When it comes to training a horse to be a good riding horse one of the first things we might think about is how best to start physically training in order to build up the horses strength and stamina. However, in this blog article I want to look at the importance of developing emotional and mental agility, two areas that can often be easily overlooked, especially in the green or older starting horse.

To some extent both these aspects are naturally more considered when training a younger horse as its easier to acknowledge their youth and lack of experience and as a result grow emotional and mental agility organically alongside their physical training, as long as they’re not rushed or over phased along the way.

For example, with the younger horse, as their physical fitness improves we start to do more: introducing loading, progressing to travelling out to new quiet places and perhaps eventually visit a few, small, local shows to start getting used to busier atmospheres. We make sure we arrive at quiet times at venues, find quiet parking spots and always allow plenty of time to settle to avoid over phase, regularly reviewing where the horse is at and what might be a good next stage to progress to.

Quite often though this incremental process can be overlooked in the older starting horse or green horse. It’s easy to presume that they will naturally be more developed mentally and emotionally therefore having a higher expectation based just on their age. 

Or indeed too, a horse that’s been off work for a while and is just starting to get back into the swing of things. It can be too easy to just presume you can pick up where you left off. This might well be the case with some horses, but there are those that would greatly benefit from revising some of what they once used to do. A chance to help them find their confidence and mental and emotional stability again. 

Emotional Agility.

Many studies have proved the emotional capacity of a horse is large, not as complex as ours but never the less vast. However, when I refer to emotional in this article I’m especially referring to the horse being able to feel emotionally safe in training and to develop an emotional independence. 

Being generally calm and not overly reactive to other horses or their environment means they can conserve energy which can then be channelled into better physical performance.

Emotional Independence.

Examples of emotional independence within a horse would be as follows: 

•Able to comfortably leave the other horse/s at home and not be neighing out to them. 

•Happy to stride out and leave home without planting. (Checking firstly of course that there are no physical pain related issues causing the planting).

•Not overly reactive when seeing other unfamiliar horses or objects.

•Not overly reactive to any horses nearby that are exhibiting stressy behaviour, but remains independent and calm emotionally whilst listening to your guidance.

•Happy to continue riding at your chosen gait and speed, independent of other horses passing.

•To not get upset or out of control when faced with something challenging or out of the ordinary, but listens and takes guidance and instruction from you.

•To not feel the need to overly react or spook at absolutely everything but to know what is ‘white noise’ and to find a calmness within.

That’s quite a tall order to expect from a flight, herd animal, but its essential to address and overcome these aspects within training to help achieve better performance, as well as being less stressful and safer.

Then there’s all the practicalities involved in going to an event which also require emotional independence and stability, such as your horse:

•Happily loading and travelling without sweating up and calmly unloading.

•Happily standing to be groomed, tacked up, mounted and dismounted.

•Happily having their feet handled by the farrier.

•Leading nicely in walk and trot especially for the vetting, not lagging behind, rushing ahead or spooking.

•Happily having a vet listen to their heart rate.

Fortunately for us horses being highly trainable animals makes all of the above very achievable. Being designed to live in a herd and synchronise can also be of a huge advantage to us too, especially when it comes to emotions.

Their ability to pick up on our emotions is huge and so this means we can also directly influence their emotional state by redirecting their focus and encouraging them to synchronise with us. So being in control of our own emotions becomes crucial. 

Emotional Safety.

The horses whole existence is geared around safety. It’s their priority because it means survival. They are constantly assessing what is safe and what’s a potential threat in any moment. So when it comes to training, my number one priority when I’m working with any horse is to help them feel safe and comfortable in whatever it is I am working on with them. Emotions are kept calm and adrenaline low.

Working with your horses natural curiosity, allowing plenty of time and space for them to explore and process information, all within a very safe and supportive environment does wonders for their mental and emotional development and for the relationship between you both as well.

Something that you will start to see happening when training in this way is your horse ‘licking and chewing’ during sessions which is a sign that they are processing. Serotonin is being released when this happens inducing a calm emotional state. It’s therefore good to allow them plenty of space and time when you see this happening. Avoid big pats (stroking is ok)  or distractions from you as this will ensure that they remain focused on absorbing what they are learning. Processing will continue after the session too so allowing quiet time afterwards will also really help their learning.

Mental agility.

To a large extent a horses emotions can be connected to their mental state. So by specifically developing your horses mental agility and stamina you can also help their emotional agility, conserving energy and positively impacting your overall result.

An example of developing your horses mental agility would be to start working through mental tasks together. These tasks are exploration based, whereby you are working with your horses natural curiosity and at their own pace, developing confidence whilst helping them to feel safe, striving to always keep emotions calm and as neutral as possible in both you and your horse.

Examples of mental tasks could involve working towards:

•Walking over unfamiliar, safe, noisy surfaces such as tarpaulins or patterned carpets/rugs.

•Going under low obstacles that can make a noise above such as ribboned arches.

 •Walking around unusual objects.

•Passing calmly through strange looking gaps.

Its unlikely that you’d ever meet any of these specific obstacles when out and about of course, but we are using them to simply represent strange and unfamiliar challenges that you might come across such as crossing water, road markings or tarmac repairs, or going through narrow forestry barriers, or narrow gaps between vehicles and hedges.

When met with these challenges your horse will have then already built some mental and emotional agility, a degree of trust and confidence and have positive memories of working safely through this mental process together with you.

Practising mental tasks in different locations at home and not just in the same place also really helps to generalise their learning and prepare for the unexpected.

Here are some examples from one of my trust and confidence clinics.

The lovely quiet atmosphere at these clinics has been described as being very much like a library atmosphere, very calm and relaxed with a quiet focus.