The danger of a training schedule (and why a strategy works better!)

For years and years I worked my horses according a certain ritual. First warm up and then I worked off the exercises. 'Doing' the exercises was always more important than the quality of the exercises, my horses response to these exercise and the sessions were always about 45 minutes. It got me somewhere, but what those horses mostly learned is that they needed to deliver instead of us working together. I taught them I wasn't really listening or paying attention to them. 

Over the last 10 years I learned why -in the end- the horses always paid the price for this. In this blog I will explain more about working with a strategy vs working with a schedule and why this is so much better. 

Working with a schedule

Let's clarify first what I mean with working with a schedule. In this concept I mean building up a horse in minutes, focusing on time and results. This is often what I see in 'normal' training practices but also in rehabilitation programs. I totally understand that you want to know how to do things and that you want to manage your expectations. A common question I get but also vets get is 'when can I ride again?' and although I would LOVE to answer this question to you with full clarity. The thing is I can't, a vet can't and we shouldn't. In the end it should be the horse who needs to show it's ready. And every horse is different, develops differently and we need to take the indivual process into account. 

And with 'we' I mean your vet, your training, me, but also YOU as an owner. 

In general we are so trained that a horse should have accomplished A, B or C at a certain age and if the horse can't deliver for some reason, it's not good enough. Some horses are being put under an immense amount of pressure and stress to get something done regardless if the horse is physically or mentally able to do it. If the horse breaks down, you might feel it in your wallet if you want to sell this particular horse. But in the end... 

The horse is the one paying the REAL price.

The real danger of working with a schedule is that you lose touch with the horse. It's all about results and outcome. The training stops being a conversation but becomes a drill, a chore. It's too easy to miss the horses signals. It's too easy to lose quality and then.. what's the point of training?

Going back to feeling your horse and managing your expectations

One of the things I find most important to teach people, is to get their feel back with horses. Okay, if you ask your horse to do a leg yield, what is the response of your horse? Does your horse easily bend? Does your horse bend to much? Is your horse getting slower? Is your horse getting tense? Does your horse pins it ears back? And what do any of these things tell you?

By being more aware of your horses response, you can learn to read if you're offering your horse a job it can do or you're asking something it can't do. I often compare it with asking a 10 year old child university questions and expecting it to be right. How fair is this? How much fun do you thing this is for the kid? Or sending a 16 year to the gym for 3 months and expecting it to be ready for a grown-up crossfit competition. How much stress is this on the body and mind? Or even for yourself. If you go the gym for a week, do you have a 6-pack after this? Are you ready to compete in body building? 

No right? This is a process that takes YEARS of training. And all the other factors like nutrition and enough rest for example that comes with it. For humans we have insanely well worked out systems and schedules that you can adapt to the individual process. Like starting with squads in the gym, first learning the techniques and then gradually adding weight. Doing so many reps and being aware of how your body feels and when you should stop. I've always been amazed that this didn't really exist for horses. 

Working with a strategy

So this is what I wanted to see change when it comes to training horses. First working on the techniques (in hand) giving the horse time to develop basic strength, stamina and balance (with lunging, polework etc) and then when the horse shows to be ready, getting on. 

Fact is, some horses can be ridden in the walk fairly quickly for a few rounds but then need a lot of walk work before it shows to be ready for the trot. Some horses need a lot of groundwork but then when they ARE ready to be ridden, they are quickly very solid, smooth and steady in the walk, trot and even canter. 

This is where it becomes so important to learn to FEEL your horse and see when you're horse is starting to lose quality of movement, is becoming tense, loses rhythm, throws it's head up, disengaged the hindlegs, becomes stiff and so on. Losing quality of movement means losing quality of training. 

By strategically building up from working in hand, to lunging, to riding in the stretch, to working position and then to collection you can easily scale the training up and down. Maybe you're sick and your horse is off for one or two weeks, your horse might lose strength. Isn't it great to have a system that you can meet your horse where he or she is?

Maybe your horse is feeling off, is tired or the muscles are still a bit sore from the day before. Might show this in being a bit slower than normal. That you can notice this and then say, okay let's take a day rest or do some slow, stretchy work? Since you know that if you're muscles are sore or you're not feeling well, you'd hate to be pushed to go through anyway right? It's nice that someones notices and gives you space to take some rest.

Horses are in general not lazy or nasty. They are in more often stressed out and worked above their phyiscal and mental levels. Some are just more expressive about this than others.

The best example I can give is when Didi was carrying Gert. The more we came closer to her due date, the more I told here 'Girl, it's your body. You have to tell me'. We went from trot work to only walk work on the lunge and every time she felt it was enough she would turn to me and stand still. In the last week she would do this after 1 round. So many people told me I was crazy and I would never be able to get her back to work. 

It was the opposite.

When we started building up she would automatically give me more and more when she was ready. She was the one initiating trot and later on canter. I was just paying attention the the quality. But as soon as she lost quality she would already slow down or stop.

So building up gradually by what the horse offers and can give with softness and ease gives you a horse that will happily work for you.

Learning to respect the 'no' and see take it as a 'not today' instead of a 'not ever'.

The hardest thing to learn is to take 'no' as a valid answer. For me it took a long time to start seeing this as a 'not today'. The answer is never permanent. When it comes to rehabilitation, especially with stiff joints, moving is harder. Giving a sloppy, stiff trot is easier than a loose, active big walk. Getting that hind leg motion and increasing joint mobility is very important in this part of the process. You can do some sloppy trotwork to warm up the joints but then you do want to go back to that walk work to slowly increase range of motion and therefore quality in the movement. 

You can get angry with your horse for not being more active or not moving in a better way. But what's the point? You're not helping your horse nor yourself with it. If you're aware of your horses struggles, you can see what you can do to help your horse. Maybe with certain exercises, maybe with some supplements. 

Fact is that if your horse can't give quality without a rider, you for sure won't get it under saddle. That's why building your foundation on the ground is so incredibly important AND powerfull.

Asking a certain bend or a yield and feeling the horse struggling should not be a reason to grab the whip or kick harder with your spur. It's a moment to reflect to what you're feeling and figuring out what might be going on. Maybe your horse has been laying a certain way or standing in the wind. Maybe it made a weird jump in the paddock. 

See what you can do to help your horse improve and then take it from there. Or just let it go for that day and try again tomorrow. Your horse might just be fine!