What Makes A Master Horseman

A whole universe of hopeful horse pros out there ask themselves this one question every day: What goes to make a great horse person? What are the special abilities that enable a rider to become one with their pony? A totally merged and integrated whole of all of the finely coordinated parts?

Regardless of if this were a reference book and not an article, I’m really not sure I could adequately describe what goes to make a fine horseman. There is such a lot of it that is intangible, not conducive to proper description. How can I describe a feeling, an aura, a merging of spirits?

What I can tell you about is perhaps the most significant qualification a fine horseman wishes. It is something that most, if not all riders can achieve. It’s the light touch.

You can hope to become a fine horseman only when you learn to disregard your inherent instincts to get rather more physical when your horse isn’t responding the way in which you want it to. When you follow your natural instincts, you start piling on more stress on the bit or you use your legs more forcefully or, heaven forbid, you even start whipping your horse. To be a fine horseman, you have got to go against your inbuilt instincts. You have to perfect a completely weightless touch that instructs the pony more through vibration, if I am able to call it that, than thru physical pressure. Perfect coordination with your pony is a little bit like ESP, which explains why it isn’t straightforward to describe.

You achieve that coordination when you approach your pony not as an animal that has to be subjugated to your will, but as a detachable part of yourself that responds to your mental urgings just the way your legs and arms do, there is not any identifiable message, no traceable process. The response occurs practically at the same nano-second the command is given.

You achieve that coordination when you appreciate the fact that you are the creature with the versatile mind and the horse is the creature with the omnidirectional one. You can think up and down and round and round, and the horses thinks only straight ahead. Therefore , you do not expect your pony to mould his thinking to you; you adjust your mental processes to tune in on his frequencies. You don’t talk to him the language of a superior human trying to control him, you talk to him the language of an equal human attempting to be a pony.

The point is this: train your horse with the will, not the whip. Teach him to recognize and spontaneously respond to the most circumspect cues and commands from you. Refrain from forcing him to do anything, lure him into doing what you want. The right way is to reward him every time he does something right. Instead of punishing him when he does something wrong, simply get him to repeat it till he gets it right. Don’t overdrive him, if he has yet to pick up on a new trick despite repeated attempts, give him a break. Give him a rubdown, let him feed, let him share a little time with the other horses if there are any.

Approach your pony with supreme belief that you will get your way. Horses are sensitive to mood, and if you start doubting yourself, the doubt is going to rub off on him and adversely affect his behavior.

Remember: when you reach across to your pony, he is going to reach back to you.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers go here