We have had lots of firsts in the last few weeks.

Jackson continues to develop lovely balance and collection. Very quickly, he understood that I wanted him to lift his back and bring that into his walk as well as trot. He started - almost as an experiment - lifting just before breaking into a trot, and was rewarded for it. He still occasionally offers a shoulder-in instead of straight, but it has become very easy to just ask him to hold the lift through his shoulder and straighten - when he is thinking about lifting his back, he becomes very light and responsive to the slightest suggestion from hand or leg.

The duration of the trots is also increasing. I am now able to experiment a bit more with my own seat, and I seem to be able to recognise a really good effort from him, as I am able to sit to it easily.

I have reintroduced the scary school. It was one of the places most poisoned by last year's bad times. This year, he finds it easier to cope with. In-hand, he is beautiful. Light and carrying himself very proudly - we do mini-dressage tests in-hand with just his headcollar. I wondered how to change the rein across a diagonal, until Jackson worked it out for me: half way across the diagonal, he drops back a step and reappears on my other side :-) This was not asked for by me, but when it happened, it was well rewarded and now is quite consistent.

On Sunday, I decided we would try riding again. I did a little in-hand work, then tacked up and mounted. Jackson was absolutely fine with me mounting up, which I found reassuring. Previously, I had mounted from the area fence and he'd started moving away (if I insisted on mounting, I didn't manage to stay in the saddle very long...). Once mounted, I just asked for some easy walking, with calm and focus. He was clearly more tense being ridden in the school than out on our hacks, but managed to keep a good focus. He offered a little collection at walk, but wasn't able to manage trot. I tried again yesterday and today, and each day he was a little more relaxed. Today, we managed two short but lovely collected trots, one on each rein, and a nice halt in the centre, plus Jackson's favourite, rein back from the neck strap.

Because he is more tense ridden in the school, when he offers really nice relaxed work, I dismount, take off the saddle and bridle, and we do some freestyle. Freestyle is Jackson's own choice of moves. Today he was offering backing-up and collected trot beside me while I walked.

Lots of progress, then - there are now few things left that concern me in any way. I would like Jackson to be able to enjoy being ridden in the school as he does the riding when out, but I am confident this will come as his anxiety at the surroundings is overcome by how rewarding the behaviours he gets to perform there.

Another area that had long caused me apprehension was how he would behave in the company of a large group of strange horses. We tested this a few weeks ago, by taking a trip to the beach. Jackson was the only horse in the group ridden throughout the day bitless, and on a loose rein. To my eyes, he was also the most relaxed horse in the group, taking to the sea and managing to both enjoy himself and maintain a focus on what I was asking for almost every minute. At the end of the ride, I untacked, and brought him back down to the beach alone. I'd promised him a good roll in the sand to end the day, and a good roll was what he had! He also loaded and unloaded perfectly both on the way there and on the way back, despite not having been in the trailer since Aberdeen in June.

A wonderful day and yet again, a horse that exceeds every one of my expectations :-)

Jackson is seven now. Age 6 was not a great year for him - he had lameness problems, a lot of vet treatment, and then a move of field that he found very upsetting.

I continued to work with him the way I had been doing before, but we moved backwards on a lot of things. He wasn't happy to leave his herd at all, so we worked in the field. He wasn't enjoying being ridden, so we did a lot of training on the ground.

After nearly a year in the new field, Jackson suddenly settled. I started walking him out in-hand along a local off-road track, and I could sense he was really enjoying it. We developed a new game - I just kept walking fairly briskly, paying out the 10ft lead, and Jackson's part was to make sure it didn't get taut. So he'd fall back a bit, then trot to catch up, fall back then trot to catch up. I'd reward him any time his head was level with my shoulder. He started to trot to the gate of the field any time I had his headcollar with me - I could see he was enjoying these walks.

