
05/22/2025
💕🐴🪶
After finishing a recent 4 day clinic, I was chatting to the participants near the arena. I wanted to explain one particular lesson to them which had made me feel quite frustrated. I said "if you don't own a mint, don't throw your money away". I'll explain why I said this.
There had been a young gelding on the clinic, probably somewhere between 1 and 2 years old. He was always looking for somewhere to go, fidgeting. He would push on people too. A busy mind.
Within 60mins, I had him standing softly and quietly. He was easily interruptible and aware of us and himself. He clearly had a settled mind.
This horse had had a series of sessions with a liberty trainer, once a week. I am pretty sure the sessions had been mostly about movement and direction rather than putting the horse into the right, soft, learning, frame of mind.
I explained to the owner that before we direct a horse at liberty, especially when we start changing directions and speed transitions, we have to put a very good basic foundation on the horse so that instead of just running around taking photos, it can understand what we will need to do around it. I’m guessing the trainer thought that this was not their priority.
The owner knew the red flags but just wasn’t sure how to fix them. That's totally understandable. She should have been able to ask the trainer though to address them.
I don't believe this horse had any problems. He was a very clever and fairly easy to adjust.
I think the choice of education was a bad one, and was more the problem.
Should trainers just do their training and not acknowledge how the horse is coping with it all? I don't think they have a right to - they should be getting paid to help horses be better, not get them good at their speciality but nothing else.
We, as horse owners, also need to reflect on what we are providing for our horse. Does that education benefit them? Have I invested enough into their foundational education?
If I could persuade every horse owner to appreciate that a good foundation is a minimal requirement before any other agendas, I truly believe most horses would progress so much better in whatever discipline they ended up in.
There are some basic essentials that we shouldn't bypass when handling and training young horses:
>> to have a quiet and stable mind that is easily interruptible
>> to trust and follow a lead rope thoroughly
>> to not be frightened of our energy or presence
>> to create the right balance of caution and curiosity
>> to be comfortable in their space and for them to be aware of our space
>> to be okay with being touched and handled all over the body without any signs of freeze
I see so many horses that are doing things on the ground or under saddle yet they don’t have these basics.
And we wonder why they’re struggling.
The above list is basic - there's more levels to it - but I encourage every one of you to look at this list again and really check to see if your horse can do these. If they can't, fixing these may end up helping with some of the other things you are working on. They are simple to address.
Good liberty is okay. Unfortunately I only see bad liberty: liberty that reduces the horses ability to have these basic foundational requirements.
Please, everybody when you choose to invest your money into your horse make sure the education is something that will set your horse up for life. Not for movement.