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Harry Whitney

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#1 ·
I spent all day today at a Harry Whitney clinic. I have been a student of HIS student, but this is the first time I have seen him work. it was truly amazing. I have never seen a person with as much finesse with horses as he has. I took notes, and plan to write them up, but not sure how much sense they'll make. and, if you have not had any exposure to this approach, it will not , perhaps, make a lot of sense.

Harry worked 5 horses in the round pen . (riding work comes later in this 5 day clinic). the only running around was when the horse himself decided he had to run. most of the work was so slow you'd wonder if anything was happening. but, there are changes happening, I assure you, because the horse that left the round pen was relaxed, happy and it showed in the lengthened neck and filled out topline. never once did HW go purposely to send them off running until they were tired enough to beg to come in. never once did he jump in front of the horse repeatedly to make it change directions as fast as it could. never once did he bend over and stare at the hind end to make the horse whip it out of the way. never once did he swing a "carrot stick", nor bang on the line with with it.

most of the work he does is jsut with a crook or a certain waggle or point of one old cowboy crooked finger. he barely changed his demeanor, and never once did he hit the horse with any thing. there was no propellor swinging at the hrose, no lunge whip (though he did have a flag at one time with the first horse , who has some problems with being nervous and reactive). he never got angry, yet he corrected many times that looked upsetting. he never once dissed the horse nor blamed it.

He said, " rather than finding the stiff/braced spots and attacking them , I prefer to find the good spots and hope to bring the horse into them more and more."

I'll be writing up my notes, and if they look good enough, I'll post them, but if anyone else knows much about him, feel free to add it. Harry never allows videoing. he sells no books or halters or dvds. you want to learn? show up. I am fortunate that i have had the chance to meet and learn from his student, who also has no dvds. the real deals don't need to have merchandising to make themselves believable.
 
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#2 ·
I am reading Tom Moates book series now and he spends alot of time with Harry.That is who he learned from.So I am seeing Harry's ways through Tom.Very interesting fellow.If I ever get the chance to go to his clinic I most certainly will.Enjoy your time and please do keep us informed.
 
#3 ·
the notes I took were very hard to convert to any sort of methodical, logical order. but, I tried. it's very long, but let me see if I can put them in. might need two posts. I doubt many will take the time to read them, nor have any real interest. Harry's approach is not a step by step , get it down way. it takes a fair amount of time and observation of someone working with a horse like this to understand what they are doing.
 
#4 ·
notes part 1

Let me first say, these are MY notes. they are MY interpretation of what I "heard" him say. that does not mean that is exactly what he actually did say, what he wanted us to understand. any misunderstanding is fully MY RESPONSIBILTY.





The first horse who entered into the round pen was a black thoroughbred/percheron cross. He has had some issues where he was troubled about things , worried about buddy separation and just not there with the handler.
Harry (H) starts out immediately just sort of standing what the horse facing him and the rp and is looking for the horse to be present in his head. The horse looks past him at times, or off in the field, or over him. He even lets H pet him, but H comments that there is a dullness to his eye that indicates that he is not really there, that he is shut down. He has had the training, knows the drills, but isn’t really there.
H asked, “is the dullness born into the horse, or put there by us?” H feels it is put in by us, due to the horse’s self preservation reaction to a lack of clarity. How does a horse react to a lack of clarity? He can either go outward, and try to get away , either mentally or physically or both. OR, he can go internal, where you don’t see yourself in his eyes.
In fact, he pointed out that this kind of horse often wants to be right on top of you, and that was one of the first things he addressed while leading was the black horse’s tendency to come up too close and look right OVER H. this is a kind of “push” and it’s not a friendly one, either.
Here H spent some time talking about how to approach thinking about horses in general. He says one of the things he spends a lot of time on, and we should too, is working on repeatedly asking a horse to let go of a thought . why? Because we want them to be with us both physically and mentally, and if they are with us physically, but mentally somewhere else, not only is that dangerous for us, but it is the source of all worry for a horse. any time a horse is physically separated from the place his mind wants to be, he will experience a state of concern and stress. And he stressed that a horse that will not let go of a though is TROUBLE . so, practice this:
Build the habit of getting a horse to let go of his thought
So, practicing getting the horse able to let go of a thought and be with us enough for us to send his though (or keep it) is good for our riding, and eventually makes the horse literally feel better because it reduces this schism where he is physically somewhere but longs to be somewhere else. We can send him off, or let him go , somewhere and go with him as a passenger (rider) and that can feel ok to the horse, but can we bring him back to be with us? The more we practice this, the easier it is, and the softer the horse will feel about coming back to us mentally because eventually, he won’t really even leave us.
(later in the day H talked about how a horse , from the time it is a foal running and dodging at the side of its’ mother, it can keep track of something physically , by keeping it’s shoulder sort of “on” it, while still being mentally aware of things outside of it. This is ok for it’s place in the herd, but we do NOT want it trying to keep track of us physically because we do not want a fearful horse “leaning” its’ 1200 lbs onto us while it’s looking outward for danger.
So, H spent quite a bit of time with each horse he worked with literally just tipping the horse’s head to the right , then the left, then right, left, etc. he did this both by using a feel on the halter/lead, and by using his fingers to apply a bit of pressure on one side (the side where the horse is looking out) of the horse’s face to say, “no, that won’t work out”, allow the horse to turn to the other side, then, perhaps use a soft finger on the edge of the nose to turn the head the other way. It was both, no, don’t look away from me. And, can you take your thought over there? can you let me into this side of your face?, now, can you take your face over there.
The sweet spot, . . take time to build it.
From having the horse move his thought to the right, then to the left, he spent a lot of really slow time with the horse, and always gave them plenty of “soak” time after they’d given him their thought in a good way. He said people get in the rp and get to having sand flying and all, and never spend any time creating the “sweet spot. Yes, the horse will come around and face them, turn it’s hindquarters and such, but not because it really WANTS to be with you. No, it does that because you make being “out there” (on the outer ring of the rp) so awful and miserable, they come in because they are between a rock and a hard spot. The HAVE TO.
Take your time
By going slow with the initial sends and draws, he works on having the horse work things out for himself, so the horse makes the decision to be with you. He emphasized this many times when he used the gentle ( and sometimes not so gentle) slap of the lead rope on his chaps to get the horse to think about, “now, what does that man want?” the horse can leave, and in fact they did, often, but H would let them do that, and while he would not “chase “ the horse hard around to make him tired, if the horse chose to leave when H was on ly asking him to think about coming IN to him, H would make leaving not work out for the horse.
When H is working with horses in the rp, you will often see him send the horse out and ask it back. The horse can also choose to go off , of it’s own volition , and we call that “leaving”. In any case, the idea is that he wants the horse to choose to come back. To be always ‘hunting up the sweet spot” that he has made with it through all the small work of send, bend, lead, come back , etc. so, you will see H stop sending a horse, just stand there, perhaps with his hip cocked
When asked why he does not just back up to draw the horse toward him, after it has stopped going around and is looking at him, he said he could do that, but the horse is then ‘pulled inward like a vacuum”. The horse almost comes without knowing why, and it’s not the sort of searching for and choosing an answer that he wants from the horse. H reminds us to take our time and have faith they’ll come back.
H:, “horses want it (a relationship with another being) SO bad, that you just have to wait and have faith that they’ll make it back to you”.
 
