What is your horse's reading level?

Success is often no more than fundamentals being performed consistently and accurately.

In 18 years of working with horses, I have observed the importance of establishing the fundamentals. When starting a colt there is a sequence of objectives that must be taught in order to set up the first ride for success. If these steps are skipped, I then decrease the chances for a positive experience that day; even worse, I simply leave a large hole in the process that will manifest itself at a later date, likely not of my choosing! These skipped steps could result in the failure of a maneuver or a potentially dangerous situation. Either way, there was a grey area of confusion for the horse. 

In children, an example could be teaching them the alphabet. If we left out the letter “C,” for instance, in the beginning it would go unnoticed and the child would still be able to speak okay, that is until they start learning how to read. The child’s reading would be fine until they came to a word with the letter “C”. At that time, they would become confused and wouldn’t be able to pronounce the word correctly. The teacher would then need to go back to the basics and teach that child how to sound out the letter “C.” This would ensure that they would be able to proceed with their education on how to read and sound out words. If this was to be overlooked and ignored, then it would plague the child for the rest of his or her life until fixed.

Just as it is important to learn the whole alphabet in kindergarten, it is rightfully important to establish horsemanship fundamentals in our training program. Whether it be a bad first step to initiate the turnaround in reining or a rating issue in the roping arena, it can most always be traced back to nothing more than the poor execution of a simple fundamental.