Pat Hooks-A bit of knowledge

Well folks, we covered a lot of ground in the last couple of years and another year has come and gone. As myself, and many readers that have crossed the half century mark well know, we don't untrack as well as we used to. Let's take a look back at some of ideas we used in past articles this year, and have a visit about what helps us stay on top and in the middle.

We introduced a bit of information this past year on the psychological look at the horse and used a wild mustang for an example. Remember this slogan? "A horse doesn't know how to lie." What you see is what you get. I've seen several folks through the years throw a leg over a new colt and hope for the best. Some times that works out, but not always.

Let's visit on that idea for a little bit. I hope I don't step on any toes, but here we go. The good Lord created Sunday school students and death row inmates alike. No matter which end of the stick they ended up on, some arrived by fate, some by uncontrolled circumstances, some by environment, and some because of their own nature and choice. The horse isn't any different. Never think there isn't a little truth to the old statement "come out of good stock." Check the pay check window for blood lines and give a little credit to the old timers that bred our foundation horses. However, for most folks and myself included, we had to make a horse from what we had. Following are some ideas to think about that might make that a little easier.

In the back of my mind I always try to read a horse in about four different categories. Mental, physical, emotional, and mechanical. I try to be very honest with myself about the individual horse I'm working with. I especially try to keep in mind that each category works hand and hand to improve the other.

Let's take a peek at the mental part. You can save your sanity and the horses hide if you will keep in mind a couple of scientific facts. It takes 21 days to form a new habit and 90 days to break an old one. So the cowboy math on a colt that is having a little trouble or got off to a bad start would be around 111 days to get things going in the right direction. Another part of the mental approach is to take a look at the horses learning curve. In my opinion a horse will go through four characteristics of change in it's mind before repetition even starts to take effect. First they will be pretty good at what you are trying to teach them.

Next they will fall short and try to get things figured out to see if they are correct or not. Third they will improve slightly as to say "Am I right?" Following the third stage, they will hit rock bottom and you will swear there the dumbest creature on the face of the earth. Stick with them at rock bottom. Be patent, be their teacher, and steward. Finally the horse will come back up in the learning curve and settle where there truly at in their schooling. Until the horse shows these four characteristics of change, repetition will not improve their performance. If you force training at the bottom point of the learning curve rather than fix things up so the horse can figure out the correct answer, you will end up in an argument your going to loose and start to sour your horse. Get an idea with the Chart below.

Chart goes here

On the physical end a person could write a chapter or two just on confirmation. But let's go a little deeper and consider the eye. We did several past articles on how to sack out the horses eye using the teeter totter, roping, and fence work. The eye will directly effect the mental and emotional sides of the horse. Consider the basics of the way the horse focuses his vision. Their vision is brought into focus by either the use of muscle fiber or head elevation. In laymen's terms they have somewhat of trifocal vision. Lower head position for close objects. Level elevation for objects up to several yards away and high elevation for great distances.

The horse will use both it's muscle fibers or head elevation to focus and find depth perception of what it's trying to see. Also take into consideration it doesn't see as well to the rear as forward and there is a blind spot of about 3 degrees at the tail head. Other wise the horse can see approximately 357 degrees of it's surroundings. It has the capability of using monocular or binocular vision. Now the reason I feel the science of the eye is important is each individual tri-focal of the horses eye needs sacked out. That is the purpose of sacking out the top trifocal from above the horses head using fence work, a snubbing horse, or a cowboy car wash. The lower vision with ground objects, and the mid vision with blankets and such. Get his eye sacked out before you throw a leg over.

Keep in mind the emotional side of the horse is mother natures way of protecting it's creature. A horse is a natural born (claustrophobic) afraid of tight places. Exercises that target the eye and the mind help the emotions. For example a horse that looks for boogers all the time may not be able to see well or hasn't developed it's depth perception. Crossing tarps or a teeter totter will help greatly. Or maybe consider the emotional side of being herd bound. Consider making the barn or the herd a place of work, allow being away a place of rest.