#5 ·
part 2

What does “not work out” mean?
It doesn’t mean run him until he begs to come in. it does not mean make him change directions a whole bunch of times. What it meant was that , for example, if the horse left H hard, H might slap his chap pretty loud (AFTER the horse had left, never right when he is just doing it. He waits to put some “noise” on the horse until after the horse has committed to that decision).

If the horse ran out to the edge and kept going, he might slap again, or swing a bit of rope out. Not so much to just drive him , but to make the running not so comfortable (not work out). H did not get all loud or frantic. If the horse left, not so hard (meaning, he MIGHT change his mind and come back), then H would do less with his rope. His body posture was very neutral.
If the horse can’t go with you, you go with him.

If the horse just went to the outside the pen and kept running and running, then more rope swiging to try and get it to look back at him would not help. Why? Because the horse was already so worried that doing a lot of commotion would only make him even more stressed and not help him at all. In such a case, he knows the horse will not give up his idea that the answer is out THERE instead of in here, and that he runs around only because he cannot physically leave the pen.
So, H “goes with the horse, until it can come back to him” ./ “Goes with the horse” means that he walks a circle in the center that matches the horse’s energy. So, if the horse is cantering, H will walk to match that energy. If its’ trotting, he will slow down to match that. He looks to see the horse give a signal with it’s body, ears , breathing, eyes that it might be ready to “go with him”. If he thinks that an offer on H’s part to slow down from canter to trot would be accepted, he offers this in his body by slowing down. If the horse is not ready, he will go back to “going with the horse”.
If the horse is unable to accept the offer to slow due to real anxiety, he will only match the horse. kind of like, “I’ll stay in here with you until you can handle more. I won’t make it miserable and I won’t abandon you either. I’ll just be here, neither more nor less than you “ . but if the horse is not really all that scared but is just full of beans and blowing him off , he might add a bit more . . “ok, if you want to ignore the slow down, you can go a bit faster. See, that won’t work!” not punishment, but something that might encourage a change.
The squeeze
If the horse is really zoned out , he might offset his position a bit from the center and if/when the horse breezes by a place where he is closer to H, he would expect the horse to put some thought on him. If the horse does not, and elects to go past H without even a single change in his body he will snake the rope out or slap his chap or do something that made the choice to go past him, thought the narrower part between the human and the fence, an uncomfortable choice. Make it NOT work out. But only AFTER the horse commits to going through the squeeze. You do NOT block him from choosing. It’s you saying to him, “hey! You could have thought about me there”.
H may then step closer to the fence and see if that will cause the horse to look at him and give up his outward focus. If not, he repeats the swish at the horse AFTER he has gone through the squeeze. If the horse pauses, considers stopping, but still goes through, H may do less, or even back away a bit to encourage that.