Around April, I started riding him out the same route. He was a little uncertain at first - he'd found going out away from his herd very frightening, and although he'd grow to like his outings when I was leading, he was less keen when I was riding. Over a couple of weeks, though, his confidence returned.

In June, we had a few firsts. We overcame the fear of loading he'd gained after his trip to the vet the previous year, and travelled a long way north to a clicker training clinic. Jackson was superb. All the training we'd done over the previous two years he showed off perfectly. He remembered things I'd done once or twice, months before. He worked in-hand in an indoor school - first time we'd ever been in one - and won praise and affection from all the people who met him for the first time. Since I'd had a year when everybody who met him told me he was scary, this was a lovely few days. The level of trust between us was commented on, and his lovely personality was also complimented.

Since coming back from the clinic, we've been working on a number of things. All, I'd hoped, would lead us towards him being able to work in self-carriage when ridden.

Firstly, we worked on "the pose". This is a kind of stationary rassembler : "“Rassembler” means that the horse is carrying itself in balance, “on the aids”, using its belly muscles, stretching and lifting its back, with more weight on its hindquarters and less weight on its shoulders, which are therefore free to lift along with the base of the neck." I trained first the lift of the neck, then the head position, then asked him, while holding this, to shift his weight backwards.

We also work a lot on shoulder-in, both in-hand and ridden. We have only ever done this at the walk - with the aim of teaching him to step deep under himself - the "carrying" leg rather than the "driving" leg. Recently, while riding out, I would ask him for shoulder-in left, then shoulder-in right, hoping that he would maintain the collection as he switched sides. He has occasionally done this.

On Sunday, I took him out in-hand - it was a very windy day and he hadn't been out of the field for a few days, so he was full of spring. I decided to work on shoulder-in at the trot. I walked, but asked him to trot beside me, then flex into shoulder-in. What I found was that as he moved from walk to trot, he would lift his shoulders and drop his head just like the pose we did at the halt. I clicked him for this a few times, and he got quite keen to offer the behaviour.

Yesterday, we played loose in the school, jumping and doing circles at liberty with a nice inside bend. Everytime we stopped, he would offer a beautiful pose.

So today... I decided to ride out. I had no plans, just a leisurely ride - the first for some days due to the heavy rain. He was quite keen, and wanted to trot, so I thought I'd do a little training on trot transitions. I'd been reading about how riders often "block" transitions by not lightening their seat, and had heard that lifting the pubic bone opened a space the horse could move into. So I experimented with this, while leaving the reins loose. I was looking for a smooth upward transition in response to my lifting (effectively a pelvic tilt), and my increase in energy. The first few times, he hesitated then trotted. I worked on making the cue cleaner, and then he lifted himself into a beautiful trot, dropping his head perfectly and lifting his back under me.

We worked on this for about half a mile, then turned for home. He was starting to pick up my cue very quickly, and each time was offering a lovely collected trot. I dropped the reins entirely and after a few minutes of walking relaxed with his head down, he lifted himself up again and broke into the lovely trot, which he sustained for 6 or 7 strides. I clicked him, jumped off and fed him the rest of my treats from the ground - and then a few handfuls of grass and flowers from the verge.

It's been my aim that collection should be something Jackson does because it's fun, it's been well rewarded, and it feels good. If he's willing to offer it without a cue, then I know I'm on the right track. Today seemed worth a post here - Jackson has been with me nearly three years now, and for a novice rider and a green horse, it's been a red letter day.

We discussed this synchrony in horse movement and behaviour – and the next day, evidence of it was all around us, as we watched the horses grazing in step, and a colt foal and his father dropped down and rolled in perfect synchrony. Social facilitation in horses is quite powerful in shaping behaviour, and Lucy explained how she uses this in starting and training young horses. I was quite pleased that Jackson and I had managed to hit on this for rolling and pawing, but I got a lot of tips on using it to change gait when training at liberty, as well as the strong influence of synchrony that I could use when ridden.

