Building Your Horses Confidence Through Relative Space

What on earth is relative space you may ask?

Relative Space is the area or space in relation to your horse. It's a phrase I use to put a label on a problem that plagues many horses and riders.

Warning, misjudging relative space results in an insecure horse.

A horse has a completely different composition than a human. Humans stand on two legs, and our head is directly on top of our body. A horse stands on four legs, has a long back, a neck that sticks out in front of him and a head all the way out in front of that. We can just turn, but not a horse, he needs space to make a turn. The faster the gait, the more space he needs.

The misjudging can happen when leading or riding. Turning a horse around in the aisle of the barn, when there are obstructions and it's just not safe to turn him. The horse will associate being led by a human as unsafe. He will be nervous when he is being led.

Riding a pattern and not being aware of his relative space we set the horse up to fail. Not allowing adequate space for the horse to maneuver the obstacle he just can't do it.

Here are two scenarios, one in which you create an insecure horse. And one in which you create a secure confident horse.

Scenario One:
You are asking your horse to ride over a series of poles after making a turn. You wait to turn the horse until he is at the poles so then you kick the horse and jerk his mouth to make it over the pole. The horse didn't get over the center of the pole, or perhaps avoided the pole all together. Do you blame the horse? You shouldn't, because you set the horse up to fail because you were not aware of the horses relative space regarding the poles.

Scenario Two:
You are asking your horse to ride over a series of poles after a turn. You look ahead at where you are going, plan ahead for the best time to make your turn, you ride deep into the turn and set your horse up straight to go over the poles. It all goes as planned. You went straight over the center of the poles easily. You set the horse up to succeed. You feel secure and confident and so does your horse.

The horse from scenario one, probably does not trust his rider, has low self-esteem and spooks often from the simplest things.

The horse from scenario two, has confidence in himself and his rider. He is happy to do his job and rarely spooks.

Learn to position the horse at all times by correctly judging his relative space no matter what type of riding you do. This will result in a happy confident horse.

Happy Riding!

Deanna