Eventually , the horse will look for a different answer because running around “did not work out”. He’ll look at you.
Hard to believe, but a noise/flag/ motion can be used to draw a horse as well as drive him
When H was working with the horse’s, when they stopped and looked at him, if he felt that they COULD feel ok about coming in, he would wait, wait, do nothing, wait, and then maybe slap the rope against his chap to see if the horse could make a choice. Doing nothing was one choice, but H is asking for the horse to choose an even better place; close to H.
At the beginning, most of the horses were tentative. They chose to leave, as most any horse would. H made THAT not work out with a snaked rope, or a slapped chap, which asked them to chose something else. They would stop, look, and he would wait. . . and, slap his chap with the rope. Not much, just enough to create the impetus for the horse to make a choice. After a time, they could almost all make it to the place where they came forward toward him, and get a bit of a pet on the face, then left in peace.
The intention is perfectly clear to the horse between a slap on the thigh that means “go!”, and one that says, “look here, think here, come here”.

HOPE verses INTENTION
In fact, speaking of “intention”., Harry said one reason he can get so much done with a horse when the owner cannot is that he operates with pure INTENTION. Whereas the owner is asking with HOPE. Horses know the difference.
 
#6 ·
part 3

When he takes his first steps off away, is he “mindful”? (mind full with you?) or does he just leave?
So, after working with getting the horse to release his thought and move his head right, then left, back up, lead up etc. one of the first things a person will do with that thought is send it off for a step or two, or a “trip”, too. H is very, very insistent on the quality of that departure. #1, you must first get him to THINK in the direction you want him move. Don’t try to move his feet until he does. H will stand patiently, and using only a slight suggesting motion with his finger, and a slight feel on the leadline, he gets the horse to look in the direction that H is sending his thought. Once that happens, H says, “now take your feet out that way”. But, never move the horse’s feet off out away from you until you ask him to by first getting his though over there. if you do, he’ll pretty much move his feet there of his own. H almost never used ANY sort of pushing pressure from the coiled rope in his “driving” hand, but rather used all the power of his intention in body, hand and feel to get the horse to think, “I ‘d like to go out there” . . . and he went. So, H worked a lot on sending the horse’s thought over, and then just sort of allowing his feet to follow along.

H stressed over and over, and demonstrated this with great consistency in his own actions, you never move his feet over without having his mind, and sending his thought there first. Then moving the feet is easy. But, there can be difficulties. Sometimes the horse is afraid to not have his eyes on you at all times, so he may move his feet off, but will not allow you to send his thought off. Don’t settle for that . go and get him to move his thought over first. You do not want to encourage that horse to be moving with his brain in one place and his feet somewhere else!
Or, the other extreme; you send his thought “over there” and he totally goes away; he “leaves”!

But what about when he “leaves”. And what IS “leaving”?
( as per explained by Julie, my teacher: Leaving is when he breaks his mental connection and it goes somewhere else, and he may feel it necessary to act on that thought, thus leaving you for something else. A horse can look off from time to time, but he may not actually be leaving you. He won’t act on that. But, if he leaves hard enough, he’ll act on that.)
sometimes, when you ask the horse to think over there and take a step over there he leaves. Why? It’s not always so much that he WANTS to be there, but that “he doesn’t think he can stay”. This is especially true with horses that have been trained to “point and Go!”.
 
#7 ·
part 4

Getting stupid
In the case of where he moved his feet off, anticipating what you wanted, H would stop him by lifting the line, or putting a little wiggle, or doing a short scuffle of his feet or light slap on his chap. That says, “hey! Wait for me. “ he does not want the horse to have his mind one place while his feet are another. If he asked for the horse to look around at him and not just leave, and the horse kept leaving, he would “get stupid”. That means he does something big and unexpected. In fact, he said we should all learn how to do something unexpected and see how our horse’s attention will become available. Yes, the horse will become upset and it can create worry, but he will later feel better when he starts having his mind where his body is. H said that a fair amount of his work might make the horse upset and stressed, but the end result will justify that trip . H joked how he gets his horse to thinking, “If I leave, that human goes stupid. It’s a lot safer if I don’t leave”. That makes it the horse’s responsibility to look where we ask him, but to still feel back for us and not just go, “I’m outta here!” when we ask for his first step out and away. We make it safe for them by always offering a tiny invitation to stay, even when they start to leave. . . He says:
“ I want him to leave like that. How he leaves is more important than THAT he leaves”
Because H was very clear in that he only asked the horse to think over there and move his feet over there (not keep going, not giraffe his head, not lean his shoulder in, not leap over there), when the horse left in any way but the way that H was asking, H would stop this. He’d interrupt it, with a raise of the rope, or a wiggle/feel, or a slap of his chaps or slap on the ground. It might seem odd to an observer because H asks the horse to think out, step out, and then , in what seems like a millisecond, interrupts that whole thing, gets the horse lined up and thinking on him, then starts the whole process of “think over there . . . now take you feet over there . . “ It looks like he punished the horse for doing what he asked it to do.

If it takes a lot of pressure the first few times a person sends a horse out, then they can get into the frame of mind “it took a lot of pressure the first 10 times, it’s going to now, too.” And they get to pushing hard on the horse, the develop a pattern of “making it happen”. Horses resent this kind of approach. Your direction becomes something to” get away from” verses something to “go with”.
Hint:
Harry talked here a bit about the difference between how a horse might act when being sent out at liberty, vs on a halter and lead line. The horse has learned from a foal that when the halter is on, he has less freedom. So, even when offered it, he may be less “free” to take it. In the case of a fearful horse, sometimes working with a neck rope might be a better option than with a halter.
Don’t Ambush your horse.

