Bridleless Rides!

Pixie during our first bridleless ride

Pixie and I hit a milestone in our partnership that I thought was still so far away...we rode bridleless for the first time on 2/11/2014 :) She was outstanding for the whole ride. She listened to all my cues without a second thought. I did have the neck rope on and our next goal will be to ride without that, but for now this is awesome. Yesterday we were able to enjoy two more amazing bridleless rides in the arena. Once without other horses and one with another horse in the arena.

In August of 2010 when I set out on this journey of finding another way to train I knew that one day I wanted to ride bridleless. I wanted to find a partnership so trusting I didn't need equipment. There have been many bumps in the road that lead us to here. And I can't say I never doubted myself and didn't go back to traditional methods, because I did. But every time I went back I never saw the end results I wanted. Did I see immediate results, sometimes, but they were never there without the aid of equipment. Take for example my getting collection in a bit. She can do it, yes, but its not real. It's forced because the bit causes pain, she is in no way offering the behavior because she wants to work with me as a partner. Thankfully Pixie is an amazing teacher and forgives me for all my inconsistencies. She showed me that slow and steady is by far the best way to go! I can't remember the last time I rode her in a bit, and I hung up my spurs well over a year ago! I could not have ever rode bridleless though without all my liberty ground work. We fine tuned our ground work so much that she watches my every move, and she is always rewarded for watching me and working with me. It is the same in our riding. I reward her every time she makes the choice to pay attention to me instead of the distractions. I could correct her for trying to go see another horse, going to gate, etc... or what I do instead is go back to a cue I know she won't ignore and reward her for doing it. Such as stopping. My cue is a deep breath. So yesterday when she wanted to ignore my leg cue for turning because she wanted to go see the new horse in the arena, I cued her to stop so I could reward for the correct behavior. After getting the reward for stopping she was focused on me again, so we could proceed with our ride without argument over going to see the horse.

When discussing my ride with friends the comment was made "wow, you really do trust that horse" and while it is true I do trust her, but more than that I trust my training. I have worked countless hours over the last few years fine tuning our trust in each other.  

What do we want from our horses?

Last night I had a wonderful dinner with friends. Now of course these are horse friends :) We were talking horses and 2014 goals. Any time you talk goals you have to talk training too. Training can be a very contravesal subject, no matter what animal you are dealing with. When I was training dogs, we always joked that if you have three trainers in the room you would get three different answers to one question. Isn't that the truth though! Even trainers that train the same way have different opinions about what the right answer is. I think that is a good thing though in many ways. No one animal is the same, and it might take 5 different answers to find the one that works for that one animal. Which brings me back to the title of this post. When we are training, since there is so many different answers I feel we need to step back and really ask our selves what we want from our horses. And that will point us to the right answer.

So what do I want from my horses?

Pixie-
With Pixie I want a relationship that is so solid that I can trust her and she can trust me, no matter the situation.  I want liberty work that is breathtaking and beautiful, but in no way forced. I want her to truly choose to be with me. And to me her choosing doesn't involve her getting punished if she leaves my side. I want her to seek out a relationship with me, not be forced to be with me. I want her to have practical skills such as loading in trailers, opening gates, ground tying, etc. In truth I want all those things with no ropes attached. Why do I want all of this at liberty with no halter, because to me the truth comes out when you remove the tools.If I have to rely on a bridle, halter, spurs, etc. to control her what will happen when those tools break and we are out on a ride in the middle the mountains. Then what control do I have?? Of course no one plans for something like that, and it will probably never happen to me. Which is good, because the type of training I am talking about will take me years to achieve and I don't want to wait years to trail ride :) But every day that I work with her we are closer to our goal. I made my mistakes with her in the beginning, and lucky for me she has forgiven me. I am not sure I would have the horse I have today if I hadn't changed my training methods though.

Navi-
I want all the same things for Navi that I want for Pixie. The difference is is that Navi and I are at a completely different stage of life and partnership. For us right now I am focused on safety and trust. My plan was to get her under saddle this winter, but winter is on its way out the door now and while she can be saddled I have yet to sit on her. There is more than one reason, but in the end she just isn't ready. Both physically and mentally she isn't there yet, and why rush it. Her ground work is getting better. She is getting her backing, side-passing, and yields down to an art. She is consistent at walk/trot on line. She loves attention and likes play. And that is why I don't feel she is ready to ride yet, her attention span is that of a peanut. She gets bored quickly. So for now I focus on the basics of pressure and release training with positive reinforcement mixed in of course. All I want from her at this point is to be safe and mentally be ready for a riding partnership.

Char-
My plan for Char has been to get her under-saddle and lease her out. Things were going great and to the "normal" trainer things probably could still be tracking right along. I however, always rethink my plans, lol. And while we have had 5 good rides I have not been back on her since before Christmas. Now for a while there where outside reasons, but now as things have settled back down I have made the choice not to ride her. Will I again, of course! And hopefully it will be soon. But our last accident made me think and realize we were taking the same path that we did with Pixie in the beginning. It would go well until something scared her and then she was gone! So how do you fix that, you go back to the beginning and just hang out at liberty with positive reinforcement training. Because again it goes back to the fact that tools and equipment will only control so much! If I can get the flight response down to a min, then I have a safer horse to ride. Char needs to find that trust in me. We did all the traditional ground work. She was sacked out, has both yields, and can flex both directions. She is very light in hand. She will respond to very light pressure. She doesn't buck or rear under-saddle and will stand perfect for mounting and dismounting.  So a lot of people would just continue with the same training and ride more. Not me....She showed me that day where the holes where. She proved to me once again that control never comes from equipment. Just as Pixie taught me, Char taught me that there is so much more required to have trust. So what do I want from Char. At this time my plans for her have changed. I do not feel I will have her riding consistently by spring, so that rules out finding her a leasee. I think right now I am going to focus on our relationship. It would be amazing to see what she will offer me in the form of liberty. And after we figure that out we will work on our riding relationship!