ITS NOT ABOUT THE FEET
Let’s consider it as an indisputable fact that the only time that we have problems with a horse is when they feel troubled. If a horse feels good inside and good about what the rider is presenting, there is no problem and no resistance. But when they feel troubled, anxious or disturbed in their feelings the result is always a resistance or worse. I don’t think even my most ardent critics would dispute this concept.
If this is the case, then why is it not the most obvious thing in the world that the first duty of training a horse is to address his feelings? Minimize the troubled feelings and elicit the good feelings. This seems axiomatic – it doesn’t need to be proved – it’s self-evident. Yet, lately I keep hearing from various sources that training is “… all about the feet.” A few weeks ago I heard it from another trainer. Over the past weekend I heard it from a person who came to watch our lessons. A week or so ago I read it on a horse forum. I keep hearing that training is about a horse’s feet. The principle seems to be that if you control the feet you control the mind. But I disagree. Over and over again it is proved to me that controlling the feet has very little to do with influencing a horses feelings or thoughts.
An entire industry has developed around inventing, making and selling gadgets designed to control the feet. By the term “feet” I really mean the horses musculoskeletal system, which includes his feet and his body (posture). But gadgets never help a horse feel okay inside because a gadget has no feel. A gadget cannot help a horse learn that it is okay to change how he feels. Rather a gadget can only teach him to give up the fight. All gadgets are about teaching submission and nothing to do with evoking the good feelings that go with having a soft, responsive horse that is not troubled in his work.
I don’t want to dismiss the importance of having a horse open and responsive to being directed by the rider. It is importance that a horse be able to move his feet as the rider directs. But this does not come from controlling the feet. This comes from the horse giving the rider the influence to direct his feet. It comes from the rider talking to the horse via the reins, seat and legs and the horse making a conscious decision to go along or not with the rider’s idea.
Ray Hunt was possibly the most talented horseman I ever got to see. When he died, his wife was asked in an interview what she thought was Ray’s most important message in his teaching of horsemanship. She replied, “it’s all about the feet.” Many of Ray’s students have gone on to become successful teachers and trainers and I have heard many of them say “it’s all about the feet.” So it is not surprising that controlling the feet has become the catch cry of a lot of good horse people. But let’s look at what Ray Hunt really had to say more closely.
“… get the life in your body, through his mind and down to his feet.”
This is one of Ray’s most repeated quotes. Most people I know use it to justify addressing the horse’s feet. But they forget the important part that Ray says to get to his feet by first getting to his mind. It is the horse’s mind that addresses the feet, not the rider’s life.
“… get the feet soft and they’ll be soft in the head.”
I think here is a good example of where we often get it wrong. This quote can be taken to mean that when the feet are soft the mind will be soft. But in reality it is the mind that determines the softness in the feet. If a horse has a troubled mind, no amount of moving the feet will create softness in them until the mind becomes less troubled. So I prefer to see what Ray is saying as when the feet are soft you know you must have a soft mind because you can’t have soft feet without it.
“… try to keep his mind soft and mellow.”
Again, address his feelings and thoughts and the rest will take care of itself.
“… if you haven’t got his attention you don’t try to direct it.”
When a horse is thinking about something else, don’t try to direct him until he is thinking about you again. Get his thoughts back to the rider before trying to direct him. I know this seems self-evident, but I believe it is not very well understood by most of us.
“… watch the gauges just like the indicators in the car – watch his ears – watch his eyes; they are the indicators.”
By being aware of your horse’s ears, where he is looking, how he is shaped in his posture, how crooked he is, how busy is his mouth and tail, you are able to see into his feelings. Be aware of his feelings.
