Splish Splash I Was Taking A Bath

When I was a teenager I owned a big, rowdy, opinionated gelding named Mort. For the most our learning was a mutual experience. I don’t know what he knew, but I knew just about nothing, so we had to start at the beginning for everything.

Crossing water was one of the first trials we went through. I wanted to, he didn’t. It was pretty simple.

There was a narrow creek which trickled below Mark Reynor Stables in Palmer Park. I used this as my first water crossing. I would point Mort at it and kick, he would eventually jump it.

I thought this was great fun and jumped him over it again and again. Eventually Mort tired out and walked through the water. From then on I assumed he would cross, and he did.

I rode the tar out of that horse. He was my major mode of transportation and I rode him all over the place. He learned to cross sand bars and swim in reservoirs. We would run and jump into streams and ponds. I never really thought about it, it was just the way Mort and I travelled.

Once I grew up and began training horses for a living I decided there needed to be a technique involved in training horses to cross water. So I got all “trainerly” and developed a system to get my horses in the brink.

First I would find a water source to train with. It can be hard to find water in Colorado, so sometimes I had to wait for some good sized mud puddles. But I could usually find a trickle somewhere.

I would give my young horse a good work out and then trot him to my water crossing. When he stopped I’d let him. He couldn’t leave, he had to stay facing the water, but he got to air up and relax while we stood there.

The next day I’d follow the same pattern, except this time I expected him to get closer. Usually I’d make him get close enough to the water to sniff at it and play in it a little.
I still didn’t cross, but I ended his training session at the water.

Pretty soon my little horse would cross the water and get his rest on the other side. I took as long as I needed to get this done. Usually it only took two or three tries and the colt would be crossing. If the horse was particularly spooky I would work him up to it little by little. It always worked, as long as I was patient.

Once he would cross at his spot I would meander up and down the creek, crossing back and forth.

I kept him looking forward, got him across with gentle encouragement, and let him think it was his idea to cross. I was pretty proud of myself.

There was a small problem with my method even though it looked cool and horse whispery.

When my colts went home they took something else with them. An opinion. My young horses were no longer afraid of crossing water, they knew they could do it, but they also thought if they didn’t want to cross, they could just stand and look at the water.

This problem went deeper into my training methods. It just tended to show up at water crossings. I had approached most of my desensitizing problems this way.

I would ask the horse to approach whatever was scaring him, then take him away when he relaxed. Then I would move on to the next problem. Eventually all of the problems would fade away to nothing. I figured this was the way to deal with things.

My horses were quiet and confident.


Then they would go home and start giving their owners fits. The little stinkers would hesitate when asked to do a task, and would feel perfectly free to argue about whether or not they completed it.

They didn’t do it all the time, just once in a while, and with a little work with the owners it would generally straighten itself out. But it was definitely a hole in my training.

What was I doing wrong? I started to think it was a respect issue. My colts behaved an awful lot like my daughter. Which isn’t all bad, it’s pretty good actually, but try getting her to do something she doesn’t want to. Like clean her room. Or vote Republican. I raised her to have an opinion too.

I asked the Big K for some input.

“I’ve never felt your horses don’t respect you,” he said, “but I know what you’re talking about.”

I waited while he mulled it over.

“They hesitate for a brief second before they do what you tell them. It’s almost like they ask you, ‘Are you sure you want this?’”

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked him.

“Probably not, but the question that comes up to my mind is, how do your horses respond when you don’t ask them, you tell them?” he answered.

Now it was my turn to ponder.

For the next few weeks I studied every move I made with the horses. Every now and then I wouldn’t ask my colts to go, I’d tell them. The Big K was right. My little guys felt perfectly free to sull up and argue. Not bad, no rearing or bucking, just a belligerent stiffening through the shoulders and neck. Which of course turned into a couple of front legs rammed straight into the ground.

This was the hole I was looking for.

I’m sure everybody has dealt with this one. It shows up at different times on different horses, but I see it most when a horse is entering a show ring, a trailer, leaving their buddies, and of course, crossing water.

I could wiggle them back and forth and kick them out of it, but why was it there?

It was because I cared what they thought. If my horse stops and look, I do too. If they don’t want to do something I tend to acknowledge it, ask for a little try and then move on.

I was forgetting something. Sometimes we need our horses to go right now. This second. No thought, just blind trust in me, the rider. My horses needed to know they would be OK if they simply trusted me and did what I said.

All of my approach and retreat training was just fine and dandy, but I had forgotten something I had instinctively known as a teenager.

If you just make then go and they survive, the next time it will be a little easier. Your horse will not only trust you to make decisions, but begin to count on it.

So I let go of some of my trainerly notions. When I needed to cross water I was still patient. But by God, we were going to get across, that day, right now.

A broke horse on the other side and the end of my romel did the job. If I needed to get through a series of gates or open an arena door I started to do it from horseback. We got it done. I would periodically hop on and take off at a high trot or brisk lope, straight from the tie rail. No warm-up, just straight to it.

As soon as they began to automatically respond, the better they behaved in general.

The biggest lesson I learned? Sometimes I had to forget the “right” way to do things and simply “getterdone.” My horses will still flick an ear in question, but for the most time, when I say,” NOW!”, I get it.

During a recent ride my yellow mare crossed a major piece of water she had never seen before. She went first, without a fuss. Every time we cross it’s just getting easier. Our trust is becoming a mutual thing. It's coming from a combination of what I’ve learned and how I rode as a kid.