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Articles The Principles of Training One of the outcomes of Andrew McLean's PhD thesis was the proposition of eight training principles. These were presented for the first time at the satellite meeting of the 2003 congress of the International Society of Applied Ethology held in Abano-terme, Italy. The Pressure Principle: The removal of physical pressure or discomfort reinforces (rewards) whatever behaviour precedes the moment of removal (i.e. leg(s) rein(s), spurs, whip-tap, headcollar). Pavlov's Principle: Relaxation and attentiveness can only occur if the horse responds to predictable signals that do not invade the pain threshold. Thus, training the horse to respond unconditionally to light aids in hand and under saddle is essential. The Exclusivity Principle: Each response should be trained and elicited separately (do not pull on the reins (stop) and kick with the legs (go) at the same time). The Shaping Principle: Responses should be progressively improved, step-by-step, learned response by learned response, toward the final outcome. The Proportional Principle: Increasing pressures of aids should correspond with increasing levels of response i.e. a small leg aid should result in a smaller go reaction, while a bigger aid should produce a stronger go response. The Self Carriage Principle: The horse must travel in-hand and under saddle free of any constant rein or leg pressure, otherwise he will switch off to them The Fear Principle: Fear is quickly learned, not easily forgotten and is strongly associated with the movement of the horse's legs. It is important to learn to identify the range of fear responses in horses and to diminish them to avoid the horse experiencing them. The Mentality Principle: Appreciating the similarities and differences in mental ability between horses and humans is crucial to effective and humane training. Pressure Principle The removal of physical pressure or discomfort reinforces (rewards) whatever behaviour precedes the moment of removal (i.e. leg(s) rein(s), spurs, whip-tap, headcollar). The pressure principle is the most fundamental principle in the training of performance horses. The bit in the horse's mouth and our legs around the sides of the horse deliver various pressures to the horse's body. Our aim is to shrink those pressures into invisible light aids as efficiently as we can. Pressures are learned by negative reinforcement (pressure removal), and then when converted to lighter aids can be maintained by positive reinforcement (adding something rewarding like a wither caress). When you think of pressure/release, think of Tom Robert's words where he would pose the question "When you sit on a pin, why do you get off?" Most would answer "Because it hurts" but Tom would correct them and say "No, you get off because it STOPS hurting". That provides a powerfully clear message about how the reins and legs work to produce responses in the horse. Train pressures thoroughly One of the most important points to make here is that we must train using pressure/release thoroughly, rather than rely too early on fragile associations. A good example is training the horse to lead correctly. Horses are more than capable of learning to avoid any signals from the head collar by simply learning to copy your footsteps. When you move the horse moves, when you stop it stops. Simple. Except when you decide to lead it somewhere it doesn't want to go, like over a creek or into the float. Now of course, the lead pressures don’t work as he has learned to follow your feet. Any increase in lead pressure is no likely to make him try a hyper-reactive response. So the horse learns that the pressure disappears when he rears up or goes sideways. That's how most ‘bad' behaviours are learned. He rears - the pressure on the rein and leg disappears; he bucks - the whole problem (the rider) disappears; he shies - the rider loses balance and control. The truth is whatever behaviour immediately precedes the removal of pressure, the horse learns that it caused it. The more flight response involved, the faster he learns it. The more signal/response unreliability, the greater the insecurity and the more likely flight response behaviours are to occur. Thus we need to place boundaries around the horse's behaviour, and this is through the use of the reins and legs. The use of bits in horses mouths is ancient. The Institute for Ancient equestrian studies reveals that progress with deceleration control came early: there is indirect evidence of bit wear on horses' teeth found in the Ukraine from 4000 BC; that antler cheek- pieces were used as anchors for rope and that hide or sinew mouthpieces have been recovered at sites on the Black Sea. It is believed that metal bits originated around 1500 BC. Establish pressure/release first There are a number of reasons for the priority of establishing pressure/release behaviours first. Perhaps the most important is that correct pressure/release provides solid boundaries for behaviour. This is essential for a ridden animal that can gallop at 70 km/hr, weighs around 500 kgs can kick at the force of 1.8 times its own bodyweight. It is small wonder that in the Western world, the annual death rate is one death per million head of population and a serious injury rate of one serious injury per 350 hours of contact. The bottom line is you have to get the horse under control. With correctly trained rein responses you have a greater chance of stopping a bolting horse more than any other way. With correctly trained leg or leading responses, you have the greatest chance of making it go across that creek or into that float when it just won't budge. Secondly the correct use of pressure/release is efficient. It rapidly induces the behaviour that we target as our response. For example we want the horse to step sideways from the tapping of the whip on his hindleg. We increase the speed of the tapping until he moves. If he moves toward the whip rather than away from it we can increase further the speed of the tapping. We can pay ‘colder-warmer: you got it!' with pressure/release and achieve results rapidly, thereby lowering the number of incorrect repetitions. Another advantage of pressure/release versus mere associations is that operant learning (trial and error, negative and positive reinforcement) is more stable than unrelated associative cues. Everyone who lunges horses will be aware of the fact that horses rapidly learn to go forward and to slow on voice commands. Yet you still need to have that lungeing whip nearby because every now and then, the voice command fails. The less similar a cue is to the pressure/release effector, the more easily it is forgotten. So the visual picture of a lunge whip tucked under your arm is more effective than voice, but it too is less effective than the whip itself. Finally, when pressure release is correctly trained, it begins to achieve a reliable pattern of response in about 5 repetitions. That is mighty fast by any measure of learning. Successful trainers of young horses will know exactly what I mean here. When a horse first learns to stop from rein pressure, it takes only about 5 repetitions and the pressure used from then on is almost always light. The difficult part is actually getting the pressures right. There are no established national institutions that teach us how to use pressure/release correctly. It is one of those things that is thought of as an art, a gift so most people blunder along not knowing how to use pressures correctly so they avoid situations where they might need to. The horse soon learns to dictate his own pressures. The horse teaches the rider not to use his reins, leg or whip. ‘Hot' horses are adept at making the rider keep the legs off. Horses are great trainers! Not all horses are the same Horses vary tremendously in their responses to pressure. This is related to their sensitivity, and just how aversive they find the particular pressure. Some horses need very little increase in pressure, and tend to offer the correct response almost at the first experience. Others need more pressure before they are tempted to respond, and others respond but offer all the wrong responses as they mentally trawl through all their entire possibilities before coming up with the right one. Horses that take a while to offer the correct responses or to offer any response at all are often referred to as being stupid. Yet when you use food as a reward as I have done with some of my experiments on mental abilities in horses, the ones that seem stupid with pressure are frequently very clever when it comes to learning that involves food rewards. This shows that what we are really testing when we use pressures is not intelligence but motivation. Horse’s reactions also vary according to their affective (emotional) and arousal (wakefulness/awareness) states. It is also likely that the bond between horse and human also has a profound impact on learning efficiency. The bond is to a large part developed from ‘attachment’ – in other words the rapport that results from touch. Speed of release Horses have enormous difficulty in learning something when the reward is too many seconds away from the behaviour. In fact, optimal learning occurs when reinforcement or reward adjoins the correct behaviour. You have to be quick. This is also one of the reasons why giving the horse one good whack is unenlightened.

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