The mechanical end is where I get on a soap box. To me the mechanical end is the responsibility of the rider. I promise if you will learn the foot fall of the horse you can sure enough help your horse. One example we used this past year was on backing. The horses feet move in the same pattern backing as they do at a trot. In a nut shell we shared that when rolling back to the left the right front shoulder should be stepping back in the two beat back. This position tells the rider the horse is standing on it's right front and left rear leg. This position frees up the left front leg and allows the left rear to balance and pivot the weight as the horse rolls back into the left lead. We will cover the foot fall again this coming year. The study of the footfall takes devoted study and somewhat of a life style of riding on the riders part, but the dividends pay off pretty good.

With all that being said following are some odds on how an average group of 10 horses out of 100 horses will react to training. For easy figuring if you take 10 horses and divide them up into behavioral categories the following will be the general result of what you will end up with. Horse 1 and 2 if raised domestically, halter broke, hand fed, trimmed, and groomed. More than likely the average person with no experience could ride them off and make out OK. For horse 3 and 4 it wouldn't hurt if they were round penned a little, given a pecking order, and sacked out real good. Maybe if the owner or trainer had watched a video or two or done a little reading, then the average person would make out just fine. Horse 5, 6, 7 will lean a little more towards needing an experienced handler. They would need to be good at reading horses, cover all the fundamental basics, raised around horses, or had some pro help along the way. Looking at horses 8, and 9. This owner better be riding enough every week to have a balanced seat. Best know what your doing or have some one around who can walk the walk and not just talk. This category will be a very smart horse looking for a way to cheat you in order to get it's own way. They won't be very interested in being rode. For the owner of this horse read all you want, watch all the video's you want. However getting them rode will probably come down to not only covering all the bases, but your legs best be a little forked. Horse 10 good luck! Knowing a little OIT (old Indian trick ) to go along with the basics darn sure wouldn't hurt. Now take into consideration if your raising your own stock you can eliminate most of the 8, 9,10 horses by breeding for brains and instincts rather than color. If your training for the outside public, number 10 is coming your way. However keep in mind out of several head you might draw ten number 2's in a row, one 8, five 7's ect. Then about the time you think you got it figured out along comes a number 10, that one out of a 100. Then you can untrack of a morning like the rest of us. Hopefully this truth will set you free, and for goodness sakes if your new to horses, start off with a nice broke horse.

With all that being said following are some odds on how an average group of 10 horses out of 100 horses will react to training. For easy figuring if you take 10 horses and divide them up into behavioral categories the following will be the general result of what you will end up with. Horse 1 and 2 if raised domestically, halter broke, hand fed, trimmed, and groomed. More than likely the average person with no experience could ride them off and make out OK. For horse 3 and 4 it wouldn't hurt if they were round penned a little, given a pecking order, and sacked out real good. Maybe if the owner or trainer had watched a video or two or done a little reading, then the average person would make out just fine. Horse 5, 6, 7 will lean a little more towards needing an experienced handler. They would need to be good at reading horses, cover all the fundamental basics, raised around horses, or had some pro help along the way. Looking at horses 8, and 9. This owner better be riding enough every week to have a balanced seat. Best know what your doing or have some one around who can walk the walk and not just talk. This category will be a very smart horse looking for a way to cheat you in order to get it's own way. They won't be very interested in being rode. For the owner of this horse read all you want, watch all the video's you want. However getting them rode will probably come down to not only covering all the bases, but your legs best be a little forked. Horse 10 good luck! Knowing a little OIT (old Indian trick ) to go along with the basics darn sure wouldn't hurt. Now take into consideration if your raising your own stock you can eliminate most of the 8, 9,10 horses by breeding for brains and instincts rather than color. If your training for the outside public, number 10 is coming your way. However keep in mind out of several head you might draw ten number 2's in a row, one 8, five 7's ect. Then about the time you think you got it figured out along comes a number 10, that one out of a 100. Then you can untrack of a morning like the rest of us. Hopefully this truth will set you free, and for goodness sakes if your new to horses, start off with a nice broke horse.

Always remember " there's one bit that works on all horses, a bit of knowledge." Hope the good Lord blesses you, your family, and your livestock this Christmas season.

Date: 12/10/08