{"id":8190,"date":"2020-08-26T15:14:39","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T19:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/equestrianbootsandbridles.com\/?p=8190"},"modified":"2020-12-20T17:38:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T21:38:21","slug":"demanding-too-much-from-your-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equestrianbootsandbridles.com\/demanding-too-much-from-your-horse\/","title":{"rendered":"Demanding Too Much From Your Horse?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Afraid of demanding too much from your horse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past, I’ve been nervous to ask too much from horse. I thought that I was being “mean” or that the horse would stop liking me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had this idea in my head of me riding my horse bareback<\/a> and bridle-less. <\/strong>We would have this amazing connection off the bat where he would just read my mind and we would move together as a unit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you probably know from your experience with horses – this is just not realistic without significant training. Horses have a mind of their own that doesn’t always align with what we’re asking them to do. Plus you need to work on liberty training and natural horsemanship<\/a> to do those things!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would often find it hard to be firm in situations where my horse\u00a0wouldn’t want to do what I wanted him to do.<\/strong> I was torn between being firm about my request and granting the horse’s request.\u00a0And it was then I heard that voice in my head: are you demanding too much from your horse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember when I started implementing trotting circles repetitively to work on bend and good rhythm in the trot. I would sometimes do 5-10 circles in a row. The first horse I did this with was quite a hot horse – emotionally he was always just ready to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wanted to provide him some calm and stability emotionally by doing kinda boring, repetitive exercises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After about the 3rd round of circle trotting, he would start racing away on me. Either that or he would start randomly drifting towards the gate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was clear that he was getting bored. He didn’t think much of this circle exercise. He would rather go back to his paddock and eat and hang out with his friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This particular horse also had a history of having an emergency brake used on him whenever he went too fast. He had learned that if he raced off, he would get a release from riding because he would have the emergency break used and then he would stop and that was a “release” from working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What he needed was an “ask, tell, demand” type of approach so he would learn some emotional control during the 1-2 hours a day he would spend being ridden.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMy Experience: Demanding More From a Hot Horse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n