Going on the Trail

By: Lindsey Vincent

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Trail riding on a regular basis gives you and your horse a break from the training routine and a chance to explore and enjoy the countryside. 

In this article, Lindsey Vincent explains that green horses need some time preparing before their first outing on the trail. In order to make the ride safer and more enjoyable for both, you need to take your time and let your horse build up some confidence.

No matter what sport or discipline you like to do with your horse, it’s important to vary the training and keep lessons fresh and exciting. A good way to give your horse a break from its routine is by hitting the trail and venturing outside of the arena.

Young horses can often become overly anxious and spooky out on the trail, so you need to take it slow and build confidence first. You can use both classical and operant conditioning exercises in order to prepare your green horse for the world outside of the arena.

I started my own young Quarter Horse ‘Skitter’ under saddle early this year, and during all of our lessons, I have mainly stayed in the arena. When I decided he was safe and reliable enough to go outside, I started to slowly venture out of familiar areas.

From the ground up

For safety reasons, I always made sure to do groundwork with him in various areas. In fact, I prefer groundwork in new areas before riding for several reasons. One is because many animals need help generalizing their training.

It is not unusual for animals to connect certain cues with their environment. For instance, whenever I am training dogs, I have noticed many clients who have a well-trained dog inside the house, but it’s a different story outside the house. This is because they did not generalize behaviors with their dog.

Generalizing and context in training

In psychology, generalization refers to to the application of a skill learned in one situation to a different but similar situation, and also to the transfer of a response learned to one stimulus to a similar stimulus.

In order to teach our animals how to generalize, we need to take a well-known behavior and start cueing it in a different environment. When we do that, we need to also lower our criteria, we should not expect the same response that we had achieved in the familiar environment.

Sometimes we even need to go back to the basics and re-train the behavior. From the animal’s point of view, when the environment changes, the rules may also change.

By working on groundwork first in new areas, you’re helping your horse to understand that even though the environment changed, the behavior should still be the same when the cue is given.

Read your horse

Another reason why I prefer groundwork before riding is because you can observe your horse’s emotional state. You want your horse to be comfortable and relaxed. Any sign of anxiety should be noted. If it’s extreme anxiety, you might even go back to a more familiar environment and ease your horse back into a newer, more distracting environment. Whenever I am trying to generalize behaviors, I take note of any minor change. For instance, changing surfaces such as moving from arena footing onto concrete may require some generalization.

With Skitter, he tends to walk across concrete fairly often, so asking him to step onto concrete isn’t a difficult task at all. However, he does tend to have issues with walking off the outdoor track into tall, thick grass. This is to be expected, because he does not encounter very tall grass, even out in his turnout pasture. From his perspective, tall grass is probably a little scary. Whenever we first encountered tall grass, I encouraged Skitter to move forward at his own pace.

If he hesitated, I let him back away if he wanted. Because he is very curious, he eventually approached the grass on his own. I let him reach down and eat some of it, too. While some people don’t want their horses grabbing grass on trails, I don’t have issues with letting a young horse grab a bite if they were originally afraid of the grass. If it turns into a habit, it can always be trained and put on cue later.

Once your horse is comfortable in new areas with groundwork, and if you feel safe enough to start riding, then see how your horse responds under saddle.

Choosing where to start

With Skitter, I gradually made my way from the arena out onto a large dirt track. At the ranch, this track is a little way from the barn. There are also no fences around it. It’s a good intermediate area, because the footing has the same feel as the arena, but it’s in a completely open area.

I took it very slow with Skitter at first. In fact, after I had a few days where I did only groundwork sessions outside, I would still ride in the more familiar covered arena. I started to gradually venture out whenever I needed to walk Skitter to cool down. I would only walk him out to the track and then back to the barn. Eventually I started spending more and more time out on the track until he felt more comfortable. Once he was completely relaxed outside, then I started having typical training sessions. Now we can ride anywhere on the track at any speed, and he has nearly a 100% compliancy rate with his cues.

After holding several sessions with Skitter out on the track, we started to ride out in the pastures. I often go toward the back of the ranch and check on one of the herds of horses. Riding out in meadows can present several challenges. First, there is uneven terrain you have to consider. I never ride horses out in fields at fast paces, because there can be holes or soft areas in the ground where the horse can injure itself. Next, there can be animals or noises that can cause the horse to spook. When riding in the fields, I have come across deer, coyotes, snakes and rabbits that have been hiding in tall grass.