On the second last day, we needed to bring up some of the horses that lived at the bottom of the mountain. They were originally “meat” horses – horses bred not for riding or pulling, but for their meat. There was a mare, her gelded two year old colt, and a 6 year old Burguete (a rescue meat horse) called Torr. I rode Torr back up the mountain paths, and learned that horses will quite happily cope with paths and tracks that I would have difficulty walking on. It was probably the most challenging ride I have ever done, bareback and with only a couple of ropes on a headcollar for steering – and I have been smiling to myself ever since. Here's a picture of Torr...




We actually discussed the importance of paths to horses, which is something that has always been obvious to me but which I would be hard put to explain. I know that Tindbergen says that behaviours must have obvious functions, but this was one I couldn’t explain or unpack. Lucy pointed out that for a prey animal, a path to safety is vital: you must know it so well that you can run it in the dark while looking behind you. This is why horses react so strongly when something on a frequently used path changes: the road works that deposit traffic cones by the side of the road but also the things that they remember but which aren’t there any more. It is a great explanation for the times when a horse stops and blows or snorts at something we can’t see – it could just as easily be something that’s missing as something new.

We discussed the difficulties that can arise from the way we manage our foals: difficulties can arise both from intensive breeding where foals end up being separated early from their dams, as well as small breeders who have a foal with his dam – the dam teaches good behaviour around food, whereas other horses teach the appropriate social space. If there aren’t any other horses, you can end up with a young horse who has a tendency to come to close to humans as well as other horses.

These are a selection of the things we discussed, punctuated by trips out to record the behaviour of the group of horses. Even sitting on the terrace, we were surrounded by the beautiful, jagged mountains of La Garrotxa, changing as the light varied across the day. When we walked out, we were walking over thyme, oregano, mint and other scented herbs, and we were often distracted by types of butterflies we’d never seen before.

It was a wonderful week, with a stimulating and friendly group of people who were able to share such a fantastic range of experiences. At the end, Lucy drove us to the airport in Girona, and our discussions kept going right to the very end. I hope we can get together in the UK to complete the research we were designing, and to explore all the fascinating topics that came up. Maybe, if we do things properly and get enough people interested, we can persuade Lucy to join us for that.

Lucy had a number of topics she wanted to discuss, and we were keen to try to cover all of them. They included a discussion about biomechanics, and how different training systems and methods either work with or against the biomechanics of the horse. She was superb at giving concrete examples and illustrating with drawings and analogies: the analogy of the horse having a strong motor (hindquarters) with a transmission (the loins) which we aim to harness was very useful for me. She also talked about the “crane” – how the ligament that supports the head also allows the horse to sleep without its head tipping it forward, an excellent system of pulleys and counterbalances. From biomechanics, we moved on to discuss starting and progressing the training of a young horse, using a wonderful analogy of climbing a tree using ladders, each step on the ladder gaining you a little more. For each step, she talked about exercises and games to improve both horse and rider. The baseline – the roots that stabilise the tree and anchor it to the ground – was that there should be no tension in horse or rider, whereas it often seems that horses are “worked through” tension which never really disappears, whether it be in terms of the horse opening its mouth to escape heavy hands, or simply in terms of how the horse carries itself. Lucy pointed out that a horse with high muscle tone can’t yield to pressure.

After this discussion, we talked about the most common causes of behaviour problems (having banished the words “naughty”, “stubborn”, “silly”, “testing boundaries”, “dominant” and “stupid” from our vocabularies. Like all humans, we would occasionally be playfully anthropomorphic, but during this discussion, anthropomorphism was banished. It led on quite naturally to a discussion the next day of neurophysiology, and the effects of neurotransmitters and hormones on behaviour. In particular, the effects of acute and chronic stress were discussed: Lucy mentioned some papers I didn’t know and which I’m off to hunt down this week.

