animals. As a result, they are often far more aware of what we are doing/feeling/thinking than we are of them. Sometimes they’re even more aware of what we are doing/feeling/thinking than we are ourselves! This can work greatly in our favour, but it can also work against us. We often inadvertently teach our horses not to listen to us by our own lack of awareness.

How many times have you let your attention slide while in the saddle? I know I’m guilty of this on a regular basis. Especially on my own horse, it’s easy to get caught up thinking about other things I have to do and ride Lacey mindlessly. If I don’t set an intention for each ride, I struggle to stay mentally present to the degree I need to in order to ride her well.

Even when I’m focused, however, I can’t think of everything all at once. I get her hind end engaged and create impulsion. It feels great, so I shift my attention to something else, like her bend. Without my even noticing it, she starts to lose a tiny bit of impulsion and engagement. Since I don’t notice (because I’m thinking about creating more bend), Lacey takes in that information and thinks she doesn’t have to maintain her impulsion or engagement. She slows down more, to the point where I finally notice. So I send her forward, maybe even tap her with the whip for being sluggish to my correction.

But, was she actually sluggish to my correction? Or did I let her get so certain that she didn’t have to maintain the engagement and impulsion because I didn’t notice the change right away, that by the time I corrected her, the moment had passed, and she no longer thought she needed to do it? Was she being lazy, or was she just far more aware and present in the moment than I was?

If we aren’t clear and consistent in how we are asking our horse to do things, they can quickly become dull to our aids or frustrated. Just as easily as we can miss feeling that loss of impulsion, we can also get into the bad habit of nagging our horse constantly. If we squeeze with our legs every stride to keep our horse going, eventually we stop realizing we are doing it. Unfortunately, our horse also stops noticing, and blocks the aid out.

Sensitive horses will either shut down when an aid doesn’t go away, or they will become frustrated and sometimes even explosive. Less sensitive horses become dull and “lazy.” Most of the time, so-called laziness in horses is a man-made problem. We don’t motivate them properly to want to do the work, we don’t communicate with them properly how to do the work, we frustrate them with our inconsistencies so they don’t understand what the job is, and/or we don’t set clear expectations and consistently adhere to them.

Riding is hard! There are so many things to do at once. The more we learn, the harder it gets, because we have more things to think about and do at once. Sometimes it feels like we are masochists for pursuing this sport. Being clear and consistent is extraordinarily difficult much of the time. Until we have performed a task enough times for it to become a habit, we need to consciously think about it in order to do it. Since we can’t think about very many things at once, the things we aren’t focused on in each moment are going to slide.

That’s one of the main reason we all take lessons - not just to learn, but to have the constant reminder of all the things we can’t think about in the moment by ourselves. The person on the ground isn’t just a benefit because of their knowledge and skill level. Because they’re not the one actively riding the horse in that moment, they have more space to observe what is going on and comment on it than the person who is busy trying to follow the horse’s movement and deal with everything happening underneath them at the same time.

While being consistent may seem like a daunting task after realizing how hard it is to do everything at once, keep in mind that this is not a new problem. Every single person who ever rode a horse has had to work on this, whether they were aware of it or not. At the most basic level of “dude riding” it was as simple as not inadvertently kicking your horse on a trail ride if you didn’t want it to speed up. All of the competent riders on the planet started from scratch and had to learn to be consistent.

Awareness is the first step toward change, and once you know how important consistency is for clarity, it becomes a priority in all of your interactions with horses. The more we practice something, the better we get at it. This includes both consistency and awareness. The more we put our attention on consistency, the more aware we become of what we are doing, and our horse’s responses.

Over time, our subconscious mind becomes programmed to take over many of the tasks that we initially had to think about in order to do. This leaves more space for other things in our conscious mind, that we can focus on learning and doing in order to become consistent with them as well. The next time your horse doesn’t do something you ask, try analyzing yourself in that moment instead. Were you clear? Consistent? Or was there room for misinterpretation of either the aid or the standard of response to which you want your horse to adhere? Clarity is kindness, and consistency is the key to getting there.