In my experience it is a lot easier for a horse to commit to moving his feet than it is to changing how he feels or what he is thinking. This means that it is also a lot easier for a rider to get a horse to move his feet, change his posture and go where we want than it is for a rider to change the way a horse feels. We are physically able to put enough pressure on a horse to force him to physically respond. For example, it is possible to use leg restraints (eg hobbles) to teach a horse that he physically cannot move when we try to mount. But there is not a leg restraint in the world big enough that can force him to feel that having a rider get on is not a problem for him. We can make a noseband tight enough that a horse cannot possible open his mouth and put his tongue over the bit when we ride. But no noseband can be made tight enough to make a horse feel okay about the reins and bit and not think about wanting to open his mouth when the rider picks up a contact. A rider can use as much outside rein as they like to block a horse from fall out of the turn with his shoulders. But no amount of outside rein contact can force a horse to think about not falling out of the turn and the rider will always need outside rein because the horse will always think about falling out of the turn. The outside rein will do nothing to change his thoughts about where he wants to put his feet (out of the turn). It just blocks it from happen like the fence of an arena.
I believe there are two reasons why riders concentrate more on what a horse is doing rather than what he is feeling and thinking. Firstly, most horse people don’t understand the concept. They are not taught to understand how horses operate and how their feelings influence their training. There is a certain amount of lip service paid by some coaches, trainers, clinicians and riders about the importance of having a relaxed and willing horse. But it is rarer than rare to find horse people who then don’t just go about training a horse by focusing on the obedience of the feet despite their talk about the importance of how a horse feels. The result is that most riders are not taught to be aware of the subtle signs of how a horse feels. How many of you notice the width of your horse’s nostrils? Are you aware of minor changes in the depth and rate of your horse’s breathing? How often do you pay attention to the direction he is looking when you ride a circle? How often does your horse not look at you when you try to pat him? For most of us unless our horse is chomping the bit, swishing his tail violently or some other equally obvious behaviour we assume he is feeling okay.
The other reason that I believe riders focus on the feet is because it is fairly easy to change what the feet are doing. A horse can be pretty much made to do just about anything with enough coercion. But changing what he is feeling and thinking is much more difficult and less clear for most of us. The easy route is to just get him to do what we want him to do and forget about how he feels. After all, we can always use more pressure to overcome his resistances that the ill feelings cause. For example, if my horse rushes around the jump course it is easier to get stronger on the reins or use a more severe bit to stop it from happening than to change the worry that is causing it.
So where does a person go to learn about the inside of a horse? I can only think of a few people across the world who are really working on an approach to training that truly puts how a horse feels as the first thing to address ahead of what his feet are doing. If the horse’s feelings are right, what the horse is doing will automatically be right. So how do you learn this approach? I guess you have to find the best horse people you can find and spend as much time as you can sucking up all their knowledge. You also have to commit to making it as important to you as it is to your horse. Notice the small things about how your horse responds and ask your instructors “why is he doing that?”
A lot of people who have not seen this approach to training (and that’s probably most horse people) instantly think that working on a horse’s feeling is airy fairy, cosmic consciousness, crystal gazing, incense burning nonsense. But that’s a long way from the reality. On the surface it’s not so different to a lot of training that people might have been exposed to. At its basis is the same type of negative reinforcement most of you use every day with your horses. But the fundamental difference is that the release of pressure comes when a horse changes his feelings and thought and not just his feet. For example, if a person picks up the left rein to ask a horse to turn left most people will release the rein when the horse has turned the direction they wanted. But I might hold the contact until the horse has looked to the left – I mean LOOKED, not just moved his feet left or bent to the left. When he looks left the body will shape up to give a really soft and correct turn. But if he is looking right when I pick up the left rein the turn will have resistance and be crooked despite him turning left. That’s a very simple example, but it illustrates how by switching the emphasis from what the feet are doing to what the mind is doing you can instil correctness in a horse that comes from him rather being imposed by the rider trying to physically correct the incorrectness. Training is a mental process much more than it is a physical one. But most training involves repetition of exercises in the hope the horse will give in and just do it.
I don’t know how any of you got your horses. But every horse I have ever had in my life was chosen by me and put in my paddock by me. Not one of them ever knocked on my door and asked to come and live with me. I imposed myself on them. To me, this means that I accept the responsibility of their welfare – mental and physical. I don’t have the right to abuse my position and ignore their emotional welfare just because I supposedly own them. I have the moral responsibility that if I am going to ride my horses that it should cause them the least amount of bother within my ability. For me, that means riding is not primarily about the feet.