One of the earliest things we discussed, and which came up again and again over the week, was the nature of learning, the best way to minimise negative reinforcement and maximise positive reinforcement when dealing with horses, and how positive punishment had no place in training. I found it interesting that it was the first group I have met where we were in agreement about the difficult relationship between negative reinforcement and punishment: if a negative reinforcer does not work first time, the next time it is applied, it is suppressing behaviour: it has become a punisher.

In the context of this discussion, Lucy talked about what she called the “Russian reward”: dressage riders in Russia apparently rewarded their young horses in training with vigorous wither scratches. When they reached competition level, where they needed to reward the horses for correct responses, but could not move their hands, they would use a little finger to brush across the withers. By process of association, the larger reward and smaller reward had come to signify the same thing to the horse.

We talked about studies where behaviour is modelled mathematically – and this led, rather unexpectedly – to a discussion of the animated film The Lion King. The wildebeest stampede was modelled using a couple of simple variables: the animals want to be together, the animals can’t collide (risking damage to conspecifics) and the animals have eyes on the side, so if they see an animal too close to the side, they will move away from it. Using these simple parameters, you get a herd that move in a coordinated fashion, that don’t hurt each other, and that don’t need to be chased to led in order to escape a predator.

After the first day we stopped recording agonistic encounters, because they just weren’t happening, leaving one group with a lot less to do, whereas the group recording affiliative interactions was a bit overloaded with data.


We headed out to find the ponies, and took up positions at a good distance from them. What we hadn’t planned for (although I think Lucy knew well) was that a group of humans with notebooks sitting under a tree were irresistibly interesting to the ponies, who gradually worked their way closer and closer until we were nibbled on a regular basis by curious foals and their father. Eventually, after a few tentative scratches from us, several full-blown Pottoka/human mutual grooming sessions took place. We still managed to record every five minutes, but on one occasion at least, I had to admit to missing data as the stallion ate my homework!

We headed back to the finca, and compared notes, beginning to find a system to code the information we’d recorded and to analyse it. Interesting patterns began to emerge, in terms of who preferred who and how closely integrated with the group they were. The ponies appeared to choose very carefully where they stood and mainly controlled this by moving towards or away from others, balancing their distance perfectly as though possessing magnets of varying strength and polarities.

The next morning, we started with a discussion about the research on affiliative behaviour and dominance, finding that we had mostly read the same books and papers. It was also interesting to relate these to the ponies we’d studied the day before: we had seen for ourselves that the data wasn’t consistent with a dominance hierarchy at all, more a group held together by mutual benefit, but each having stronger or weaker preferences for other horses. We compared this with our own domesticated horses, and we could see how the effects of restricting companion choice and restricting the area over which the horses could travel had a negative impact on their behaviour.

Again, we headed out for another lovely day spent watching the ponies, with slightly different questions in mind. We were getting to know each horse, and also their preferred loafing, sleeping, grazing, rolling and play areas. We returned to the finca that evening, and chatted late over a fantastic dinner (cooked rather miraculously from the contents of the fruit and vegetables in the garden, the hen house and the wild herbs surrounding the finca in a fairly primitive kitchen). The finca was over 1,000 years old and very beautiful: each evening we sat out on the terrace long after we’d finished dinner, exchanging stories about horses, discussing politics, ecology, conservation, and watching the stars.

The third morning, we talked more about the management of horses, especially domesticated ones. Stallions came in for particular discussion. We’d seen that of all the adult horses, the stallion most valued play, interaction, closeness to others, but in all our experiences, stallions are the ones most likely to be isolated both from a social and a sensory point of view. This took us on to various discussions about welfare and management.

Sometimes, you don’t have to be with your horse to learn something that will benefit you both. Last week, I left Jackson in the care of friends, and went away to Spain to spend a week with Lucy Rees. Lucy wrote a very influential book called The Horse’s Mind in the 1980s and I had always been alert to any mention of her. When I heard that it was possible to go to Spain to learn about and study a group of native ponies, I jumped at the chance.