But, he asked it to think that way, take it’s thought over, but not to mentally leave him. Nor to keep going on auto pilot, nor to leave with a heavy brace in it’s neck, nor to push in on my him with its’ shoulder . . none of these other things. he asked it to step over and follow the soft thought. When it did not, he offered a tiny chance for it to come back to him mentally, and when the horse did not take that, he got firm , real quick. It looks like there is not small offer before the “get big”, but there is. H said that just him being quiet on the end of the line is enough of an offer to move respectfully. The horse could take that. He says that with regard to keeping the horse’s attention when he’s on the line, most people are “gone” attention wise from the line a good 50% of the time, so they think it’s not fair to expect the horse to pay attention 100% of the time. But horses are built to pay attention to what is important. The line can become so important, and the human on it, that they can stay with it 100% of the time IF YOU DON”T LEAVE FIRST!
In the case of a horse not knowing how to stay connected even when asked to step out, he will offer a bit more before getting big. If the horse ignores that, he might need to “get stupid”. H reminds folks to not “ambush “ their horses. He says to remember to prepare them for changes with a tiny shift in your body, so they have a chance to stay with you, but on the other hand, don’t Beg them, either.


This whole process of sending the horse out, and inviting them back is one that takes a lot of his time, as he builds that sweet spot. Some folks might say why would you send him away when you just got him focused ON you.? Part of it is experimenting with how connected you are by asking him to “think over there”. Once his feet are moving, will that tip him into flight. With that in mind, Harry would stand and ask some of the more worried horses to just move their whole neck over, and between each time air tapping near the neck, he would ease off and pat the horse a bit on the neck, to avoid sending them into making the decision to leave. Of course, if they make the decision to leave, that’s just another opportunity to work on getting them to feel that out there doesn’t work so that they’ll hunt around for the sweet spot they were enjoying just s few minutes ago; with YOU! Even if he leaves, you might not need to do much to get him to look back for you. All of this slow moving and sending is all about taking your time.
 
#8 ·
part 6? so many I lost track! (what was I thinking??!!!)

Don’t be in a hurry to be in a hurry
Some fo the students admit to the frustration of putting this sort of training on, or having H do it, and then it goes away. They asked, “shouldn’t it stay? I mean , how much do we have to do this?
Harry’s answer: “It’s a way of life”
People feel unsure about what to try, where to start, and afraid to make mistakes.
Harry: start where you can have the best clarity. Start with something YOU are clear on. Don’t go where you cant get clarity . still, even if you fear mistakes, you are better off to try and make some sort of change, even if it’s not total, or doesn’t stick.
Harry talked a bit about the concept of “coming into their own pressure”. This he says is like what happens when a horse moves into an electric fence; the fence does not jump out to bite them, they moved into it and felt it’s pressure. So, they ‘created’ the pressure. This concept is applicable when handling the leadrope and asking the horse to back up, or lower his head, or move right or left or? If the horse resists, he meets the firmness of your hand, but you don’t bring that to him. You may ask that he goes right, for example, by moving the halter that way ( and in this case, H had a hold of the halter knot under the chin. He starts by “holding” it and moving it by just moving it by his open hand. If the horse moves with that, he is not creating any pressure.
But, if he drags and resists, he is “moving into his own pressure” . H said some horses have such strong thoughts that they will move into a lot of pressure to get what he thinks he wants.
(he spoke here about a “militant” owner who applied so much pressure with a “get it done now!” attitude that the horse never had any say, no sweet spot, only a sense of needing to run and do “it” ASAP before he was “in trouble” . the horse performs, but he “feels” bad about it.
You are not in trouble.
Harry talks a lot about the horse NOT being in trouble when he makes a choice that you didn’t ask, or when he become worried and moves away from H if he gets a bit “stupid” or loose in his movments. There is no punishment. None. This is something that I do not feel I fully understand the difference. I see what appear to be corrections, and am not 100% clear on the difference, or if the horse feels the difference, but I think this clarity will come in time.


Ok, as I’m running out of steam here, I may make less of an effort to present this in the most logical order I can, but rather in the order I heard and recorded, which may be spotty at best. . .
When the horse comes in to you, it’s important that he come in straight. Be aware if hes’ always trying to keep you on one side, and work on blocking that. Little by little, using your fingers to reach over and disallow him to turn his head away from you. Eventually he’ll learn to come in straight.

Harry stresses that the most important thing you want to achieve with ground work is getting your horse to feel good about being with you. That is the goal and result of all the work he showed today.
When I asked him why not just hang out with your horse, pet and scratch him and love on him in a peaceful way to build that good feeling.
There’s a difference between a horse feeling ok with your presence and a horse feeling ok about what you are DOING
H: that is all good and well when you are just standing around, but what about when things get moving? Or when the environment changes? Or something unexpected happens? You want him to be with you during those times , too. So, you have to really establish that being with you is the best place to be. What happens when you start asking him to move? Will he still feel ok? Good? .
If you cant direct his thought and him STILL be ok with that, then you don’t have much to work with
 
#9 ·
last part, thank God!

