Breaking Routine & Getting Rid Of Anticipation | RES 036

I hope you and your horses have had an excellent start to the new year. The holidays are behind us and I’m excited about what 2017 has in store for us. We’re going to start this year off by visiting a topic we’ve touched on before. I got a message from a listener through the website, asking about a horse that was very eager and impatient. This made me chuckle a bit, as Laura has heard me use this episode’s quote a time or two before. “Every good horse anticipates, but every great horse waits.”

Every now and then I’m approached by someone who wants to hike up their jeans a bit and brag about their horse. They’ll say things like, “Well Van, my horse is so great he does what I want before I even ask him to do it.” While they may seem all well and good on the surface, what it shows me is that the horse has an anticipation problem. Take mounting a horse for instance. You go through the whole routine of stretching your jeans, putting your hands on the horse, and if you’ve been humbled like me, using a mounting block to get in the saddle. All these actions are indicators to the horse that you’re about to go on a ride. So what happens if your horse is anticipating walking off while your foot is searching for the stirrup? Well, if they walk off early you’re likely going to end up back on the ground. I don’t know about you, but I’m in the great horse business. Here are some ways in which you can help guide your horse from being good to being great.

Key Takeaways

Let’s start off with mounting. Varying the way you get in the saddle can help break the pattern that makes your horse anticipate. Walk them over to the fence to mount, or maybe the side of a trailer. This way they won’t have as good an idea of what’s about to happen every time you hop in the saddle. Once you are seated, try and do a pilot check before walking off. Check your gear. Relax a bit. Give your horse a nice pat to thank them for not taking off with one foot in the stirrup. This teaches the horse you don’t want to take off as soon as you’re seated.

I’m not a fan of the phrase, “Repetition makes a good horse.” If your horse picks up what you want him to learn in the first 3-4 times, asking him over and over again only steers your horse further into anticipation. You want to vary your training in a way that lets you can teach and practice the same thing in different ways. Vary your horse’s routine enough that it keeps the horse honest--listening to you, rather than doing the thinking for you.

Breaking routine is the key to getting rid of anticipation. You want to be tuned into your horse so that you can catch them start to anticipate. Say you are riding around a ring, and every time you get to one side, you turn left. Try and feel the horse tense up, getting ready to make that turn at the end of the ring. At that moment you can turn the other way, breaking the pattern and eliminating that anticipation. You need to be the leader in the relationship with your horse. Teaching them to listen to you, and not go into autopilot, is all on you.

Wearing down your horse’s anticipation is crucial in both performance riding, and pleasure riding. If you are running barrels you don’t want your horse to drop a shoulder too early just because they’ve always run in a smaller arena. You can practice turning around more than just barrels as well to further the bond with your horse. Again, you want them to wait for your command before taking an action. The same with activities like trail riding. Once you get close to home you don’t want your horse to bolt back to the barn. Once back, try riding around for a bit longer. Teach your horse that just because you are back at the barn or trailer doesn’t mean they get to decide when the ride is over. Once your horse learns this it’s okay to take them straight to the barn if they’ve listened to you.