Thanks to a good friend I've started to listening to podcasts some days on my drive too and from work. Everyone knows that my favorite podcast is "Black Hand and Beyond" about our POA ponies. However, when my friend posted about getting podcast suggestions, someone shared about Stacy Westfall. Stacy is a clinician/trainer that I have admired for years. I've read many articles that she has written and watched a number of her videos. She has an amazing way around a horse that just makes sense to me. I was excited to check out her podcast.
She has a LOT of episodes so I skimmed and scanned to find a couple that I wanted to hear the most to start with. I cannot remember the title of this one, but it was about helping horses be quiet or not spooking at everything all the time. Especially in situations like... a horse show. I could listen to this episode a dozen times and I'm sure I would get something new and different each time. But this one thing that she discussed really stuck with me.
First she shared the science behind how horses react. She prefaced this scientific fact by saying that a person could feel defeated with this knowledge. It could make a person quit before they even start. BUT... we know that armed with this knowledge we can move forward. The fact is that horses are scientifically wired to spook. Every horse spooks. Even your "bombproof", grandma ridden, put your toddler on it horse spooks. Evolution has wired these animals to survive by having their first reaction to stimuli that is threatening go directly to the reaction area of the brain. Every time. I know she said it better with more science words - but basically horses are hardwired for fight or flight. They don't have a choice in the matter.
HOWEVER - the level to which every horse spooks is where training and choice come in. Many horse's first instinct is to run a quarter of a mile with no thought.
As she explained it, as a horse becomes trained that goal is that death defying spook becomes a shudder. As they are trained further, it might be the flick or an ear or a quick breath. I can't remember if she said it specifically or if it was just my take away, but we can also broaden our horse's list of things that their brains perceive as "dangerous" by exposing them to more and different things. This is where the hope comes in. Now we can get to work.
I haven't trained a lot of horses, but I have trained several. As anyone in horses can tell you, some are just born more quiet from the first day. I joke those are the lazy ones. They wouldn't survive a second in the "wild" as their natural instincts are pathetic. The more a foal or young pony is exposed to, the quieter they are when you start them under saddle. But they all spook. Even the born broke kind have something that is going to trigger that spook. Even Elsie, who was never afraid of much decided at our last show that mini horses are terrifying. They all spook, but it isn't hopeless. We can help them turn that spook into a shudder or even a breath, but we can't give up when that spook is still a quarter of a mile with no thought. I'm going to remind myself of that the next time that Gossip thinks the snow sliding off the roof of the arena is a mountain lion ready to fall from the sky and rip her to shreds. It's the little things sometimes.
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