DEVELOPING THE HORSE’S CONFIDENCE

This sort of training is helpful only when the operator of the spooky object is completely trustworthy and highly experienced. It is much like training a cutting horse: The cutting dummy (or live calf) must never come AT the horse; the process is to convince the horse that he is the superior entity, the one in control, the one who dominates and causes the object to retreat. Here Jennifer Mlocek (and an unseen drone operator) works with her mare Onwynn to develop that kind of confidence.

Drum or platform work is extremely helpful on many levels: It teaches the handler to read the horse better and to improve their timing, and it builds confidence in the horse. It also allows many horses to feel their back rounding and the base of the neck rising for the first time since they were foals. When it is done at liberty, as here, it also involves the horse “hooking on” to the handler, responding to very subtle signals that resemble the horse’s own language of gesture and body positioning. This photo is of Colleen Nolan-Tran’s Tidewater Tomcat.

Even apparently insignificant

“circus tricks” are important to the horse’s emotional and mental development. Every opportunity to praise and reward helps to build the bond of trust and communication between rider and horse. Here Colleen Nolan-Tran asks Tidewater Tomcat to “smile.”