Petting a horse
Most horses don’t really like to be petted all that much. So, don’t think that going in and petting them all over is for THEM. It’s for YOU!. However, they need to tolerate you touching their face, so work on that. When they let you pet, not flinching away, nor lowering or raising their head, then pet once and move away from them.
(this is part of you and the horse building the sweet spot together).
Q: what about some of the other methods of training, where you move the horse around a lot until he asks to “join up” with you?
H: you want to give him choices. Giving him choices will make him feel better. You can MAKE him do those things, but he won’t feel good about it.

Q: Does it matter what your posture is, or what direction you are facing when you are aksing the horse to come in to you?

H: your intent is more important than your posture.
(My own musings . . .
Asked, again, about his drawing a horse back in after the horse has left and taken a few “trips” round the pen if he uses any certain body posture to try and draw the horse in, he says, “intent is more important than posture”. However, I noted many times that while “waiting” on his horse to decide to come in or not, he would be standing pointed just off to one side, and would have a ‘cock’ in his hips and knees. So, his posture was at least neutral. That being said, I never really saw him get any sort of “predatorily “ intense driving posture, either, and this made me think about how small his “small “ is.
I mean, a person gets big, right? When necessary. But , they also get small, when they want to be the most allowing of the horse to fill the neutral with his own decision. This is your “Ohhmmm “ sort of stand where you are pausing to invite him in, or reward him with a cessation of pressure .
Harry’s small was REALLY small, really calm, really enjoyable to a horse. having a small THAT small means that it doesn’t take much for him to be able to rise up to what feels big to the horse. he has more range than a person whose “small” is not really small. The person whose energy is always “on” will struggle to be able to raise their energy believably to the horse because they are always projecting energy, so they have less available range. Get it? So, while many of us need to work on creating a “big” that is something unexpected, and thus believable to the horse, . . some of us also need to work on creating a small that is REALLY small, and allows that “turn off” reward the horse craves._)
Why are so many Gaited horses unusually tense?
Harry worked with two Missouri Fox Trotter horses. One was quite worried, while the other less so, but H says that he feels that Gaited horses tend to be a very nervous , tense horse. he thinks it’s part genetics in that in order to breed for a horse with a rapid turnover of footfall, you are likely to favor a hotter horse, thus that temperament become bred in to achieve the rapid gait. AND, they get a lot of worry put into them by people who are always in such a hurry to see if they can “get him to gait!”, so they push the horse for speed. Then, to control him, they have a harsh bit on, so he’s locked between a rock and hard place. This is especially true of horses that pace. It is inherently a very tense way of moving. He sees a lot of gaited horses that are fine standing around, but get them moving and all kinds of worry shows up.
This really reinforces his tenets that he seeks relaxation in the horse, whether standing or moving. He wants the horse to “BE HERE”. And, he has seen that when the relaxation is there, it changes everything, but then sometimes the horse feels the weighted saddle and it all falls apart..

On backing :
H talked about thinking of the rope halter as a loop and you are asking the horse to keep his nose in the middle of that loop. If you move it back, he must move his head and body back in order to stay in the middle. Your hand on the halter, if you are grabbing the halter to back him, presents a “spot” for him to be. Its’ his responsibility to move so that he stays in that spot.. different from “pulling” a horse backward.
If you move him off the leadline, then you feel him sticking, you move toward him with that intent in your body to move backward, and then you touch the halter knot under his chin, and if he doesn’t move with THAT, your hand will firm up and his resistance will become his pressure against the halter. He meets his own pressure. As soon as he wants to, he can move backward and give off that pressure, and earn his own ‘reward’. We don’t “give “ it to him, he creates it himself by removing his pressure back against the halter . (this is something I find very hard to really understand as it ends up feeling/looking a lot like pulling a horse back. But, whatever . . . )
Don’t let him freeze
Doing some close work with the horse , asking him to go forward in a very small circle, when the horse got tight and froze up, H was right in there slapping his haunch, loudly and rhythmically, UNTIL the horse moved FORWARD! He wants to make sure the horse will not think backward when things get worrisome; that he will always realize that he can move his feet forward when he thinks it’s too much. And H reminded us that we may think it’s nothing, but a horse can be so afraid he thinks he’s going to die over something we can hardly comprehend, but it’s real to the horse.
Fearful horses, reactive horses
He talked about some horses who have had a bad experience and now have a belief experience that a human coming in close to them and moving something around near their flanks is just surely not going to end up well puts them in the position of taking care of themselves, and they “have to” flee. For such a horse, we have to “prove to them when things get like this, nothing bad will happen to them”, and for some horses, one has to “take them to the brink” to be able to prove this to them, their belief system is THAT entrenched. If, when the horse starts to respond to some movement around his haunches or such with fear and starts to back up or get upset, and we start moving MORE softly, we *****foot around them and stop being sloppy/loose in our movements, or moving our jackets, or waving our arms, then we only reinforce that belief. See, they acted that upset, moved around, panicked and we stopped. things got better. Horse thinks, “ahah! I guess that’s the best thing to do next time, too!
. Have a plan but be prepared to adapt
Yes, try to have a plan when you work with your horse so you can have better intention and clarity, but remember that having the horse feel good about working with you is the most important, so be ready to abandon the plan in favor of things” getting good between him and me.”

