What is your horses anxiety telling you?

Working with Ronan today gave me a lot to think about. It was our first in hand work session since his fall 4 weeks ago (which later diagnostics led us to discover his was born with a slight “step down” of C5/6 causing mild spinal cord compression). He was straight away unsettled, curling behind the bit, collapsing through his thoracic sling and over-reacting to every single aid I gave.

Now, once upon a time, I would have just become firmer with him and told him to get over it and “pay attention to me”.
Instead, I took a few deep breaths, and just tuned into him, to be guided to what exactly was triggering his anxiety.

Was it when I was in a certain position or posture myself? Was it when I was asking him not to collapse through the thoracic sling to one side? Was it when I was asking the right hind to step through correctly? Is he currently COMFORTABLE & CAPABLE enough in his body to be able to offer me the posture/exercise I was asking for?

By asking these questions and taking the time to observe his responses, I was able to breakdown the posture I was asking for into smaller, more achievable steps, feeling for the point where his anxiety started to come into play and rewarding every single attempt he gave me.

By opening this sort of dialogue with our horses we begin to develop their trust that what we are asking of them is possible, and we will respect when they say ‘that is too hard’, adapt the exercise to an achievable point – and reward. If the horses continues to say ‘this is too hard’, respect that, and investigate WHY.

This is where the magic lies in starting to develop correct, functional biomechanics in our horses.