Using early childhood education principles to understand the "Part A" and "Part B" process of setting your horse up for their ridden career.
Early childhood education is influenced heavily by the idea of "the absorbent brain" of a young child. Under this thinking, the child absorbs everything for the first 6 or so years of their life. Some say there are three years of "unconscious" absorbing where they (unknowingly) learn to do things like sit, stand, walk, and talk. Then come the "conscious" years, where a child begins to systematically build their basic skills to read, write, move, and solve problems. This stage often comes with a desire for growing independence and provides the child with the building blocks necessary to progress through education and the stages of life.
I see a young horse's journey from birth to under saddle as very similar.
Part A: the "unconscious" learning period
I would argue that when a horse is started under saddle, their learning is still "unconscious".
With limited understanding of the scenario and expectation, the horse relies heavily on the trainer's direction to learn the “essentials” to being a saddle horse - how to carry a rider and respond to their aids of moving forward, moving away and towards aids, and stopping. Because these are the essentials, like talking, and basic reading and writing for a child, I do not expect the initial starting process to result in a very put-together ride, so contact, responsiveness, straightness, and the like might not be well established.
Until this point, the horse only knows the trainer's way of going. So, when the horse returns home and begins work with a different rider who asks questions differently or expects different answers, the situation can get more complex and confusing for the horse and may leave the horse feeling vulnerable and unsure about what is expected of them. Common consequences of this include shutting down, evasion or even outwards resistance.
Part B: the "conscious" learning period
This leads me to my point of making the most of the horse's now "conscious" absorbent brain. If handled right, this is the most valuable opportunity to develop security in the horse/rider relationship and blend what the horse has learnt in its early days under saddle with what we desire from them before the horse enters their adolescent years.
To achieve this, I find much logic in a two-stage starting process for the horse. As above, the Part A period is dedicated simply to introducing the horse to under saddle work. It is followed by the Part B period, where we finesse and refine the initial education provided to support the horse's transition to their owner's needs/wants. While I do not believe that the Part A trainer needs to be experienced in the horse's potential career, given the more open focus of goals when starting, I do believe it is essential that the person who carries out Part B understands the Part A process. This enables the rider to provide the horse with the aids and expectations they understand from Part A and continue the learning process with a systematic, very consistent approach to building Part B results.
"Handled right, this is the most valuable opportunity to develop security in the horse/rider relationship"
Meet Hercules, a 5 year old Shire gelding
One of my recent horses working through this process is "Hercules", a 5-year-old Shire gelding.
On arrival to Moonbah Performance Horses, Hercules had been under saddle for only a short few months. After his initial starting period, he spent some time back home continuing to strengthen and develop under saddle with his owner. MPH worked collaboratively with Hercules and his owner in this time to guide the training process.
To solidify this work and introduce some more 'dressage' building blocks for his future career, Hercules then spent 4 weeks training at MPH. Our focus was on creating a more connected, flowing, and responsive horse through an understanding of contact, proprioception and body softness and refining the aids he understands. This enables a clearer conversation between Hercules and his owner, and sets him up well for his future in the show and dressage arenas.
Seeing Hercules grasp these concepts so well was a very rewarding sight. Thank you to Hercules' owners for letting me work with him in such an important time of his life!
Needing some guidance?
Developing the young horse is one of my greatest passions, and I have enjoyed a lot of positive training success with young horses who have trained with MPH following their initial starting period. If you are looking to provide your horse with this "Part B" approach, please reach out to us
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