Do you hit your horse?

[Rookiehorseowner]

As a first time horse owner at a livery yard I am surrounded by people with many many years of horse ownership behind them.
My new horse is lovely but currently not great to lead on the ground.
I’m surprised that some say I should hit him or pull his Headcollar up and down quite hard to show him who is boss.

Do you hit your horses, and if so under what circumstances? Or does a gentler approach work for you?

They're not hitting
So you're saying nobody who is disabled should ever be able to ride them if they can't use one or both legs? So no Paralympic riders then, that's gone

Yes they absolutely are. Professional jockeys whip their mounts during races.

Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. Absolutely nothing justifies hitting a creature to make it do as you wish. The right of a horse not to be abused trumps the right of a disabled person to ride a horse in my opinion.

You are misunderstanding how a disabled person using a stick or cane to communicate with a horse. An able bodied person closes their legs around a horse to tell them to move forward. A disabled person presses with a stick to give the same direction.

😖😖😖😖

Can you leave the jocky / racing discussion out of this chat. its a completely different conversation. This is a leisure rider looking for advice on how to best train her horse not an debate on the racing industry and not helpful for the OP.

A crop is an extension of the arm to engage hindquarters etc

FYI riders use their bodyweight / centre of gravity to ride and direct a horse

Any half decent, well taught rider does not need to use their legs to do so.

What? Doesn't need to use their legs to ask the horse to move forward? How do they ask then?

Sensitively trained horses use bodyweight changes / hips. I can halt my horse from leaning back / clenching my butt :)

EDIT - voice ques is another way. I know someone with advance MS who is in a wheelchair mostly but can still ride due to how they are trained and the relationship they have. - a kiss means canter

Body weight, body language and voice. It was a completely new way of riding for DD at the start but now she wouldn’t have it any another way. Feels much kinder + gentler for the horse, you gain more of a connection. DD really prefers it and hates having to use her legs nowadays

Yes yes, but the body weight/seat aid to move forwards in any 'half decent' classically or English trained horse is closing your legs around the horses side in a squeezing/tightening the muscles movement, exactly like the PP described? That is 'using your legs', no? I'm totally with you if by 'using your legs' you mean booting the horse in the side, kicking, swinging leg around, all that stuff, but that's not what most people would take 'use of legs' to mean?

I can assure you that DD’s pony was of the very much bog standard English kind, in fact he was a rescue after being abused by travellers. No special training here, just a very good instructor. No leg squeezing needed if you use your body weight correctly

There are a few people out there I'm sure who have a horse fully trained off a voice aid to move forwards but I'd say that's the small minority (and many of them probably got there using either leg aids or a stick as the first cue then trained to a voice aid second). Everyone else uses seat and body aid alongside voice as an additional back up and legs are part of that, that's why para riding is a slightly different system, those riders don't have the same use of their legs as non disabled riders so they carry a stick instead, that's the point a PP was making and I don't think it's remotely controversial? If all 'half decent' riders were motionless from the waist down there'd be no need for a para classification?

But you can't use your voice in dressage
And body weight doesn't work for travers/shoulder in/piaffe etc, you need a leg aid

I'm not kicking, like for canter my outside leg comes off, and goes back on an inch further back
But if it's my right leg I need a whip to tap instead of ask

I have five retired horses. If one of them is 'rude' or gets in my space I may well give them a slap on the chest or rump. Will it hurt them? Not a chance, but the sound - accompanied by an "Oi, shithead, stop that" is sufficient to stop the behaviour. A horse is quite capable of lifting me off my feet with their head when using me as a rubbing post so a puny slap is going to do nothing more than get their attention.

You shift your weight on your seat bones and that’s all it takes with a very well trained sensitive horse. Many of us though have bought bog standard cobs or native ponies from other people who trained them to use leg aids.

I have once ridden a horse trained Grand Prix dressage standard and honestly it was one of the best 45 mins of my life; like riding on a cloud!

I train my horse to voice and from the ground before transferring those skills to the saddle but honestly a dressage schoolmaster he is not!

I honestly think maybe we're talking at cross purposes here. Of course you can train any horse to be sensitive enough to very subtle, imperceptible, almost subconsious cues, that's what we're all aiming for I think. A experienced and well balanced rider in the 'normal English system' has their legs quietly and lightly in contact with the horse, with a nicely balanced, stable, still lower leg that is not moving at all to the naked eye, and is using the smallest, imperceptible, almost subconscious use of all their muscles including their calves and thighs, to communicate with a responsive, obedient horse, and that's great, very skilled and sympathetic riding which is what we should all be aiming for, but it's not 'not using your legs'. And what's so bad about legs anyway, why would it be the case that squeezing your bum lightly to halt is 'good' and 'kind' but squeezing your calves lightly to go is 'nasty' or 'cruel'?

I agree with everything @maxelly has said on the subject but will add, please go away and watch some top level dressage. Either pure dressage or 5* Eventers. You can see their legs moving. Who are these “half decent, well taught riders” you talk about?

Have you tried leading him in his bridle and how does he behave then? If he tries to walk through a bridle you have a lot more control. You could also try one of the control head collars if you feel confident using one.

With making him back up this very much depends on the horse - it did work for mine but he was only occasionally silly/bolshy. I think doing it every few strides would wind him up and make things worse. Some horses also don't fully understand "back up" so you may have to install this first.

I would also do a lot of ground work, in the arena at first but elsewhere as well to install good leading.

Personally, I wouldn't go down the route of clicker training with a bolshy horse unless you have someone experienced to help you get started.

@Rookiehorseowner how are you getting on with the new horse now? So much can change in 3 weeks.

Typically clicker training is used to teach new behaviours. If the dog
values food it makes
sense to use that because you can get a hell of a lot of quick repetitions in, in the space of a minute.

You can use toys as the reinforcer (as long as the dog finds toys reinforcing) but you can’t get as many reps in.

So generally you teach a new behaviour with the clicker and food, and then when the behaviour is fluent you don’t need the clicker any more and you switch to other reinforcers/reinforcement rates to maintain the behaviour.

If a horse is getting grabby I’d guess that that is due to trainer error; either the horse doesn’t truly understand what the clicker is for or it doesn’t understand what it’s being asked to do and is getting frustrated.

Cute? Do you find it cute when she strops and swears? Will you still find it cute when she's 15?

I think we are broadly on the same page Maxelly!

No hitting, scaring or coercive practices on my yard. You would be spoken to/ asked to leave the yard if those were your methods.
its a natural horsemanship yard/ track however so years ahead in terms of horse care (imo).
My horse had a lot of trouble with leading at our previous yard- due to her high anxiety and previous trauma.
its taken her a few years to settle, feel safe and learn new more confident behaviours.
we mostly liberty work now and we are good friends who understand one another 🙂 Follow your gut instinct OP!!

I prefer a rope halter to a head collar (not the ones that tighten) because it's light and comfortable when the horse leads nicely, and less comfortable to lean on.
Also natural horsemanship 12' lines are better than short lead ropes. Always wear a hat and gloves when dealing with a bolshy horse (as you know). I used to spin the rope in front of me( just calmly and rhythmically) and the horse can choose to run through it or stay next to you. I also did lots of transitions - walk, stop, back up, turn left and right.