In the north of Spain there is a breed of ponies called Pottokas. They are fine boned and elegant ponies, in comparison to breeds we are used to in the British Isles such as Shetlands, Highlands, Connemaras and Fell ponies. They are maybe a little like a New Forest. Lucy believes that they have lived in this part of Europe for many thousands of years, and points to one of the ponies painted in the Lascaux caves, not far as the crow flies from where we went to see them in an area of northern Spain called La Garrotxa.


The aim of the week was for us to learn about methods to study the behaviour of horses, in particular feral horses who have little or no contact with humans. An earlier group joined Lucy in Venezuela to study groups of Criollos: our group was much smaller – a stallion, three mares, two colt foals and a filly foal.

The area where they are living has access tracks which run to the remote fincas, but apart from that, very little evidence of human life. It has clearly been farmed in the past, and the steep hillsides are overgrown but have been terraced. There is a lot of dense woodland and scrub, but the ponies have found themselves (and created for themselves) little lawns and meadows. We had the advantage of the people we were staying with, who were able to tell us about the spots the ponies preferred to be.

On the first day, we got to know one another. There were four of us who had travelled from the UK to meet Lucy, but we were an interesting spread of nationalities. An Irishwoman, a Scotswoman, an Englishwoman and a South African woman all travelled to meet and stay with a woman born in Wales who now lived in Spain. We were joined for part of the week by a Spanish woman and a German man- a very good international spread and we were able to exchange lots of information about how horses were regarded and managed in different cultures.

We also worked out what we would like to study and how to go about it. We decided that we would like to separate into two groups, one to study agonistic interactions – any interactions that involved biting, chasing, kicking or herding. The other group (including me) chose to study affiliative interactions: approaches, standing close by, touches, mutual grooming, nursing (for the foals) and following. We could also have studied vocalisations, but in practice, these are rare among feral horses. The method we chose was the focal sample : we each chose a horse to study, and every five minutes we wrote down where the horse was standing, the nearest adult horse, the nearest foal, and what they were doing. A couple of days later, we realised that how the horses were standing was interesting, and we added this in, giving us data on angles relative to nearby horses.

Occasionally, I stop, look and Jackson and myself, and think "I'm not making any progress".

I have a series of goals - but I am aware that these are not the sort of goals that most people have when they buy a new horse. So when I pause and look around, I tend to think "Oh no, Jackson and I aren't going to shows. We're not riding in an outline. We are only jumping 2ft. I can't mount from the ground".

Then I stop and reexamine. The only own-goal that I'm likely to score is when I don't measure up to something that wasn't one of my goals in the first place - and they're all "not" statements, or things we can't do - they aren't things we can do.

This morning, I think I had my best ever ride in the school. Jackson and I were listening to one another the whole ride. I was remembering to release the rein more frequently (I read a chapter on the "death grip" over the weekend, kicked myself, and started on a different note this morning). Jackson was responding with lightness and softness with very little rein contact. We rode circles, we walked, we trotted. He leg yielded into the corners of the arena, he leg yielded on the cone circle, he bent perfectly into the corners of the arena at trot for the first time. He was excellent on both reins for the first time. Most important for me, he wanted to continue when I wanted to stop, but was happy to walk back to the gate to be untacked and then walk back into the centre to lie down on cue.

I have realised that we haven't been spending enough time repeating exercises - the analogy that springs to mind is of a new bridle. It's stiff leather, unyielding and not flexible. The more it's used, the more supple it becomes. My goal with Jackson is firstly, to be able to ride perfect circles and corners on the buckle, both at walk and trot. Fot that, he needs to be responsive to almost imperceptible lifts of the reins and increasingly, to leg aids and seat aids. Today, I felt I had that goal in my sights. Secondly, I want the flexion that comes with the lightness in circles to develop into self-carriage: the responsiveness to light cues means that he holds himself in readiness to respond, and steps deep under himself to keep balanced. This is beginning to come - I can see the beginnings of it when he balances himself through the leg yield, and when he keeps light on the circle without falling out or in through the shoulder.

