Mountain Trail
BUILD A MIND
By Mark H. Bolender
Photography courtesy IMTCA
44 / Sport and Trail Magazine
Mountain Trail
The horse’s mind is an amazing place. Understanding the basics is an absolute necessity in order to build the mind of the horse. In reality, the mind is built but I want to flip it. What I mean is the horse is created to react and then think. Yet, with training, I want it to think and then react. The way horses are programed has helped them to survive alone without man in the wild yet, to build a partnership I need the horse to trust me enough to think before reacting. I find obstacle training can help accelerate this process of thinking first and then reacting plus, it is a quick way to build trust from horse to rider and rider to horse.
I find a well thought out Mountain Trail or obstacle course can teach the horse to move with boldness and confidence through the most difficult obstacles with ease and safety. Good training will shift ultimate control to the rider, and to do that, we can use the horse’s instinct to our advantage. That doesn’t happen naturally unless we are willing to enter into their world, which is in part run by instinct and train under their rules and learn their language. Instinct isn’t good or bad, right or wrong. It simply exists. It’s a kind of intelligence beyond our capability to fully comprehend because we have so little to compare it to.
The animal world is full of this kind of intelligence, but humans simply are not equipped to understand it. The horse is not superior or inferior to the human. They are not incomplete but from a world older than ours, where they live and move with a brilliance of senses we have lost or never acquired and living by voices we will never hear. They are not brethren or underlings, just magnificent creatures which are drawn to us as we are drawn to them. Neither the horse nor the human know why this is so. So to say we are better, smarter, or more sensitive than horses
is a great mistake. If a trainer thinks in those terms, then the result will never be a partnership between the horse and trainer. A partnership is where both horse and rider depend on each other to do their job.
This is where the beauty of the Mountain Trail Course comes in. With obstacles that move, jump ups, step downs, rocks, logs, water plus others the horse and rider must learn to trust each other.
Since instinct appears to be universal, obstacle training seems to benefit every breed in every discipline. With horses in training of almost every breed, size and discipline I find the process for each is the same with slight variations depending on personality of the horse. Today I worked a 13-1 pony, a 17-3 Hanoverian, two other warmbloods, one Arab, Appendix, Mustang, and a number of Quarter Horses. It only takes but a short time to see radical behavioral changes in each of these that have come in for training. We all want that perfect horse for that perfect ride, whether it’s on the mountain trail or in the show ring and obstacle training is a great way to start. Good riding skills and ground skills along with learning to listen to the horse is the start of a partnership. This isn’t easy. Listening is both a science and a natural gift.
Listening begins, of course, by knowing a common language. Just as with listening to people, when you listen to a horse, its voice is amazingly clear. For instance, if a horse doesn’t want to step up and onto a platform, it will let you know simply by how it shakes its head and blows. If it wants to please you and attempt to step up, it may sniff or paw at the platform. That tells you the horse is considering following through but still needs some direction or reassurance. Such behavior forms part of the basic exchange of
to
achieve that, the handler must communicate in a clear manner, in the horse’s language, so the horse will keep listening. The skills for listening to the horse are obtained only when you understand the principles guiding a horse’s world and learn to imitate the horse’s language. When this art is mastered then the instinct of the horse will kick in to try and please you in mastering the obstacles, which in the end will override the fear of the unknown, which leads to trust then boldness and confidence.
Instinct is hardwired from birth, and to try to go against is much more difficult than simply working with it. Instinct will also determine who to trust and who is worthy of a leadership role. If certain behavior is exhibited by a human then instinct will block the horse from listening or trusting and at that point any training becomes mechanical. If instinct finds one worthy then the horse will die trying to please and in the end will learn to navigate the obstacles and Mountain Trail Course in a successful manner.
As a leader and teacher my job is to inspire the horse to achieve that which it felt was impossible. My focus is never to master the obstacle but I use the obstacle as a tool to master and to build the mind of the horse. In the right hands I know of no other tool which can build boldness and confidence in both the horse and rider as a Mountain Trail Course and this is why so many are springing up around the globe.
Mark H Bolender
Happy Trails and Bolender Blessings.
The Value of Obstacle Training