Q: When you deal with a horse who will NOT do something, do you ever use force?
H: there are times when you have to “make it happen”. It’s necessary because the horse does not know that it’s possible. Such as going into a trailer or crossing a creek. He will not even have that possible choice on his list of things to do, so by forcing it to happen, you make him realize it’s a possible choice. Once he knows that, you are working on getting him to see that other choices do not work out, he searches, and eventually re-finds the answer that he has learned is possible.

The absolute most important thing you want, again, is a horse that feels good about working with you. For a grumpy horse, “figure out how to make him enjoy the program
(H quotes Dennis the Menace’s opinion on learning: “I don’t like learning because it’s always about something I don’t know”)

Later, working with a more laconic horse H was focused on getting him to go forward. H was very insistent upon this horse’s upward transitions not be a jerky leap upward, not a fleeing one, nor a dragging one. He looked for this horse to be looking where he was going when he was going forward, not looking too much back at H, because he is looking for that horse to “have a forward thought”. And when he saw those good moments, he let him go and come to a stop. It ‘s not about maintaining that position or pace, but about getting many good transitions.
Its not the maintenance, it’s the willingness to change
Musings regarding Tazo:
This is a bit like my friend’s horse, who is very “conservative” of energy. He is always being “made” to go forward, by driving his energy forward. And he’s quite resentful about it. It brings his focus backward instead of forward and puts “drag” in his step. But once the horse commits to “going somewhere”, his whole attitude changes. He commits to “going somewhere” instead of “just staying ahead of the pressure” (my words)



Harry emphasizes how most humans just don’t see the worry in horses, and go right past the worry spots that he sees and works on. That’s one of the reason he “HATES” the horsemanship programs that emphasize “chasing or drimving the hindquarters over hard and fast, because they make the horse”flee” you, . . they put worry INTO the horse. we want the horse to be with you because “there’s an interest in being wth you” . . . and when we ride and ask a horse to go down the trail, we want him to have an interest in going there, too.
However, Harry says . .
EVERYBODY HAS A RIGHT TO BE WRONG!
 
#12 ·
Bookmarked for future reading when I have more time. Looks like a thread that might be very helpful to lots of folks, too. Thanks for putting in all the work of writing it up - that is really hard to do!

This caught my eye just scanning thru: "He will not even have that possible choice on his list of things to do, so by forcing it to happen, you make him realize it’s a possible choice." That gives me a lot to think about as I work with my horse...:think:
 
#14 ·
I wanted to write about today's experience, but there's just too much to tell. also, I tried to spend more time watching, less time writing notes. since what HW does is so difficult to do, so subtle and requreis such good feel, it needs many , many times watching him to try and see if I can't sort of emulate him a bit here and there.
 
#16 ·
Since I'm up in the middle of the night with a sore back...Post #5:
" Kind of like, “I’ll stay in here with you until you can handle more. I won’t make it miserable and I won’t abandon you either. I’ll just be here, neither more nor less than you “ . But if the horse is not really all that scared but is just full of beans and blowing him off , he might add a bit more . . “ok, if you want to ignore the slow down, you can go a bit faster. See, that won’t work!” not punishment, but something that might encourage a change."
I don't have a round pen, but this is what I'm trying to learn to do and teach Bandit (and Mia before him) just riding around the neighborhood. There are things that blow Bandit's mind - a guy walking with a kid in a backpack and a sunshade that extends way up over both kid and man, kind of like a giant crab attacking the man. Since that was overwhelming, we needed to back off to a safer distance so Bandit could start thinking and assessing again. He can't learn if his mind is overwhelmed.

But there are lots of things that concern him without completely overwhelming him. He'll want to turn around, or back off at the first discomfort and never expand his emotional horizons. So I then need to support him: "“I’ll stay in here with you until you can handle more...I won’t abandon you either." Voice, reins, leg, posture, breathing - all seem to be interconnected to Bandit (and Mia before him). When I ride him alone, I want him to understand that he is NOT alone.

But I don't want to punish him for being tense. James Fillis wrote about that in 1890:
"I have already said that a horse has but little intelligence. He cannot reason, and has only memory. If he is beaten when an object suddenly comes before him and startles him, he will connect in his mind the object and the punishment. If he again sees the same object, he will expect the same punishment, his fear will become increased, and he will naturally try to escape all the more violently...."
It sounds to me like he is doing what Tom Roberts wrote about:

That will profit you” - “That will profit you not” combined with “Quiet persistence” -
““That will profit you – that will profit you not.”

These terms mean exactly – exactly – what they say.To Profit” is to benefit or gain: to be better off. The profit to the horse can be any reward or encouragement the trainer may think his pupil should receive – and it must, of course, be available to give.

To Profit Not” means that the horse will gain or benefit not at all. Just that. It certainly does not mean that he will suffer a loss or be worse off – as he would be if he were punished.

This is what is so important about these expressions – and why I use them. By no stretch of the imagination can “Profit you not” be construed as punishment.

It consists of withholding any gain, reward, encouragement and profit. That, and only that.

