LEAD AND I WILL FOLLOW
Sarah is a very talented young lady who has been working once a week with our horse, Dudley. She entered our Equestrian Program four months ago with it seemed not much to learn from our horses except how to ride. Sarah quickly proved herself to be a keen learner with potential. As a rider she demonstrated focus, dedication, good communicational skills, coordination, compassion and patience. But as is the way of horses, Dudley soon discovered something Sarah could work on… improving her leadership skills!
Allow me to take a break from the story for one moment and explain how this works. Horses are actually quite good at teaching leadership skills. As a herd animal horses instinctually follow a good herd leader. In the horse/human relationship for successful riding it is our responsibility to be the “herd leader”. This requires three skills:
Effective communication (applying, increasing and/or releasing pressure aptly),
Compassionate patience (being able to put yourself in the horse’s shoes and brainstorm about why something isn’t working, rather than just assuming they are a dumb stubborn animal).
Enforcing boundaries (being able to calmly say, “The buck stops here,” when something the horse is doing IS inappropriate).
A proper mixture of these qualities assures that most of the time a horse comprehends us and is able to trust and respects our guidance. A rider that a horse can understand, trust and respect is a leader they will follow with confidence! This is the team we are working on building in each lesson here at The Salem Equestrian Center.
Back to our story: Dudley is a horse who happily resides at the bottom of our herd’s pecking order. With his laid back and lazy personality he is quite willing to follow anyone who will mobilize him! However, the process of mobilizing Dudley is about as easy as mobilizing a sleep deprived teen ager at 5:00 am! This is exactly why Dudley excels at teaching leadership skills! He needs a compassionate rider who will communicate effectively and enforce boundaries… or nobody is going anywhere!!
When Sarah was ready to begin working on more intermediate riding skills, requiring a little more effort from loveably lazy Dudley, she began to experience frustration. She was understandably confused as to why such an awesome horse had suddenly become so difficult!! She began to learn experientially how important establishing and enforcing boundaries was! Sarah learned progressively how to be a compassionate, yet firm leader. Most of our riders are terrified of hurting their horses and have little positive experience with the concept of appropriately setting boundaries. Yet Sarah learned how to increase the pressure of her aids when necessary to gain results. She learned how to remain compassionate and avoid acting out of frustration. She learned how to lead, and transformed her horse into a responsive capable mount, gaining confidence in herself through the process.
Sarah was enthralled, and slightly surprised, by a sense of accomplishment and pride in her increasingly athletic, engaged and happy horse! Recently for a class assignment Sarah had the opportunity to write about her experiences with Dudley and this is what she had to say:
“I honestly like riding my horse here. Before I came here I and my sister worked at this Training Center with race horses. They were like 10 feet tall, monster horses. And I really like being able to come here and see nice horses who are nice and gentle, and who know that you’re there and that know you care about them. I really like the horses because they are so cute and sweet and love to be loved. I like this one horse in the stable that loves its nose being played with. IT’S SO CUTE! I have learned a lot being here and being able to learn and care about these sensitive horses, as well as being gentle to all animals. There are cats, dogs and horses here at Salem, and they’re all wonderful creatures!”
