Recently, I helped a friend whose mare was having problems with the transition to canter. Moving from trot to canter was scary at best – the mare might cut sharply into a turn, panic and rush, or throw in a strong buck. The mare seemed to be saying let’s just stick with the trot!

Sadly, ponies get a lot of bad press. Even so, their reputation as being lazy, stubborn, and difficult to train, plus their seemingly inherent displays of poor behaviour, have less to do with their innate nature and more to do with a lack of training.

When I first began riding lessons over 30 years ago, the horse world that I experienced was staunchly devoted to negative reinforcement training, supported by a limited understanding of equine behaviour and the speed and convenience of force-based forms of horsemanship. I can safely say that the process of shedding those engrained patterns, cemented in my neural pathways by consistent use and a lack of viable alternatives, has been one of the greatest obstacles in my journey with horses. Thankfully, over the last five years, I have been bathing in alternative and less intense waters where horse training is concerned. Positive reinforcement training, known by many as R+ training, has been one of my explorations. This type of training, used commonly with dogs and other animals and now finding its way into more mainstream use with horses, uses clicker training primarily as a means of supporting learning. Clicker training uses a novel noise or word that is easily distinguishable for your horse to mark a desired behaviour, generally followed closely by a reward, typically of food. In this way you are able to shape behaviours and encourage curiousity and creativity in your horse.

The timeline for training a horse varies widely—both between individual horses and the people working with them. In my experience as a trainer, I firmly believe that slowing down the process actually accelerates learning. Horses not only absorb information more efficiently, but they also gain confidence in the process. Confidence, or lack thereof, plays a major role in how steadily a horse progresses through training.