The Good Student

When Knowledge Becomes a Box instead of a Bridge

Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with thousands of exceptional horsemanship students. Overwhelmingly, these were folks who wanted to enhance their equine skills and understanding to improve their overall relationship with horses. While some of these students’ skills and knowledge were self-taught, the vast majority had either taken lessons in specific riding disciplines, studied or been involved with certain training systems, or had been long time dedicated students of specific instructors, trainers, or clinicians.

Regardless, almost all would show up because something between them and their horses wasn’t feeling or working the way they’d hoped. Over the years we’ve worked with almost every issue imaginable, from jumping horses who would refuse, rush, and even panic while jumping, to horses exhibiting defensive or aggressive behavior toward humans. We’ve seen horses who were adverse to being saddled, mounted, or bridled, horses who had trouble with transitions while under saddle, horses who worried about being in stalls, trailers, and small enclosures, aggressiveness at feeding time, buddy or barn “sour” horses, horses that wouldn’t be caught, horses that bucked or bit, and any number of other issues you could think of.

In most cases the cause of the issue would be relatively simple to diagnose and the solution, while also usually simple, was not always easy for the owner to implement. Not because the horse wasn’t willing or able (providing the cause wasn’t physical or neurological) but because the owner had been such a good student in the past.

So, what is a good student? A good student is one who listen’s carefully to what is being taught, absorbs the information being presented, and develops the necessary skills to replicate with some proficiency what has been presented to them. But here’s the rub…a lot of equine learning environments are quite sterile, especially when it comes to finding effective solutions to real life issues that can and do develop when working with horses.

What I mean by that is a good student’s learning will almost always be limited to the knowledge and skill of their instructor and the situations the student encounters while learning under that instructor. By the same token, the skill and knowledge many instructors possess is often limited to what they learned from their instructor.

For instance, if an instructor was taught by their instructor that if you do “A” you will always achieve “B”, then that will become the default solution to that situation. However, if the instructor never runs into a time where “A” doesn’t achieve “B”, it will be difficult for them to be able to think their way past doing “A” in that situation. As a result, they usually will just do “A” bigger, harder, or louder. If that still doesn’t achieve “B”, then the horse can often be deemed belligerent, difficult, hard to deal with, etc.

Put simply, the instructor (who was also a good student) may have inadvertently been placed in a box by their instructor, a box in which outside options are limited and maybe even nonexistent. As a result, that instructor then inadvertently puts their students in the same box. Once inside, it becomes a place where looking out may not only be frowned upon but can also be downright scary to even think about for fear of making things worse.

There is an old joke that goes: Late at night, a man was standing under a streetlight staring down at the ground. A policeman comes up and asks him if he’s okay. The man says that he dropped his keys and is looking for them. The policeman helps the man look. After scouring the entire area and finding nothing, the policeman asks if the man is sure he dropped them in that spot. The man replies “No, I dropped them in the dark alley down the street, but the light is better here.”

This is the kind of thing that often happens to a good student. They will look for a solution to a problem only where the light is good, where they’ve been taught to look and nowhere else. But sometimes the solution is in the darkness, the place we’d prefer not to go because we can’t see what’s in there.

Attempting the unknown can be difficult, even frightening at times. Especially when it comes to working with horses. But I think it’s important for us to keep in mind that our lives consist almost entirely of times when we did just that. Think of learning to tie our shoes, or riding a bike, starting a new job, driving a car, sitting on a horse for the first time or any number of things that had, at one time or another, been lurking there in the darkness just waiting to be discovered.

The truth is most unwanted issues in horses usually boil down to just a couple of causes anyway. The first is the horse misunderstanding what is being asked or expected of it, and the second is worry or fear. Often these things go hand in hand.

For example, if a horse isn’t clear about how to respond to a request, worry and the feeling of the situation being unsafe are sure to follow. Not feeling safe turns into resistance on the horse’s part, causing the rider or handler to increase pressure, which only worries the horse more. Over time this can create all kinds of friction in the relationship.

Recognizing this is happening is the perfect time for the good student to be willing to investigate the dark for a solution. All we really need to do to get started is remember that our horses will always be asking two questions of us. The first is, “Am I safe?” The second is, “What are we doing?” Try to remember if the horse doesn’t feel safe, they won’t even bother to ask the second question. A great way to help them feel safe is through them developing understanding for what we are asking.

This can be done by taking our time, decreasing pressure if our horses are feeling overwhelmed, being consistent and clear with our requests, our releases, and the relief we give them for them trying, and finally building on their smallest effort to search for the answer we’re looking for.

As I mentioned at the outset, these can be paths to relatively simple, although not necessarily easy, solutions to unwanted behavioral issues. They could be especially difficult for the person who has perhaps been practicing something a little more mechanical for a long while. Still, it has been my experience that by developing the skill to follow these few simple principles, even some of the most difficult of issues horses develop can be nurtured back into emotional balance. And isn’t balance what every good student of horsemanship is striving for anyway?