Shift your mindset and grow your sensitive horse’s pressure-handling skills to improve his confidence and your riding enjoyment.
You’re going down the trail, and your horse jumps sideways at an unexpected animal. You’re in the arena, and your horse won’t go near a certain corner or banner. Your horse runs off in the pasture every time you try to catch him. These are some, but not all the behaviors that might cause you to label your horse as sensitive.
Which Are You?
Riders with sensitive horses usually fall into one of two categories: Those who’ve learned to live with it and those on an endless quest to solve it. If you’re among the latter, you’ve probably tried everything. You’ve sacked them out; you’ve spent extra warm-up time before a show to get them used to their environment; you’ve moved cautiously when catching them, saddling them, and on rides; and you’ve limited the amount of pressure you put on them. Nothing seems to help, though, and it can be frustrating, especially on the days when you can only guess what will set them off.
Regardless of how patient and accepting you are of your horse, managing his sensitivity can be enough to put you over the edge. You may have even resorted to tactics you’re not proud of or thought about selling him because you don’t know what else to do. What if it didn’t have to be that way? Imagine if you could take your horse from surviving to thriving so that you can enjoy the activities you love together and build a deeper relationship. What if there was an entirely different way to think about their sensitivity in general?
Here you’ll learn my framework for thinking about sensitive horses, exercises you can use to help them learn to manage pressure, and the process to build their confidence and reduce their reactivity for good.
Shifting Paradigms
First, let’s reconsider how you think about your sensitive horse. Every horse is an individual. They have unique traits, quirks, and needs. Often, when riders describe their horse as sensitive, what they really mean is that they have a pressure horse with unmet needs. OK—so what’s a pressure horse?
Like people, even though horses are unique, their general needs and sensitivities fall into one of three categories—pressure, mind, and space—and while every horse has all three needs, they commonly have one that’s more prevalent than the other.
A pressure horse sees the world through a lens of worry. They’re the ones who survived best in the wild because of their hyper-vigilance. If they’re expected to respond differently than their nature, meaning, not spook, they need leadership and guidance on how to respond to pressure in their environment. They’re generally described as sensitive horses because they’re aware and responsive to their environment, even spooky. While they’re the most reactive of the bunch, they can also make the best bridle and performance horses because they’re so responsive. The key to training them well is to remove the fear from the sensitivity.
Overthinkers
Mind horses are those that are always thinking. They need mental stimulation and engagement. Their challenge is that they often get preoccupied with other horses and want to return to the herd. Your challenge is to gain the capacity to direct their thoughts and become a place where they want to spend time.
Finally, space horses are those that absorb the world and don’t often overreact. They’re calm, almost bomb-proof. They desire a clear relationship with your space and become bothered, nippy or worse when we do not show up well. They’ll show you your comfort level with your space and are often described as horses that need boundaries.
Understanding your horse’s needs and tendencies is empowering. Instead of interpreting his reactions as misbehavior or disrespect, you can simply focus on giving him what he needs. As with any relationship, once you know your horse’s needs, you can accommodate them to build a stronger, healthier partnership.
From Sensitive to Pressure-Oriented
Most sensitive horses are pressure horses. They respond to pressure in the environment or as a cue, by escaping or moving away from it. When it’s an environmental pressure, such as something odd on the trail or in the arena, it’s typically called spooking. When it’s a cue, it’s called responsiveness. It’s this dichotomy that gets you in trouble.
When training any horse, the approach is to apply pressure, through an aid such as a lead rope, rein, leg, or verbal sound, and the horse is rewarded when he moves away. Over time, he learns that the desired response to pressure is to move. With a pressure, or “sensitive” horse, this approach plays into his natural tendency to escape pressure. He learns that his natural response is the desired response and keeps doing it. This will make it seem that he’s easily responsive. But you have to ask yourself, is he moving out of fear or thoughtfulness? The pressure horse is trainable and responsive until he meets a new environment.
In the Comfort Zone
In a known environment, such as the arena at home or at your boarding facility, the pressure horse knows every nook and cranny of the place and can relax. Or, he may have one corner of the arena that he doesn’t want to go close to, but you’ve learned to manage or avoid it. Anywhere else and he becomes hyper-vigilant and worried. If you have been using his natural uncertainty to move him without helping him in a new way, any new pressure or surprise causes him to react by moving away from it—usually spooking. This is what he’s naturally inclined to do and what his training has taught him.
Then, if there’s correction because the spooking isn’t desirable, more pressure is added as an aid, such as your foot, rein, lead, or verbal cue. More pressure equals more fear, causing a stronger reaction in an already tense and unregulated horse, and escalates the situation. The pressure (or worry) builds inside of him—you can usually feel it underneath, and it can lead to a fight or worse.
The solution? Teach him how to handle pressure and turn to you for support.
Work From the Ground Up
With this horse, you want to work on how he handles pressure. Instead of trying to escape it, you want him to learn to manage it by turning to you as his partner and leader. You’ll start by working on skills on the ground that retrain him to turn to you for the release of pressure. Over time, as your horse becomes more skilled and understands the release mechanism, you’ll work your way to in-saddle drills.
In each exercise, you’re looking for softness, not lightness. Lightness is how quickly he responds on the outside. Softness is how he feels on the inside. While lightness is the responsiveness that is usually rewarded, or how little pressure can be applied before he reacts, softness is how comfortable your horse is. You’ll know your horse is only tolerating the pressure and isn’t OK with it when he seems to have a lot of anxious energy or tension despite not moving away or escaping it. Your goal is to facilitate softness—or comfort and lack of tenseness—versus lightness, or responsiveness. This might be a mental shift as most riders want their horse to be responsive. Be patient with your horse during his journey to confidence.
Groundwork Basics
Groundwork Exercises: These two ground exercises can be used for any horse, whether they’re rideable or not. Even if you can ride your horse, start here before moving to the in-saddle exercises. It helps you manage the environmental variables and amount of pressure.
Pressure in a pen: Start with your horse in a small, enclosed area like a round pen. Use a pressure that your horse isn’t totally comfortable with, such as a trash bag, a whip, or stuffed animal, and gently walk toward him. This applies pressure. Watch for his tension to grow but don’t push him to the point of fear. Once your horse has turned his ear or eyes toward you, remove the pressure. The goal is to teach him to understand that he can control the pressure by staying with you rather than running away. This is counter to how we normally work horses in a round pen. Which is to push them along with pressure and release as long as they continue moving.
[Ground Training for a Better Ride]
Softness on the lead: From the ground, with your horse in a halter or bridle, use your rein and gently make contact with him. Hold until you feel him soften, then release. This teaches him to control and connect with your horse. And teaches him to soften to rather than stiffen and flee from pressure. This often works best when you’re at his side and make contact at a similar angle you would from his back. Again, he learns he can control the pressure when he thinks and connects instead of act impulsively.
From the Top
In-Saddle Exercise: Connecting while riding is similar to connecting at the lead, with the goal of releasing pressure when your horse softens and looks to you. From the saddle, pick up a rein and gently make contact with your horse. When he softens to you, either by relaxing or seeking you, such as reaching around to touch your leg or willingly turning his nose toward the pressure, release. Do this on both sides of his body. Once he’s improved his softness, add some pressure with your feet and seek the same soft response.
When you connect, don’t only focus on the softened motion itself but on your horse’s tension and energy through the action. Does he seem tense and responsive or is he thinking and trying to stay connected with you?