Quiet Persistence

“It will profit you not” means that the horse will not be encouraged to follow a line of conduct other than what we have in mind for him. We withhold any gain – which means we quietly continue with our demands, whatever they may be.

We persist. We quietly persist with our demands.

This gentle discouragement of “quiet persistence” is something that horse seem to find irresistible. Whenever you are in doubt as to what course to follow, mounted or dismounted, revert to “Quiet Persistence.” Your quiet persistence is the real “That will profit you not.” It discourages the horse without punishing him."

- From "Horse Control - The Young Horse"
I've been told often enough to just 'push the horse' - but who wants to be with someone who pushes you hard when you are nervous or scared? Who wants to be around someone like that? I don't! So why would my horse want to go out with me on a ride if that is what I'm going to do with him?

"I’ll stay in here with you"

"I won't abandon you"

"I won’t make it miserable"

"But if the horse is not really all that scared..."See, that won’t work!” not punishment, but something that might encourage a change."

I had never heard of Harry Whitney, but he sounds really interesting.

So if Bandit is still in control of his senses, but wants to turn around...I need to encourage him to stay forward. Leg, rein, voice, my breathing. "Turning and running away is not a helpful choice. Can you think of another?" The least amount of pressure or dominance that will keep him forward - even if it means backing up 30 yards first, and then re-establishing forward - is what I'm shooting for. I want Bandit to "buy in" to what we are doing - doing together - so that he is with me, not under me. If I lose him, mentally or emotionally, then he IS out there "alone" and I'm sitting on the back of a scared horse who feels alone and abandoned...and that is not a good place to be!

If I do it right, what usually follows is 10-20 seconds of hesitation, then forward motion. Then we go where I'm trying to go because Bandit is willing to go there. Of course, I screw it up a lot too! But does that sound like what Harry Whitney is saying to do? I really need to re-read your notes when it isn't 3 AM...:icon_rolleyes: :grin:
 
#19 · (Edited)
Well, Haary would probably say something like, If your hirse is really WITH YOU then those external things won't really matter. He would work soooooo much and sooooooo detailed with the horse on the ground until he got a change in the fundamental way the horse feels. He talks about changing up their while belief system, and how hard that can be, but once done, they drop all thise behaviors that were based on a paradigm that said, for example, if it's coming up behind me it can't be good. Or , if there's a bit in my mouth, it can't be good. If there's something above me, it can't be good, if something touches my legs . . .



So what he is demonstrating is how he gets the horse with him, and gets the hirse to change that belief system that is making riding and being with humans a worrisome affair.

The basis of everything he does is clarity. If for some reason I did not mention that 20 times in my notes , I should have. I think, in hindsight, like most humans I get caught up on trying to memorize some steps. But what brings a horse confidence with you is CLARITY. Even a horse under a mean rider who is very clear, consistent and predictable is going to feel better inside then the hirse dealing with the gobbled mess of communication most of us put out .
 
#20 ·
Hmmm...not sure I want my horse so focused on me that he isn't aware of potential threats. I'll grant that a baby backpack isn't a real threat, but javelina could be - and my horse would know about them before I would. Rattlesnakes would be, and my horse sometimes senses them before I see them. A swarm of bees would be, and Bandit has sensed them before I realized they were coming our way.

I don't want a highly reactive horse, but I want one who talks with me and expresses concerns...then listens to MY assessments. The theory I'm going on is that you earn a horse's trust the way you earn a human's - by being correct in your assessments and demonstrating both self-control and good judgment. To do that, you need to get in situations where judgment and self-control are needed, so your horse (or other human) can find out you have them.

If I push a horse hard enough that he explodes with fear, then he has no reason to trust me. Being scared senseless is not pleasant! Done with any degree of regularity, it would prove I have bad judgment.

But if we avoid all scary situations, then he never learns to trust me in one. And while I want his 'buy-in', I also want us to do what I want as the end result. I want to be a rider, not a passenger.

If a horse has no trust in humans...well, that is kind of like how Cowboy came here. His time as a lesson horse did a good job of teaching him that humans are irrational and uncaring. It might be good round pen work would get him past that. Just hanging out and tagging along on trail rides seems to have helped a little. I'm hoping to get a third ride on him today and ride him twice a week or so, and see if I can convince him humans deserve trust. He obviously has had a good rider somewhere in his past, and it may just be a matter of reminding him of what he once had.

What I'm after is what Cowboy has as a horse born in the wild - the ability to assess a situation instead of responding with blind fear. He already knows that running in the desert gets you hurt, so you don't run in scary situations. You move a little, if need be, then think about it. That is what I want to teach Bandit, too.

A horse with no reason to trust humans has needs I don't have to worry about. Bandit already believes humans are good creatures with good intentions. I'm not fond of how he has been ridden, but I'm pretty happy with how he has been treated. Humans = Good.

But how can a horse trust my judgment if he has never seen me exercise good judgment? And at the same time, I need him to talk to me because his senses are superior to mine. I don't want him to trust me all the time, because he knows things I cannot know - like the swarm of bees coming our way!

"But what brings a horse confidence with you is CLARITY. Even a horse under a mean rider who is very clear, consistent and predictable is going to feel better inside then the horse dealing with the gobbled mess of communication most of us put out ."

