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Case Study: Bandwidth
Emotional control is absolutely my favorite topic to talk about for
two reasons. First I believe it is one of the most important aspects
of horsemanship that every rider/handler should understand well.
Second, and this is a problem, it is also one of the least
understood areas within horsemanship, and sadly few trainers focus
on it.
My career as a horsemanship trainer grew out of
struggles with emotional control issues I was having with my horse,
Tennyson. Tennyson is a very emotionally “high” horse, and it was
through countless training exercises with him, in conjunction with
studying with other trainers that I began to really understand the
vital importance of emotional control, and the overall emotional
aspect of the horse. My interest in this topic remains strong. It is
a fascinating study and my focus on this area is what led to my
initial career of specializing in re-schooling problem horses –
something which less than ten percent of horse trainers do. Working
with problem horses is all about mastering emotional control.
So what is emotional control? Emotional control
is defined as working with and crafting the horse’s own flight
mechanism, its natural survival instinct. Horses are prey animals.
When they get scared, evolution has bred into them to flee. And
every horse comes factory equipped with an emotional control
“button.” No exceptions. However, a combination of personality,
breeding, maturity and (maybe) trauma, will determine how strong
that button is within each horse.
I use a scale of one to ten to measure the
emotional level of horses. Now if they are real good-natured, with
nice breeding, you can have a horse that is naturally a two. On the
flip side, there are plenty of horses that are very high strung,
with extremely strong flight mechanisms that are a twelve! I’ve had
more than a few of those come through my training facility.
The reasons why it is so important to address the
emotional level of the horse is foremost for safety sake, both our
own and the horse’s, and secondarily to achieve maximum performance.
The safety issue should be self-evident… you must have every ounce
of control available to give you an edge if your horse reacts to
fear by bolting, bucking, rearing, etc. Working your horse regularly
with emotional control exercises, known as de-spooking, provides an
advantage that can potentially make a life-saving difference. And
concerning performance, especially for competitive horses, any horse
experiencing fear and anxiety is not supple and performing at its
best. Fear makes horses stiff and tense throughout their body, which
greatly interferes with performance no matter what discipline you
ride.
So as mentioned, the main ingredients that
determine the emotional level of the horse are personality,
breeding, maturity, and possibly trauma. Breeding is a tough issue –
there are plenty of backyard and professional breeders who bring
horses into this world that may be physically sound, but are
emotional wrecks. You cannot of course change their breeding (other
than be a skilled and cautious breeder in advance), you can only
work with what the horse has been given already. Maturity/age is
simply a matter of life experience. Just like humans, as horses get
older they are more likely to have “been there/done that” and become
more complacent and less fearful. Trauma is also a tough situation.
A lot of the time we have a horse that experienced a traumatic event
that we know nothing about. We can “see” that they are extremely
fearful of specific objects or situations, but we may or may not
know that they have been abused in the past, or were in a bad
accident - whatever happened. But possibly the most interesting
factor that plays into the emotional level of the horse is his or
her personality type.
Yes, horses have personality types. Depending on
how specific you want to get, I believe there are seven main horse
personalities. However, five of the seven are the most common, and
we’ll discuss those in terms of emotional control and de-spooking. I
refer to these five main personalities as Compliant, Indifferent,
Bully, Timid, and Nervous Nellie.
Compliant: This is the horse that most of
us want (or should have) and probably makes up less than 5% of all
horses. This is the horse with the mind and attitude that says, “I
don’t care, whatever you want to do, just let me know and I’m happy
to oblige.” The compliant horse gives real easy to pressure and has
a natural emotional level usually around a two to three. The
handler/rider for a compliant horse could be a youngster or a senior
citizen. This is a very forgiving animal, easy to train with very
low fear levels.
Bully: The bully is extremely pushy. He
will have no problem walking into others’ space and doesn’t care
about anything. He has no respect for humans and often little for
other horses. This horse requires a very confident handler/rider.
Communication must be in black and white when working with the bully
horse. And very important to note, if we offer too much pressure on
the bully during training, we can actually get a reverse effect
where the bully becomes timid and fearful.
Indifferent: This horse is aloof and in
general, not at all social. Once you capture his mind you may well
become his best friend, but this usually this takes a considerable
amount of time and he will never be a true “people horse.” With an
indifferent horse, the handler/rider must be confident, insightful,
and super, super consistent. It is much harder to get the attention
and focus of an indifferent horse. However, once the connection is
made, this can actually become a very nice horse.
