Creating Work Ethic

One of the biggest things that I wanted to make sure I was developing in TC when I took him on as a project was his work ethic.

I struggled for a long time with Rico in this department. Rico just didn't want to work for me. This could be seen in his laziness, in his lethargy, even in the way that he looked away from me when I came in his stall. Such a lazy horse, I wanted something that wanted to work. I thought I had to buy the work ethic or luck out with it.

Then I read this damn book, Academic Horse Training, which I keep mentioning but don't link to, so I'm sorry. And I realized that the problem wasn't that TC inherently has a better work ethic than Rico, work ethic doesn't exist in the way we think about it in horses. Horses respond to reinforcement. Instead of blaming it on Rico being inherently lazy, how about we flip the table.

Not lazy, just had a crappy rider for a while

I gave Rico no reason to want to work for me. I would use my leg, he would go forward, and instead of letting him, I got nervous and pulled on his face or I got off balance from his big gaits and pulled on his face. Soon he thought maybe leg does not mean go, so I got spurs and poked him, the same thing happened. Soon he learned to ignore my leg.

I put pressure on him to do things that he wasn't ready for and then got intimidated or didn't have the balance to support him in them. I didn't reward him, certainly not in the way the horses like to be rewarded in (primary reinforcements = scratching on the withers, which lowers heart rate, and food). And I made work hard for him to do.

Rico was lied to. Rico was told that he was bad when it wasn't his fault. Rico was put in bigger bits by my trainers and I was told that this was because he didn't "respect" the snaffle. Rico was made to do work that was hard for him because I skipped the basics and I didn't often know what I was doing. I wasn't doing any of it on purpose, I had no idea how to create work ethic.

He and I did have a really good relationship by the end <3

Like with this guy, I might look annoyed
but the reason why he's looking at the camera
is because for all of his shows the first year, I
had people come up to him after he did his test
to make a big fuss over him. Result: loves
showing, um... a bit too much

In my current office environment, I have two supervisors. One makes me want to work for them. They make work fun and every meeting we have together I leave laughing and feeling valued at the office. More times than I can count, this person has sung my praises in front of other people, offered to buy me coffee, and when I make a mistake, I'm not afraid to talk to them about it. I find myself thinking "how can I make so-and-so's day easier," I find myself doing stuff I wasn't asked to do. I have brought this person beer a few times because they let me know that the brewery my brother works for is their favorite.

The other supervisor isn't mean or rude or terrible to work for at all. I have never been yelled at, told I wasn't a good employee, or really had any negative experiences with them. But the job is very much just a list of things they want me to do and my only reward is my paycheck and a relatively rare thank you. And that's totally fine. But when this person asks me to do stuff, I don't jump at the opportunity. Never have I wondered what I could do to make this person's job easier or even really gotten to know or care about them all that much (I mean I'm not a monster, but if/when I leave this job, I will not be staying in touch with them). When I make a mistake, I'm a lot more nervous about approaching them about it, even though I don't tend to get too much of a lecture.


So when I'm riding, I think now about being the sort of rider the horse wants to work for. Work is fun, work is easy, I am appreciative of my horse's work, even if it's not perfect. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't get punished, I break things down to elements that he understands and try again. And it has been AMAZING how much I love riding so much more. I literally NEVER fight with this horse. Ever. Period. No beatings, no fights, no "showing him he can't get away with that," nothing.

In contrast to Rico, TC comes out and knows that every day he will be successful. That I will give him clear aids and give him scratches and breaks (and sometimes clicks and cookies) when he is a good boy. I'll never ask him for anything I'm not 100% sure I'm asking for, and I will never ask him to do anything that I'm not 100% sure he can do. TC is very rarely lied to. He knows that every time I move, I am asking for something, so he never "ignores" me. Because I have never told him anything that he has then been told by me to ignore.

Sometimes enjoying his work makes him act like a basilisk

So every time I ask TC to do something, I ask myself what I want out of him and evaluate if he's ready and if it's appropriate to be asking. If he can't do it easily, if it takes me too much pressure/force, if it inspires me to want to slap another bit on him or stick him in draw reins, he's not ready yet. I need to break it down further. I need to build his strength better. I need to reevaluate my own riding and aids.

Putting on movements should NOT be a fight. If every time the rider asks for a new movement, there's a fight, the horse will immediately get nervous/tense/defensive/angry when asked something new. That's not something I want him to learn, I want him to be curious and excited for another opportunity for praise when I introduce a new movement.

I ask myself what aids I am using to convey this information to him. Am I forcing him into the movement or am I aiding for it? I also ask myself if I am in a position where I can seamlessly transition from what we're doing now to what I'm aiding for him to do. If I ask him to trot am I going to get left behind? If I'm punishing him for doing what I ask, I'm lying to him. And it's going to be really quick for him to learn that I don't really mean it when I ask for things.

I ask myself what will he earn when he does it right, and sometimes it isn't a big long break with lots of scratches and sugar. Sometimes it's a "good boy" that I pair with a small scratch on the neck, sometimes it's just a change of what we're doing to something else with a release of pressure. And yeah sometimes it is that big reward with scratches and snuggles and cookies or clicks. It's amazing how enthusiastic he is about going back to do that movement again after a big reward like that. I've been using it to put our halt and rein back on and it's been coming on extremely fast.

So many pets, I love that he smashes his ears forward when he
is happy :) 

There's no harm in breaking something down further, there's no harm in taking a little longer to explain a concept. There is no harm in taking another few months to build up the horse's strength so they can physically do what is asked of them. 

There IS harm in pushing a horse beyond what they can do strength-wise, they will stop trusting the rider to have their backs when asking for something. There IS harm in slapping on a leverage bit or a double too early, they will not trust the contact and will give a false feel to the rider who will then push them too far too fast. There IS harm in being an unbalanced rider, this rider cannot stay with a horse and will be more likely to lie to the horse.

Changing the way we interacted is the number one reason why
we ever got to the GP level.

People are so quick to decide that their horse has a poor work ethic. I definitely was like that. Instead, answer the question: if you were the horse in this situation, would you want to work for you? What is the incentive? What does the horse get out of it?

If it's only to avoid punishment? It's not good enough. That doesn't inspire the kind of harmony that doing this sport well requires.

Rico came so far in the last few years when I stopped riding with trainers who encouraged me to fight with him. From my first lesson with the new trainer on my barely Fourth level horse, Rico and I debuted at Grand Prix eighteen months later. It's amazing what I was able to get out of him when I stopped fighting with him and started working with him. I can't wait to see how TC develops from such a low level with this mentality.