Spook proofing

It’s always a good idea to find various stimuli that may frighten your horse for preparation out on the trail. You can desensitize your horse or allow your horse to make a positive connection with the scary object(s).

Desensitization is a process in which you expose your horse to a scary object repeatedly; however, the exposure is at a very low level - low enough to keep your horse in a very calm state of mind. The idea of desensitization is that low levels of exposure will allow the horse to realize that the scary stimulus means nothing.

The correct way to desensitize ensures that the horse never even tries to escape the stimulus, because it’s being kept at a calm state of mind throughout the process. If the horse tries to escape and can’t, it’s important to realize that this is no longer desensitization, but is instead a process called flooding. Flooding carries a potential risk of sensitization, which will cause your horse to in fact become even more afraid of the scary stimulus and other items associated with it. While flooding can work, it’s best to avoid it and keep your horse calm at all times.

While I do utilize desensitization from time to time, I typically rely more on operant conditioning over classical conditioning. Desensitization is a form of classical conditioning. It is non-contingent on behavior. While I do want my horse to remain calm during the desensitization process, I do not care if my horse looks away or starts offering other behaviors. I merely want my horse to learn that the scary object means absolutely nothing.

Operant conditioning, on the other hand, is contingent on behaviors. In other words, I am looking for a specific response and I am going to reinforce that response. With operant conditioning, you will always form some sort of a classically conditioned response. In essence, if I ask my horse to reach out and touch a scary object and I pair it with food, my horse is eventually going to have a positive association with that object. With operant conditioning, you always get your classical “bang for your buck.”

Work at your horse’s pace

Skitter tends to be afraid of large, scary objects. He doesn’t seem to spook so much at rabbits jumping out in front of him or horses running in a nearby field. The ranch where he stays is full of all sorts of farm equipment. All of the hay baling equipment is kept out in the back fields where we ride, so he was pretty afraid of them at first. Any time I’m dealing with a young horse like Skitter, it’s best to dismount and let the horse investigate whatever it might be afraid of. I can easily feel when Skitter tenses up, and that’s my cue to dismount and have a quick training session.

I like to do a little targeting by cueing Skitter to touch the scary object. I’m always careful to ensure that Skitter is indeed comfortable with the exercise. If he displays too much tension, then I’ll increase the distance between ourselves and the scary stimulus and ask him to merely look at it instead of touch it. Sometimes horses will still offer behaviors even though they aren’t in the right frame of mind. A calm, thinking horse is what we want - not a horse that offers the behavior externally and is out of sorts emotionally on the inside.

Behavior Adjustment Training

Another program I like to utilize is called BAT, or Behavior Adjustment Training. BAT is a program for dogs in which a trainer or handler will walk the dog to a specific distance away from an uncomfortable stimulus. The handler and dog will wait until the dog offers some sort of a calm behavior, then the dog is clicked/treated and the team will walk away from the stimulus and repeat. Over time, the dog and handler pair will be able to get closer and closer to the stimulus until they offer a positive response. This same exercise can be done with horses. Some trainers refer to this as approach and retreat training.

Programs such as BAT give a double reward, so to speak. One, the animal gets a click/treat reinforcer for offering a calm emotional state; and two, the animal gets to retreat from the scary object. The ability to retreat allows the animal to have a little mini-break from having to be around the fear-inducing stimulus. Horses, being the prey animal that they are, need to retreat in order to feel safe. Methods similar to BAT can work wonders with horses.

Again, I do these exercises on the ground first. Once my horse is offering calm responses, then I mount up in the saddle and repeat everything I just taught on the ground. This doesn’t have to be done all in one session, or even in one day time. It’s important to go at your horse’s pace and never push him or her. That could result in disaster. Let them tell you how they feel about doing something. After all, communication is a two-way street.

It all pays off

Hitting the trail on a regular basis is very good for both you and your horse. It gives you both a break from the routine and a chance to explore the countryside. All green horses need some time preparing before their first outing on the trail, so take your time and let your horse build up some confidence first. This will make the trek more safe and enjoyable for the both of you.

Happy trails!

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