Trail Riding - A Discipline of its Own

Many people believe that trail riding isn't as hard as disciplines like reining and dressage - that it's "lesiure" not work. They believe that neither they nor their horses need specific training to do trail riding, and may even believe they can simply leave their horse in a pasture and break him out to go trail riding whenever they want.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You are out in the open, distant from help, on a half-ton bundle of muscle attached to the brain of a prey animal, with millions of years of evolution telling him that he is surrounded by things that may potentially want to eat him. His natural response to anything that reinforces that belief is to kick at it and run like crazy.

Failure to appreciate this leads to horrifying trail accidents and death. I know a local woman who staggered back out of a nearby woods, blood pouring down her face after her horse spooked, bolted, bucked her off and left her unconscious. She needed stitches and is still scarred. THIS COULD BE YOU.

Trail riding is a very complex discipline that has to be performed in a complex and ever changing environment. The horse and the rider need to both be well trained and well-disciplined to be safe on the trail. The rider needs to take special steps before every trail ride to ensure that the horse is attentive and under control.

You must start by making sure you are comfortable riding your horse in the arena. A horse who is dangerous or unpredictable in the safe and predictable surroundings of the arena is a deathtrap on the trail.

If your horse is not now safe in the arena, you may need a ttrainer to get that horse in hand, or you may need more riding instruction to have the confidence, forcefulness, timing and adaptability to handle him both in the arena and on the trail. Think of the money you spend on this as money which you won't have to spend on a hospital stay.

On a trail riding day, your horse needs to be worked in the arena until he is responsive to your aids under all conditions. In the arena, you need to be rapidly asking for a wide variety of manuevers (circles, eights, halfpass, sidepass, turn on forehand, back up, etc.) to ensure the horse keeps his attention on you. This should be your warm up before every trail ride and you need to spend 15-20 mins on it. If the horse is not responsive, don't go on the trail.

You need to be prepared to instantly correct the horse with spur or crop if he does not immediately and correctly respond to your aids during your arena work.

You need to reach the point where the horse primarily steers from your legs and understands reins as an intense and uncomfortable corrective action compared to listening to your leg pressure and voice. Otherwise, when you are on the trail and the horse stops listening to your legs, you will have no recourse for steering or stopping.

If your horse bucks or kicks in the arena, you need to be able to quickly and authoritatively push him forward until he stops bucking or kicking. However, this absolutely requires that you have an excellent and well-balanced seat, that the horse is prior to that responding well to all of your aids and that he shows you complete respect at all times. Otherwise, this rebuke will set off behaviors that will put you on the arena ground and might result in injury or death.

So let's assume your horse is obedient, respectful and responsive in the arena. Now let's talk about how you need to be on the trail, because it's pretty different.

On the trail, your horse is alert, nervous, ready to stop, evaluate and run from anything. A pile of logs, a stump, a rock, a squirrel, a beer can, puddles and running water all can unpredictably appear dangerous to your horse. Prior experience is no guarantee of his ability to deal with a known item on the trail. You need to have a close connection with your horse and his deep confidence, which will be based on that authoritative work you did in the arena. Your horse will know you mean it when you ask him to do something. He will also need to know you won't ask him to do something dangerous in the woods, and this is where we get into the "very different stuff".

When your horse just stops, he is saying "hey boss, there's a darn scary thing up there." You can attempt to force him forward in the face of his fear, and, if you've done all of the above, you will have a high probability of success, especially if you are gentle but firm (and if you haven't done the above, you won't get anywhere at all).

Here's an example:

I was riding my horse Lensman down to a deep water crossing about thirty feet across and about three feet deep. At the time he was an eight year old gelding and show horse who I had owned for six months and with whom I had done about ten trail rides. He ia a very responsive and willing horse, but he is a show horse and many things on the trail had made him afraid or worried him. But he had gained a lot of confidence in me over the last few months and had become a frequent trail leader.

By this point he had led several water crossings and I might have assumed he was being obstinate. But I knew better - he was afraid - so I let him check out the water. I occasionally touched him into motion, but then the fear would overwhelm him and he would try to back away. I would let him not go in, but when he would try to back away, I would tap him with spurs. Timing was important - he had to be kept from going back without pushing him too hard forward, which might make him turn and run or rear. He gradually became willing to smell the water and touch it with his nose. I asked him again to go forward and he finally stepped into the water, and then walked confidently across, even as it lapped his belly.

When he lived through this, Lensman gained a little more confidence in me, and he listened better. But this reservoir of trust is not endless and he can become tired or overwhelmed and then he may jig or want to run away or madly follow the other horses. It takes a lot of confidence and care to handle him in these situations, and I have not always done a good job of it. You may not either. But you need to keep trying.

You may say "yes, but my horse just stops for no reason." Well, he stops for no reason you perceive, but not for no reason. He can see 350 degrees around himself, he can hear sounds higher and lower than you can, he can smell things you have no hope of even noticing. And he does not think or conceptualize like you do, so things you take for granted are scary or alien to him.

Another example:

One day I went alone down a neighborhood trail we had been on many times. I was looking for my wife and her friend who had left me at the stable to work on something. And suddenly Lensman stopped and wouldn't go forward.

We were fairly new to each other and to trail riding, so I got off to walk him down the hill.

He stepped out in front of me and pushed me backward with his nose. Possibly I am making my horse too much of a person, but it seemed to me he was saying "hey boss, there's something dangerous down there. We've got to go back or we'll get eaten.". He was talking to me one horse to another, with the most immediate and compelling body language.

I'll never know what he was afraid of. Nothing leapt out and ate me. It might have been the outhouse beside the trail. It might have been twilight making long deep shadows that could hide a predator. I took his rein and walked down the hill. He trusted me and followed. At the bottom, I could get on him and we rode to meet my wife and her friend. He might even have heard them and failed to identify them - maybe he was afraid of the large animals he could hear and I couldn't.

I hope you will think about this advice and these examples. I hope you will be careful and thoughtful in your development and work with your horse so you can become better trail companions.

Good luck!