I agree. But how do I handle it, then, when things are unclear? When Bandit is hesitant about going forward, I can be clear about what I want. But what if what I want is a bad idea, and Bandit is concerned because he has detected something I'm unaware of?
 
#22 ·
I agree. But how do I handle it, then, when things are unclear? When Bandit is hesitant about going forward, I can be clear about what I want. But what if what I want is a bad idea, and Bandit is concerned because he has detected something I'm unaware of?
I don't know. You can always offer him something else to do. It's still your clear leadership that is saying, "now steo sideways, now turn this way, now walk forward off this way." As long as you keep offering him something else . When he's really scared and you can't get his mind to give up intense oute
Ward alertness, at least stay with him. Don't just leave him in a mental void where he is left to think on his worry. Offer to stay with him, if he needs to wait and think, or, if he'll do it and there's space, ask him to go off somewhere sideways to the scary thing.

The more you practice moving his thought , the moveable it becomes, so the less fixated he will be on external things.

Harry spent quite a bit of time just using a finger to lightly tap the horses nose to ask him to look and think first right , then left, then right, and so on. It is just a way of getting the receptive to having his thought be lightly moved, and the physical act if moving the head that way also unlocks the poll.
 
#21 ·
It diesmt mean your hirse won't notice things. But that they won't be a real problem . I mean there isn't so much baseline anxiety that he makes a mountain out if a molehill.

And I don't see any reason to not consider your horses senses and listen up if he's telling you he's genuinely concerned
 
#24 ·
I don't think I've spent enoght time watching him to know if that is what he's doing. but, he was working with one horse that was very worried about everything. a gorgeous MFT horse. he said he can't change everything in one day. but he said the horse that has a lot of problem with being spooky is not feeling good inside to begin with. even when nothing is happening, there is a longterm baseline tension, and it can be seen in the body muscling and the way of moving, that their whole way of being was that "it wasn't going to be good" thought process. and he had to basically bring up their feeling about things that scare them, and and show them that they COULD be afriad and survive, that nothing bad happened. and it wasn't by petting on them or speaking soothing words.

he'd work on getting them to accept , for example, a rope tossed under their legs, but if the horse tried to run backward, he would keep a forward feel on the rope to get it to go forward. always forward. it's to train it to NOT lock up, because if they lock up, they explode. eventually, the hrose might flinch when the rope came, but he kept walking forward.

I asked why he does not spend time first desensitizing it to stand still and accept the scary thing. he said that just teaches a scared horse to stuff it inside, and we don't ride a horse that is still, we ride a moving horse. so if the horse can't feel ok about things happening while he's moving, then we need to help him with that.
 
#25 ·
ok. so today I worked two horses in the round pen. and while it would have looked like slow motions sludge to most folks, I thought that we got some good moments. having watched Harry work I tried to remember what he'd done, and keep in mind to take my time and try to build that place where it's good between you, so the hrose WANTS to come back with you . and to remember to send his thought somewhere before moving his feet, so less driving, more directing. more use of the leadrope to put a directing feel on it, less use of the propellor or tail end of the rope to drive.

it worked out well. or, shall I say that I felt a bit less like I was flailing around in the dark.

I kept trying to come back and aske myself. "are you presenting clarity?" sometimes, yes, sometimes no.
 
#26 ·
So can this be done without a round pen or an arena or other smallish enclosed area bigger than a stall?

I've read through and I'm intrigued, but I always seem to get lost by the round pen & arena work.

It's thought provoking, that's for sure. Now if I can figure out how to get Starlie's thoughts back on me when the switch in he brain flips to bronc mode seemingly at random when she has something around her girth.
 
#28 ·
You can sort of do it with the horse on a line, but it won't be exactly the same.

Have you worked on the girth thing in particular? Such as putting a rope Round her girth area and lunging her? Just getting their thought on you does not make other sensitivity issues disappear. You just get better at having the horse not leave you totally mentally when things get dicey. So, perhaps, instead of totally losing it, the horse might just move foreward instead of erupting into bucking. But you still have to work through that learned reaction until the horse can do something else when it feels the cinch. Tighten
 
#27 ·
A technique I use with a tense horse when it looks away, I too will look away in the opposite direction. This draws the horse back to me. As I stand there asking nothing, he may look away four or five times but always comes back when I do the same. The intervals of staying with me get longer and the head begins to lower. When a horse looks away, it's thinking of leaving and I'd rather, thro it's own choice stay with me. My looking away removes the pressure he's feeling. You might find this interesting. Two nights ago the twh left his feed pan to help himself to the other's. I touched his shoulder with the riding crop and the end made a popping sound. He moved very quickly to escape. Last night as I fed grain (always outside in a pan on the ground) the first horse went to his pan. The twh barely approached his then turned away from me. As I watched he was conveying that he wanted nothing to do with me. I was about 6' from his pan. His attention was clearly elsewhere. I took a step toward his hiney to unlock him and then he turned to walk past me. He always touches my extended hand but not this time. After his first mouthful of grain I again extended my hand which he heartily bumped. I'm not sure it's done with so will spend time with him today to see where we're at.
 
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