Using Exercise

Part III

Trick Training or Equine Agility uses exercises and challenges that actually make sense to the horse. What if Dog Agility consisted of animals making repeated circles or laps at a variety of speeds or gaits in a show arena? Boring, of course, and much below the aptitude and intelligence of most animals. Have you ever seen a dog running the agility course that looked bored?

Of course, basic ground work and in hand skills should be taught prior to Agility Training to establish a good working relationship and herd hierarchy: the human is the leader and the horse is the follower.

Many horses suffer through daily routines that are thoroughly boring.

We believe that age appropriate Equine Agility Training alleviates boredom and will help a handler to develop a horse’s intelligence and ability to learn, his physical ability, his mental resources (concentration/attention span) and his emotional capacity. We believe that Agility Training can give a horse a sense of accomplishment and self-expression. Most horses who go through A T
display a high sense of satisfaction when performing the learned behaviors and poses. This is in part because the horse understands exactly where the completion point is in his work—with most other exercises, the end point is nebulous. With A T, we expand upon the wide range of physical stretches and poses that a horse does on his own, by molding the behavior(s) and adding a cue. For example have you ever watched a horse half rise from a lay down and pause to rub his belly (where it itches) back and forth on the ground while in a sitting position?

Each molded or taught move is a basis or building block for other more complex moves that follow. For instance the natural progression of teaching a horse the Jambette is to mold it into the Spanish Walk.

The Extreme Cowboy competition that is popular on television, Working Cow Horse competition, some Trail Classes and Eventing all require horses to perform multiple learned tasks but most other disciplines are very specific and narrow with NO room for self expression from the horse.

As in Dog Agility, Equine Agility requires the use of props such as pedestals of various designs, balls, and even bean bags. What would agility be without the use of props or obstacles? Where a horse has difficulty understanding esoteric requests perhaps such as traveling in circles, he will easily distinguish success when he steps up on a pedestal. The action is easily understandable by most horses, even if they at first resist. Think of agility props as man-made obstacles.

Let’s look at the equine’s ability to learn. To quote Dr. Robert M. Miller in Understanding the Ancient Secrets of the Horse’s Mind: “However if intelligence is rated by qualities such as retention (memory), and speed of learning, then the horse must be considered extremely intelligent. Its memory often exceeds ours and its speed of learning nearly always does.” Dr. Miller also refers to the horse as the most intelligent of all domestic animal species. Most horses possess intelligence that usually far surpasses the discipline they are trained in.

One of the goals of Trick Training and Equine Agility is to mold a horse who has learned how to learn and to willingly and enthusiastically interact with the handler into a genuine companion animal who, though mute, is extremely eloquent.

For more information on Trick Training and Equine Agility plus a great photo gallery, please visit www.imagineahorse.com

Next month we will explore the application of operant and classical conditioning in Equine Agility. Previous