Timid: The timid horse usually seems quiet
on the outside, but he will fall apart under pressure. When working
with the timid horse, the demeanor of the rider/handler must be very
relaxed and quiet. We will need to put pressure on the horse to
raise his emotional level up, but not so much that he “blows up.”
Our objective is to instill confidence in them and to make them feel
secure in the arena and on the trail.
Nervous Nellie: This horse differs from
the timid horse in that he is just nervous about everything. This
horse looks at everything. He has confidence to a degree but is also
concerned about everything happening around him. The nervous Nellie
is very likely to bolt if too much pressure is put on him, or if he
is “asked” to do things too soon. The demeanor of the handler/rider
needs to be relaxed by all means, but you do not skirt around issues
with this horse type. An assertive person may need to “tone it down”
a bit (body language, tone of voice), but you do not want to cater
to this behavior and his emotional levels must be worked frequently
and with greater intensity.
Of course most horses are made up of a
combination of elements of these personality types. The important
thing is to evaluate and recognize your horse’s personality
characteristics so that you can most effectively work on their
emotional control.
A gelding I worked with for about a year named
“Bandwidth” is a great example of the importance of recognizing and
working with personalities and emotional levels. When he came to me,
Bandwidth was six-year old AQHA Palomino. He was about 15.2, and
well put together. In fact when Richard Shrake did a clinic at my
ranch, he used Bandwidth to demonstrate some areas of correct
conformation. Bandwidth had been sold to his owner Allison about
eighteen months earlier, and advertised as a true beginner’s horse.
Like many of my clients, Allison was returning to horses as an older
adult and had been looking for the classic “bombproof” horse.
Allison thinks now that Bandwidth had probably been drugged for the
sale process, as he was so different after she bought him. When he
came to me he was definitely one of the emotional level twelve
horses. What seemed misleading in his case is that he also appeared
to be compliant. On the ground he was very gentle and quiet. Just on
casual observation you would wonder why in the world this horse was
in training with me. He seemed relaxed and complacent. He led, tied,
clipped, loaded, was great for the farrier, etc. However, the minute
you added pressure - he just fell apart completely. And when
Bandwidth fell apart he bucked. Not just a few bucks, but prolonged
rodeo-style, violent bucking. Allison had already hired three other
trainers to work with him before she came to me, and two had “quit”
and the third had been injured on him. However, after listening to
descriptions of the training methods they had used to “fix” the
bucking, all they had done was put more and more pressure on this
horse without giving him any release. And in all likelihood, they
actually made him worse than when she first got him. My guess is
that he started out life as a real nice compliant horse, but because
of too much pressure along the way or some trauma, he became a true
Nervous Nellie.
So in Bandwidth’s case, even though he was
already broke to ride (or to launch at least), we spent the first
three months working primarily on his emotional level – and 100%
from the ground. We conducted de-spooking exercises to establish
better emotional control buttons on this horse. Teaching him to go
over scary objects and tarps, sacking him out, stroking him with
whips, plastic bags, and much more. All of this was accomplished
very slowly and carefully. You have to create the conditions to
raise their emotional level so they can learn to accept it. But you
cannot do it all at once and if you add to much pressure without
giving them an out or release, you have just made your own job much
harder. Especially with horse like this that seems so compliant, you
can be tempted to rush through these exercises, but it’s a huge
mistake. With a higher emotional level horse, you will have to work
longer on all of the emotional control exercises.
With Bandwidth it was a good six months until he
was solid enough that I knew we were truly on the road to success;
six months filled with two steps forward, one step back – which is
common with a horse with a high emotional level. And frankly, it was
only through lessons I had already learned that I stayed with it and
did not give up on him as others already had done. But finally he
learned to accept pressure without reacting negatively – meaning
bucking. We had replaced his negative reaction with a positive one.
Did it take time? Yes. Was it worth it? Allison says absolutely yes.
Not only did the bucking cease, but he ended up beautifully light
and ultra responsive. Does he need maintenance work? Of course –
they all do, and emotionally high horses need it more than others.
But the difference is, we can take a horse that is a twelve like
Bandwidth, and with regular work keep him at a four to six. Let me
tell you – that is a HUGE difference in both safety and performance.
Next month in Part II of Emotional Control and
De-Spooking you will meet Savannah, a very timid Warmblood I am
working with right now, and learn the specifics of some great
de-spooking exercises you can begin right away to establish better
emotional control with your own horse.
Until next month,
Charles Wilhelm |
