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STORY OF THE MONTH
One of the things that interest me as a trainer and student of horse behaviour is in regard to how a horse understands what we want. I am always impressed at how so many of our horses fill in the gaps in the way we ask. It's as if they already know the answer before the question is completed.

I met a girl called Sarah while I was working at the riding school. Sarah was fifteen years old and only a year older than me. The moment I met her I knew something was not quite normal about her. Sarah was my first experience of some one with cerebral palsy. A few
years beforehand Sarah's mum got her interested in horses as a sort of physical therapy. Sarah developed an immediate love of horses and soon had her own horse called Bonny.

Bonny was a great little mare and was always so patient and kind with Sarah's awkwardness. Every weekend Sarah's mum would bring her down to the riding school to ride Bonny. She would haul out a light weight ramp from her van for Sarah to walk up while Bonny led along side and waited for Sarah to get herself organized to get on. It was really something to see and Sarah became one of the most popular kids around the place. Even the cool girls would talk to her. But what most interested me was how Bonny was so good under saddle.

Sarah was always having little spasms. Her muscles would spontaneously contract every few minutes. It would cause her left arm to curl, her neck would twist and when riding her legs would jerk backwards. Yet Bonny never reacted to these spasms. She would carry on with her job just as if Sarah was the quietest rider you could imagine possible. But that is not to say that Bonny was a dull horse - just the opposite in fact. Sarah could ask with hardly any movement and that little mare was right on the job. Her canter transitions were smooth. Her response to the reins was light and her focus on the task was unwavering. Bonny was a very well trained, nice horse and she and Sarah clearly had great communication between them.

But I was intrigued how such a responsive horse could still ignore Sarah's lapse of muscle control. How could Bonny be so responsive to the lightest leg aid or touch of the reins, yet be so unresponsive to Sarah's spasms? I mentioned this to Amos one day when we were watching Sarah riding in the arena.

"Well matey, that mare knows when Sarah is talking to her and when she ain't. That's all."

"But Amos, how can she know the difference," I asked?

"Matey, when I was a kid my grandad got Parkinson disease. That's a sickness where ya nerves act all haywire and ya hands shake, ya voice is slurred and ya ain't got a whole lot of control over ya muscles. A bit like Walt is - only he ain't got Parkinson's disease. Well grandad was a pretty handy horseman in his day. By the time he was in his seventies that disease had a pretty good hold on him and he was not very strong. I remember seein him workin a young geldin not long before he died. He could hardly stand and was leanin on a stick with the lead rope in one hand.

His hand shook so bad that the lead rope looked like it was doin the jitterbug. I watched grandad tell the horse to back up by shakin the lead rope. The only trouble was that I couldn't tell when he was shakin the rope to tell the horse to move or he was just shakin because of the sickness. But ya know what matey, that horse knew. He stepped back when grandad asked as pretty as you could wish. Grandad then asked him to circle around him one way then the other. All I could see was a whole lot of shakin and movin of the rope that didn't have any sense to it. But that geldin did exactly as grandad asked with no fuss or confusion. And it weren't no different when grandad rode the horse. Through all that activity of grandad's shakin and tremours that horse could shift through what had meanin and what didn't.

It ain't no different with young Sarah and her mare. Sarah ain't the prettiest rider. She falls all over the saddle and her limbs can't stay still for more than a few seconds. But that horse has worked out the difference between Sarah's movement that she needs to listen to and the Sarah's movement that she needs to ignore."

"But Amos, how can a horse do that? What tells the horse what is important and what isn't"

"Well matey, it is ya intent."

"What do you mean intent, Amos," I asked?

"Ya seen me ride my horse Cracker with a flag, ain't ya," he asked?

""Yep," I replied.

"And ya seen me ride Cracker while I've been flaggin another horse around the round yard, ain't ya?"

"Yeah," I again responded.

"Well, how do ya expect Cracker knew difference between when I was talkin to him with the flag and when I was talkin to the other horse? I was me intent. It was the way I focused me and the flag. It's the same for Sarah and Bonny and the same for grandad. A horse can separate ya intent by the way ya focus ya use of ya reins, ya legs or ya body."

"Amos, are horses really clever enough to do that," I asked sceptically?

"Matey, not only are they good at it, they are better at it than you or I. Ya don't believe me do ya? Have ya ever spoken to somebody on the phone and they answered all ya questions, but ya had a feelin they were distracted or had somethin else on their mind? That you was more involved in the conversation that they were. Ya couldn't see what they were doin or what they were lookin at, but ya knew that there focus was some where else. It's the same thing with a horse. They know when ya mean it and they know when ya don't.

Like most of my experiences with Walt and Amos, the conversation I had just had didn't have a lot of meaning to me at the time. I found Amos' observations interesting and kept looking for evidence of his theory. There is no doubt in my mind that he was right. Horses can discern intent. I have seen it enough times when two people use the same technique on the same horse and get different results. Horses know the difference of our intent.

It is also been my observation that some of the most effective horse riders have been people who have less than perfect technique. Most of us spend a lifetime learning to become better riders and for most of us this means riding in the perfect position and using the perfect aids with perfect timing. Yet, so many riders with good position and good technique have screwed up horses. Why is this? I believe it is because nobody is teaching the effectiveness of "intent". Consistency and intent beat technique and position every time. A horse can rise above the obstacle of a rider with less than perfect balance or understanding of the aids, if the rider is clear in what they are trying to achieve.

I am not suggesting for one second that learning to sit and ride better is not important and a worthy goal, but I am suggesting that it is secondary to being consistent and clear in your intent. Sarah and Amos' grandad proved that.