Horse Brain, Human Brain. Janet Jones
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strengths, and weaknesses. Even the brain of a cloned horse differs from the original because his daily experiences are not the same. So, the training technique that achieves a goal for one team might be useless or detrimental with the next.
Add to this the fact that quite a few training techniques are not as teachable as we might like. Raise your hand if your trainer has ever said, “Move your leg like this,” in a manner that your leg couldn’t approach if it was made of silly putty. Without superb apprenticeship, it takes a lot of time to hunt, peck, and cuss your way to a well-mannered horse and a skilled rider.
And too often, our chosen technique flies in the face of brain function. For example, we can urge a mounted horse straight toward a frightening object, as most riders do, but this method works against his brain rather than with it. Riding against the brain occurs more frequently than you might guess. As you learn more about equine and human brains, you’ll see the conflict often.
The root of our trouble with trial and error followed by apprenticeship is that it fails to say why or how a particular technique works. Here’s where brain science can lighten our load. By learning the why and how of horse and human brains, we can improve a team’s skills far beyond the norm. We ask why a horse does something then ask how that behavior can be changed at the level of his brain. When we know the principles common to equine noggins, we have greater ability to predict which techniques will work.
Brain-based horsemanship also helps us design creative new techniques that work best for specific teams. Using the basics of brain function, we can train horses and riders to perform in harmony with the inner workings of their natural minds—while still taking their individual differences into account. It’s akin to the old saw that if you give people fish, you feed them for a day, but if you teach them to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. Both parties end up happier and more successful.
Human and Equine Brains
Horse sports are just beginning to include brain science for riders. A few psychologists work with equestrians to build the mental discipline needed to perform and compete. Sports psychology teaches riders to focus even under the circus top of a horse show, to steady our nerves against stage fright, to practice challenging tasks and overcome daily weaknesses with self-discipline, and to accept the criticism that daily training entails. Such lessons benefit horses indirectly because good riders transmit focus, calm, discipline, and confidence to their mounts.
Still, these goals represent only one grain of sand in the arena of brain-based horsemanship. They fail to address the ways that the human brain directs the body while working with a horse—the precise physical timing, tiny balance shifts, and wondrous range of sensitivities that are necessary. They ignore many of the emotional aspects of training a horse—the almost pathological measure of calmness that horses sometimes need from us, combined with the ability to deliver varying degrees of authority. They disregard the communicative aspect of horse-and-human collaboration—knowing when to use which voice or posture, how to transmit zen, and why we must comprehend body language between species.
Our sport offers a tiny grain of brain science for riders at this point, but almost no knowledge of brain function in horses. There’s a dollop of anatomy here and a smidgen of physiology there—but the material tends to be speculative, inapplicable, or irrelevant. Too often, it’s also inaccurate. Why? There are several reasons:
Many facts about the brain are new and much of the science is still in flux. Forty years ago, we didn’t have brain imaging machines that could look inside the head or parallel processing computers powerful enough to simulate thought. Now we do, but we’re still in the process of developing this new knowledge and extending it across scattered domains.
Horses are hard to test. You can keep a hundred lab rats in a room and experiment with them pretty easily, and you can call in 100 people to volunteer as research subjects—but 100 test horses will run you ragged. They need more space, time, staff, food, water, cash, equipment, and specialized knowledge than other animals do. Not to mention all the liability insurance.
Most people, horsey or not, don’t realize how much training our animals need. The task seems simple on the surface, so people wonder why they should cram a bunch of factoids about equine biology into their busy minds. Just hop on and ride! Too many riding students have swallowed the illusion that one lesson a week breeds true skill. Three-day colt starting contests suggest to newbies that training is completed in a weekend. Novice owners still pay for 30-day wonders—horses who are expected to meet complex training goals in a month—without realizing these are the province of fraudulent operators.In fact, freshly started horses don’t even know how to walk a straight line. They can’t balance the weight of a rider and haven’t realized they need to turn a corner when they reach one. They have no idea what the rider’s most basic cues mean. These youngsters are still learning the basics of “stop,” “go,” and “don’t you dare buck me off.” The human world is a bewildering jumble of chaos to the green horse. Years of work are needed to train him for reliable human interaction and solid performance.
There’s precious little cross-talk between brain scientists and horse trainers. We live in different worlds and don’t lean on the barn fence together to chat about our work. The person who links brain science to horsemanship needs to wear a lab coat and breeches at the same time, some crusty old cowboy boots too; somebody who can explain neurology without using the word “neurology.” A straight-talking, ink-stained, horse nerd.
Brain Interaction
Beyond learning how horse and human brains operate in isolation, we must reflect on how they interact. Mutual interaction is the key to teamwork. It’s the rare partnership in life that lets two brains work together, especially two brains from different species, but that’s exactly what brain-based horsemanship offers (fig. 1.1). A flutter of nerve cells fires in your brain as you ask a horse to move forward. The horse takes a step, while his brain sends neural signals back to you. You pick them up, and so on. Two brains dancing together like this is as natural a form of communication as two species can enjoy. How does the process work? Why does it sometimes fail? How can you maximize it for greater success?
One thing to do is reject the notion that horses must always bow to human ways of thinking. Of course, you set clear boundaries and firm expectations, but training is much more effective—and more rewarding—when you listen to what your horse is trying to convey. Hollywood sells that romantic myth of horse whispering, but the best trainers don’t whisper—they watch, listen, learn, and think. The horses do the whispering. The human’s job is to rivet attention to their faintest hints. Let’s try to connect with animals at their level, instead of demanding that they constantly adjust to us.
1.1 Mutual interaction within the horse-and-human team depends on communication between two species’ brains.
To develop mutual interaction of this sort, ask yourself what’s going on inside the horse’s head. Suppose you want your horse to lead quietly. Most educated handlers start with the question, “How can I teach him that?” But you need to take a step farther back, asking, “How does he learn?” You want him to stop shying at unexpected sights, “How does he see? Why is he afraid?” You’d like to develop a closer attachment with him, “How does he bond? What does security mean to him?”
All well and good, you might say, but tick…tock…. Asking these questions and learning the answers takes time. It’s faster to just make a horse follow orders. (Well, sometimes.) But forcing is not teaching, and it doesn’t last. Instead, why not pique the horse’s interest, appeal to his natural curiosity, encourage him to want to meet our needs? And, in turn, let’s meet his!
Working with a horse’s brain—instead of against it—smoothes every mutual interaction, from a pasture greeting to open flight over an eight-foot puissance wall. Too often, horse-and-human partnerships are a one-way street on which we command and they respond. To a surprising degree, many horses accept unilateral pronouncements. But training improves by leaps and bounds—becoming safer, gentler, faster, more effective, and immeasurably more interesting—when communication