Leading = Leadership

We were lucky to have an excellent yard-worker at the stables we took our first horse Jack. We had no clue about real horsemanship at that point, since we came from just riding school lessons. Without her we would have been in a bit of a trouble from the word go. She made sure Jack behaved when taken out to the field every morning and we could start our learning on horse care in a positive atmosphere without any major problem behaviours since they were nipped in the bud.

Monty Roberts and his methods came up quite quickly on our radar. We read books and went to his demos at Gleneagles. Also took lessons with an intelligent horsemanship associate on long lining. During the next 7 years we volunteered at Monty’s demos just about every year and got an inside view on the whole process. This was really a brilliant education to observe such a great horseman in action. Intelligent horsemanship methods have become a second nature to our handling of Jack and our teddybear of a Finnhorse. We’ve not worked in a round pen, but with a longline in a way Richard Maxwell does most of his work. (Now there is another brilliant horseman! Highly recommend his books; they are very clearly written and are extremely practical, not just for ground work, but also tackling ridden problems.)

Making sure that any horse (apart from our own, since we know him) we are about to take out or in the stables is respecting our space is part of our routine these days. That is, we always ask the horse to step back before we start leading it. They don’t always lead immaculately, but luckily so far there have been no disasters.

Our boy has a paddock and field companion, and she is the boss. No doubt about it and he submits quite happily. She has been a showjumper, but her owner has not been competing her for a while now and furthermore hasn’t found much time to exercise her since last summer. She has some exercise during the week, since she now has a part-time sharer as well but we can tell that the lack of something to put her energy into has really affected her behaviour. It all started during the autumn; she got progressively worse to lead back in the stables from the paddock. We took her in more often than not so that our boy could be out as long as possible.

I had to teach her some basic manners every now and then. Just some backing off, stopping when I stopped and going sideways from my command. That always worked, although she still was impatient. And we use quite often a trick as well to get her more obedient: hay on the ground at intervals. Lowering her head and chewing helps amazingly much to calm her down and pay attention.

Well, that brown stuff definitely hit the fan yesterday.

My husband took her out of the paddock while I was taking our boy. She reared immediately outside of the paddock. Husband thought:’Ok, it’s just her, lets see if she calms down with some chewing…’ So, didn’t make a fuss about it – although at that spot there is not much good space to do much schooling anyway – and let her have some hay that had been dropped on the ground from lunchtime. Well, they made another couple tens of meters ok’ish, and up she went again. This time a high and long rear followed by twisting and kicking back. That’s it, it was now too dangerous to try and lead her in this state past stallions’ paddocks, across a tarmac road and past the stable building. All these places where we know she gets tenser. We would have certainly had several more rears and spins on our hands with a possibility of a loose horse. That chance we did not want to take. Luckily our paddocks are beside the outdoor school, so in they went there. He started schooling her on the halter rope while I took our boy in, snatched a longline and hurried back to the school.

Basic backing up and sideways movements did not work this time; she remained tense and resisting.

My husband took on the challenge to work him on the long line. So, clip went the longline on her halter ring… and off she went! Did not have to ask her to move off much! She was galloping like she wanted to change profession and elope to Newmarket!
After some minutes she challenged him by stopping and facing him and then turning herself without permission to other way. Well, that was not on. He took better hold of the longline and managed to turn her head facing him and then turn her back the way he wanted. This pissed her off enormously! She tried again to change rein a couple more times, but he was faster to block her this time and she had no choice on the matter.

So, she galloped and galloped… Quite a long while, maybe ten minutes – we didn’t take time. He was quite passive in the middle, just making sure that she kept the direction and was moving. Heck, there was no need for any encouragement with bodylanguage. If he had done any lifting of the hand or such, I think she may have centrifuged herself out of the arena… :D

Then finally her inside ear started to lock on him. And she took a steadier canter instead of gallop. She started to negotiate and think finally! Not too long after that she dropped down to trot. I have to say that she has a really nice airy trot alright. And soon we saw her jaw and mouth going; yep, she was licking and chewing. ‘Now we’re talking’, we both said with satisfaction!

And there it slowly came: trot calmed down and she lowered her head and started on a slightly smaller circle. At this point we asked her to walk, and she actually obeyed. He invited her to joinup with him and so she did. Not very strongly, but she did come. We also were not planning on full blown joinup, we just wanted to establish some emergency patch on her behaviour. Well, good horse, having read Monty’s book as well! ;) All horses seem to have done it…

Anyway, it was then time for the other direction, and he got it all again; disobedience and challenges. But we got the ear, lick&chew and lowering the head eventually, and a bit faster than on the other side. Job well done, she joined up with him. He patted and stroked her, and then asked backing up and sideways movements as well as stopping when he stopped. All functioned now well.

And she was now a doddle to lead to the stable. When we took off the rug, she was only a bit warm and no sweat was evident at all. A bit surprising since we were out with her for a while and she did move .. quite a lot. But this shows again that she was not at all stressed or physically exhausted and it was all more of a battle of wills than anything else.

It is no wonder she questioned our leadership, after all she is the boss in the paddock and she likes to boss about across the paddocks as well if at all possible. Furthermore, it was later in the afternoon, and almost all other horses were in, I think she felt that was not right, and showed her annoyance on the state of affairs. But no matter how annoyed the horse is or eager to get in, it should always follow the human as its leader.

Horses are big and strong, it is simply too dangerous to let bad behaviour go without consequences. The consequence we give a horse for its unwanted behaviour is work, or we ‘chase it away’ in a longline and let it join up with us when she shows submission and willingness to let us be the leader over her. 

No violence, aggression, irritation or fear, just calmness, consistency, fairness and firmness in what we do and what we ask her to do. That is leadership, and that is the base of leading.