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Bucking Horses ... The Courage To Ride Forward!.....Bucking horses are a common enough occurrence but not much fun when it happens to you. It seems to be human nature to feel the need to fix the horse and when it comes to issues like bucking this is particularly true. Truth be known, if we take a closer look at horses in general, they spend the most part of their days, indeed their lives, as peaceful, social and quiet creatures, who rarely exhibit such behaviours as bucking, rearing, shying and running off unless provoked ... usually by predators! So before we go looking to fix the problem, perhaps it would be wise to take a look to see what caused it to begin with. So often in the case of horses displaying any kind of unwanted behaviour, the cause can be found by looking no further than what is on the end of the lead rope, the other end that is ... not the horse end.
Many many people spend a lot of time and money sending their horses to the trainer to be fixed, when perhaps they'd be best off considering that possibly it was them that caused the problem. Constantly having the horse fixed would be a bit like continually putting air in a flat tyre that had a nail stuck in it. The tyre may stay up for a while, however the problem is still there. So what does cause horses to display behaviour like bucking? First up we need to take heed of what the horse is trying to tell us. Most horses will only buck, rear, kick etc because they feel threatened or fearful in some way. The threat may only be perceived, with no real danger imminent, however the horse believes that he is in danger some how. Being a flight response prey animal by instinct he will react accordingly, so he'll run away if he can, and if he can't, if he's cornered for example, he may kick or bite, or if the threat is on his back he'll do whatever it takes to get it off.
The first place to look then is at how your horse feels about you. Does he see you as someone whom he can trust and feel confident with, or does he see you as some kind of threat or something to be feared. Taking the time to build rapport and a relationship with your horse will go along way toward building a bridge of trust between you. If you do have a relationship built on trust, rapport and understanding, you stand a good chance that even if your horse does get scared, he'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take his lead from you rather than listening to Mother Nature. In other words, rather than listen to his instincts that tell him to buck etc, he'll check in with you first to see what kind of lead you offer on whether he should be scared or not. Most horses that have learnt to buck have learnt this from those who ride them. Horses learn by comfort and release, and once they learn something they'll hang on to it until they unlearn it. So if your horse felt the need to buck with you on him for whatever reason, and you came off which gave him comfort or relief from the scary thing ... there's a good chance that he'll do it again next time. If he succeeds in getting you off two or three times, the behaviour soon becomes pretty ingrained and can be hard although not impossible to be rid of. It's really important then to not ever give your horse the need or reason to buck. As we mentioned earlier, the first place to look is at our relationship and how our horse feels about us.
The second thing to look at is how we ride! Remember that the horse is a flight response prey animal. That means that whenever they feel scared or fearful, their first instinct is to run. The human on the other hand is a stand and fight predator. We'll stand and defend what is ours as it is our nature to protect and preserve ourselves, our family and our possessions. This makes for an interesting alliance when it comes to riding horses. Take notice of what a horse does when he gets scared. In an instant his feet will move, whether than be to run away, shy or jump. If you watch a human when he gets a fright, he'll automatically scrunch his body up to some extent. That is because it is our instinct to protect our internal organs. So one wants to run and the other wants to curl up in a tight ball! Just take a look at a rider on a runaway horse and you'll see the perfect example. The horse will be running hell for leather with the rider perched up on its back, pulling on the reins for all he's worth, knees and elbows all drawn in together in the fetal position. Usually their weight is also up over the forequarter in a gallop position, a bit like a jockey except that the jockey does it on purpose. The same situation can be seen all to often with horses that buck. Here's the scenario ... the rider hops on the horse feeling a bit nervous if truth be known. We can tell this because their body is forward a little, their elbows are bent slightly toward their belly button and their hands are close together and tight ... looks just like the start of the fetal position. The horse, who is very aware of even the slightest nervous energy and who is naturally sceptical, picks up on the energy and becomes a little tense himself ... ready to flee if need be. The rider sets off and as the horse starts to move they get more tense, more tight and the fetal position closes in ... their butt gets tight, they lean forward even more, legs grip, elbows bend further which puts pressure on the reins and bit. Now the horse starts to get really nervous and tight and it shows up in his movement ... he gets stiff and jiggy, not very smooth to ride and feels like he's going to take off. Just as he is about to let Mother Nature tell him to flee, the rider gets really nervous, goes into full fetal position, tight butt, squeezing legs, leaning forward and pulling on the horses head. The horse feels this predator suddenly clamp down on his back and his instincts take over and the bucking starts. The human is really scared now so leans even further forward, pulls even harder on the reins and eventually succeeds in catapulting himself over the horse's head! All this happens in just a few seconds, leaving the human shaking his head and declaring that he didn't even see it coming, it just happened too fast! All this because the human lacked the confidence to sit back, relax and ride forward.
Horses are really pretty easy-going creatures who'd rather do nothing than something. Unless they are youngsters with a lot of play, they don't really want to expend this much energy. It's just that we get scared, get out of position and cause horses to form new and unwanted habits. Time and time again, I've seen my husband Shane Ransley, and myself for that matter, in the same situation and the horse does nothing. Shane will get on to a horse that is obviously a bit nervous, but because he is confident and sits back, keeping out of the horse's way and offers it a loose rein to go forward, the nervous horse will over come his fears in a heartbeat and move off without missing a step. And within minutes it will be happily walking, trotting and cantering around as if there never was a problem. We've had countless horses sent to us to be 'fixed', each of them over coming their fears and developing a nice flowing forward within minutes. The biggest problem I've seen for people is that once they've seen a horse buck, they become fearful that it will do it again. Unless they can put that fear aside, right from the start, as soon as they hop on the horse's back, they'll subconsciously set the chain of events in motion that ends up with them brushing dirt off of their backsides and their pride. Nine times out of ten, none of the things that we are afraid will happen, will happen if we can just learn to be confident and trusting enough to sit back, open up and ride our horses forward. All horses, especially young horses, need to be ridden forward with confidence first. The time to ride with two short reins and collection comes later ... after we have first developed true forward confidence for horse and rider. If we have a great relationship with our horse, we don't act like predators and trust they'll do the right thing for us, they'll give us a great ride. If we expect to have problems, our body will automatically go into self preservation mode which will just set off a chain of events that'll see all of our fears come true! If we tighten up, so will they, so be aware of what your body is telling your horse. You always get what you expect, so make sure you expect the best, build a great relationship with your horse, sit back, open up and ride with confidence. True soft forward with impulsion awaits you.
- This article was written by Meredith Ransley