We move very slowly: but it is not useful to compare to either an experienced rider with a green horse, or a novice rider with an experienced horse. Both Jackson and I need to learn: neither of us has done these kind of exercises before. Provided we have goals to work towards, we can measure our progress. Progress is both change in skill, as well as change over time: learning is rewarding for both of us as well as reinforcing us to continue.

The important thing is that when we get to the goal, we will have got there by building on softness and lightness, rather than getting lightness through heavyhandedness and working backwards. The journey to softness does not have to go along a road of force and resistance - the training method you choose is bigger than the behaviour you train today: it has an effect on the ability to problem solve, teaching him how to learn, how to approach problems in the future.

Jackson and Oscar after a long canter up the big hill:

Some research has helped us to find out a bit more about Jackson. He was born on the 30th April 2002 in Galway, and is a registered Irish Sports Horse. The missing passport had all these details, including his sire (Jackson's Drift) and his dam - but a few hunches and some help from someone who knew a couple of half-brothers helped to narrow him down to four possible horses. One of the breeders of these confirmed that he'd bred Jackson.

It is nice to know a little more about his background, and I think was nice for the breeder to see the pictures I put in the last post I made.

We are having a very enjoyable time at the moment. We have had our longest canter so far, and we are jumping two foot jumps in the school. Jackson will also jump at liberty in the school if pointed at the jump. After putting off training head-down under saddle, I tackled this during the week and it is already paying off. A quick sideways spook in the school this morning ended instantly with nose on the ground and a more relaxed horse. He is also more attentive, even on a windy day like today, and will respond properly to a rein lift, a request for head-down or a request for flexion.

He is also enjoying offering shoulder-in in hand again.

In the field, he will come over and circle me on either rein, and change rein on request, all while keeping the nice inside bend. We have made some progress on lying down at my request as well, and he will now do this from time to time in the school.

He is enjoying his work in the school more, after finding it hard to deal with for the weeks after our move, and is finding it easier to relax. I am introducing more walking out in hand, to get both of us used to the new routes around where we've moved to, and we had a very nice jog along the cycle track a few days ago: I will wear trainers in future.

Here we are meeting Lucy and Oscar in the school:

And he has had a lot of changes in his life over the last few months. He has moved quite a lot, which has been unsettling for him: first from his herd to the farm where he stayed while his feet healed. Then back to his herd. Shortly after that, the whole group moved to a new field, although most of them moved about a week before Jackson which unsettled him a little more. The new field is quite some distance from the old one, so everything is unfamiliar to him and it has taken him a while to start to settle down. I rode him to the new field and he was very happy to see his mare and the other geldings (and they to see him).

His feet have improved immensely and I now think that all the problems over the last year can be traced back to the fungal infection causing him discomfort. It meant he stood and walked loading the wrong part of his foot, which caused the imbalance, the abscesses and the crack - all now seem to be healing and his foot shape has changed. He lands properly flat or slightly heel first on the fronts now and is no longer tender over gravel and stones. For the first time since I have had him, he also has some wall growth and his heels are improving too.

We have moved to a yard which has a small outdoor school, so we have a chance to work on more formal schooling. At last, we are managing canters, which are amazing me - it is his best gait, and has been hidden for so long because the circumstances have never been right. He makes me feel like a dressage rider, he lifts himself beautifully and is smooth and powerful. It is still only a few strides at a time, but he is building it up every day and enjoying it now. It was one of the most noticeable changes as he got better over the last few months - he immediately started to offer to canter and it make me glad I'd never forced the issue before: he will always do whatever he is capable of, and if he refuses it's because he's not capable or not physically or mentally ready to do something.

He has matured well and is now a striking looking horse who turns heads.


