A few years back a group of my students and I spent an hour on a Mountain Trail course a local facility sets up for practice and competition every year.  None of the horses we took had been before, and only one student (plus myself) had been.  I have mountainous trails around my house, so I get to adventure up and down hills, over rocks, and around trees routinely, but even still it’s different when the outside is inside and there are very specific routes to traverse.  Having recently purchased a new youngster, 5 year old, quite green Miss Qiska, I decided to take her along to see how she would be on an outing, and how she would handle the challenge.  I had no agenda, really just wanted to create another opportunity to observe her, and get to know more about her.

This was meant to be a fun group outing for our barn, after many months of not being able to spend much time together.  I wasn’t there to teach, and as it turned out nobody needed me to.

There are times when your work over the years just shows up in front of you.  In this case, my philosophy of “Without Incident” (learned from Baron Hans Von Blixen Finecke...Or was it Udo Berger?  I’ll have to check) shone through.  Without me saying a word, my students all entered the arena full of obstacles, bridges, water, and trees, and proceeded to hand walk their horses through parts of the course.  Hand walk.  Not jump on and crash around, potentially setting up a conflict with horses who have not seen this sort of scenario before.

Now, most of the horses we took have the temperament and experience to handle a mountain trail course without much concern.  Even still, taking the time to walk them around, have a look at things, and understand the question at hand was so smart.  After hand walking, we rode the remainder of the hour with no issues.  Without Incident.  

My little girl handled it like a champ.  It was overwhelming and exhausting for her, she is an internalizer and was panting at just walking around in there so I dismounted early and we practiced just hanging out.  There were a couple times where she was insecure about a certain obstacle, and I dismounted and led her through, remounted and rode through.  Well worth the effort to show her I was reasonable and my expectations would be fair.  This should help to lay the foundation of trust, so that later on down the road she will have the trust and bravery to proceed without question.

I’ve been to this mountain trail course before, in a mixed group with folks I didn’t know.  I was surprised to see how unfair some riders were, getting their horses worked up and frantic.  There’s no learning in that.  Sure, the horse might eventually do the thing, but the foundation of trust is not being developed.  The horse is responding out of pressure or fear, not because it has intellectually understood the question, or because you’ve shown it that it’s capable and there’s nothing to fear.  I don’t quite understand that approach.  I don’t see how it pays off in the end.

I’ll stick with the “Without Incident” approach, which my students have clearly internalized, and which I was thrilled to see in practice on that Mountain Trail Course.