On this podcast episode, Stacy Westfall introduces the concept that of viewing a horse’s conduct as an “invitation” that riders can make a selection to just accept or decline. She explains that horses incessantly provide two sorts of invites to riders:
– Emotional invites: When a horse turns into nervous, jumpy, or shows a selected emotional state, it may be observed as a call for participation for the rider to enroll in that emotional state.
– Coaching invites: Horses may additionally invite riders to make use of sure aids or reply in explicit tactics all over coaching or driving. For instance, a lazy horse would possibly invite the rider to do extra paintings to take care of power, whilst a scorching horse would possibly invite the rider to continuously practice the brakes.
Stacy encourages riders to:
– Acknowledge those invites from their horses
– Turn out to be acutely aware of their default responses to those invites
– Imagine opting for a unique, extra productive reaction
– Search for invites all over their subsequent 10 rides
– Purpose to damage routine patterns by way of responding deliberately to their horse’s cues.