Motivator and Reward Horse Training

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Motivator and Reward Horse Training

Randy Abernathy Horse Training

Here’s a secret: Your horse already knows! Written by: Randy Abernathy

You probably haven’t thought about it like this before, but your horse already knows how to do most of the things that you want him to. If you’ve ever had the chance to watch horses at play, you have seen them do flying lead changes, roll backs, sliding stops, spins, etc. It seems almost effortless and it can look almost like a dance. So it’s obvious they don’t mind doing these things, they just mind the way we are asking. So what we need is a better way of asking. We need a language that is easier for both you and your horse to understand. The language that horses understand best has several different names. Here are just a few, Pressure and Release, Time and Feeling, Motivator and Reward. I like the term motivator and reward best because I believe it more accurately describes what is going on in the horse’s mind. Most riders say they have heard the terms pressure and release or motivator and reward and they think they understand them, but when you watch them with their horses, it’s obvious that they don’t. A lot of people think that you train horses by teaching them to move away from pressure. This is absolutely false. Horses do not learn by moving away from pressure, they learn by moving towards the release of pressure or the reward. They are more than willing to move in either direction whether it be towards the pressure or away from the pressure. It does not matter to them. They are simply looking for the release or the reward.

So let’s look at a couple of scenario’s that might help us understand the difference between moving away from pressure and moving towards the release of pressure. To help us understand the difference we need to understand motivator and reward better. So first, let’s take a good look at the motivator side of the equation and see exactly what it truly means. Motivator or pressure is what causes movement or a change. The motivator can be almost anything, such as a bridle, your legs or a dressage whip, etc. One way to think about what the motivator does is to picture your horse standing still in a round pen. Now think of a way you might get him to move. You could use your body language, a rope or a lunge whip to apply pressure on him. What ever you use that would be the motivator. When the horse moves using your motivator, you have created a change in the horse. That is all the motivator does- it creates a change in your horse. But it is very important to understand that the motivator tells your horse to do something, but it does not tell him what to do. This is probably one of the hardest things for most riders to understand. The motivator creates a change in the horse but it does not tell him if the change he made was correct. If you used your rope/motivator, and threw one end of it towards your horse and got him to move or to make a change, how does your horse know the change he made was correct? He knows by the reward and the reward is when you stop using your motivator, and stop throwing the rope at him, you stop applying pressure. This is the only way he will ever know what he is doing is correct.

So now let’s look at the reward or the release side of the equation. Picture yourself sitting on your horse and now you are going to try to get him to move. So let’s use our legs as the motivator. With rhythm we start to bump our horse with our legs. When the horse feels us bumping him with our legs/motivator, he starts to think to himself that we want him to do something. So one of the most natural things he might try first is to simply move his feet. But if he starts to move and we don’t stop bumping then he is going to try something else. If he is a well trained horse he may just simply speed up or if he is a less trained horse he could even start to buck. As long as we keep applying the motivator he is going to keep trying things until something he does gets him the reward that he is looking for, which is to get us to stop bumping him with our legs/motivator. He is looking for a reward or the release of the motivator. When we stop applying the motivator, that is his reward or release. Whatever he was doing when we rewarded him he will think that it is acceptable. That is why it is so very important that you know exactly what you want him to do and reward him for the slightest try. If you wait too long to reward him he will start to try something else. That is what causes a lot of our unwanted behavior. It can even lead to unwanted behavior such as bucking or rearing, etc. That’s why before we ever apply the motivator we need to be really confident that we can get the desired response we want. If he gives us an undesired response and we are in a position where we have to quit applying the motivator, that will cause the horse to think that whatever he was doing was acceptable. This will create confusion in the horse’s mind and make it even harder to get the desired response the next time. It does not matter to him whether it is speeding up, bucking, moving towards pressure or away from pressure, whatever made us reward him, is right in his mind. He is just looking for the reward.

It is very important if you are ever going to get along with your horse in a meaningful way that you understand the difference between the motivator and the reward. They are not the same thing. The motivator tells him to do something and the reward or release tells him what he did was correct. So the bumping of our legs or the pulling on the reins is the motivator. That tells him we want him to do something, make some kind of change. It is the reward which is the release of the reins or when we quit bumping him with our legs that tells our horse that what he did was correct.

I hope this helps you and your horse. Be safe, have fun and I look forward to meeting you in the future. Remember: your horse already knows how to do the things that you want him to do, he just needs to know when and what you want him to do.

Randy Abernathy
Randy brings over 30 years of horse experience to his clinics and seminars. He has had the opportunity to study under some of the top trainers in the US and Canada. His main focus is on educating riders how to gain control of their horses through communication. He has had the privilege to teach students from around the world. He conducts horsemanship clinics throughout the US and abroad. In 2007, Randy will be conducting clinics in Paivola, Finland as well as appearing at the North Carolina and Virginia Equine Extravaganza’s. We look forward to meeting you in the future. If you would like the opportunity to study with Randy, contact us below.

Contact: Bunnie Abernathy
11007 Cutback Church Road
McKenney, Virginia 23872
Phone: 804-478-4765 or cell 804-712-0328
Email: bunnieandrandy@aol.com
Website: www.RandyAbernathy.com

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