He still enjoys his work. When I get to the field in the morning, I bring his headcollar or bridle. When I get to him, he will nicker and then start to head for the gate - he knows the headcollar means he's going out and he's eager to go. After a particularly good schooling session last week, when I got back to the field, he stayed with me and started offering the behaviours we've worked on in hand - circling me at liberty while keeping an inside bend and lifting through his shoulder. It is a very pretty sight. He has also learned "leg yield" at liberty, leading on to sidepass, and recently a new exercise called "hip shoulder shoulder", which I taught on line but which he now likes to do at liberty, again while nickering.

I am anticipating a different summer from last year. We have advanced a lot for two novices and both of us seem to find the progress reinforcing - his quick learning makes me want to do more with him, and he finds my excitement with his progress reinforcing too. The days where we've had breakthroughs are days when he spontaneously offers more work when I think we've finished.

It's been a long time with no posts. Jackson has had one thing after another since the end of December - it seemed to be recurring foot abscesses, but last weekend things finally came to head when he was very lame on his right front and left hind foot. We suspected laminitis, found him a stable and called the emergency vet. It was his third vet visit in about three weeks, he had had blood checks, respiration checks and liver function tests, all of which were clear.

It seems he has very soft soles and a nasty fungal infection in all his frogs. The endless rain and its effect on the field was more than he could deal with. I kept him in for a week, with an hour turnout morning and evening while I mucked out, and yesterday and today he has been back to his mates in the field during the day and in at night. I will keep doing this as long as I can.

I worried a lot about taking him away from the field. He hasn't been alone apart from hacks for over a year, and he hasn't been stabled in that time either. Both together seemed very unfair - but he hobbled along the lane to a nearby farm in his boots, went straight into the stable and settled quickly. The deciding factor was the mountain of haylage waiting for him - he had been miserable for a while and had dropped a lot of weight, a combination of discomfort and not wanting to move around as much as normal.

A week later, the spring is back in his step - better than it has been for a long time. I think the fungal infection has been making walking sore for quite a while, I have noticed his toe first landings and wondered why, even in boots, he needed to walk like that.

Fortunately, the weather seems to have improved a lot as well, and the field is almost ideal - soft, but not marshy. If it were a racecourse, it would be "yielding", but not soft.

I have been playing with him while he's been out in the little paddock beside his stable - he kept coming over to the gate and nickering, so I guessed he felt a bit starved of social interaction. We went over all the things we started last summer, and he remembered perfectly (although some of the movements were obviously still uncomfortable - his turn on the forehand on one foot is a lot less tight than on the other). However, he remembers head down (without eating) on cue - even on grass - and backing up, turns about the forehand and the haunches, and follow-my-leader.

We also worked a bit on retrieving, which he didn't quite understand last year. This year, he will consistently pick up and hand me his toy, and we can start to introduce distance soon.

I made a little video - not perfect, but this was a horse who had just walked out of his stable after being in, alone, for 24 hours. I left him for 10 minutes and then set up the camera.

The benefit of the training and the work we've done is that even in these less than perfect times, Jackson has been sweet to handle. I thought I might have trouble bringing him back in from the field, first time he was turned out with his herd again, but he was perfect. He was also calm and responsive even when stuck in a stable 24/7. The effort put in to give him good associations with being handled, and training good responses has really paid off.

Here's the little video clip. I hope some riding clips soon - we've got a new saddle and I can't wait to try it out.

Jackson has had a few weeks off riding. First of all, he had a suspected abscess, which has taken a while to clear up. He has been patient about standing with his foot in a bucket of warm water, and has been happy enough to go for long walks to keep the circulation going in the foot.

He also has quite a nasty wound on his back, possibly a bite, which would have made it quite uncomfortable to be ridden. I have done a few short rides bareback, but he's not happy about it, so I've been looking for other ways to entertain him.

We have been advised to try "carrot stretches". These have revealed to me why so many people think training with food is a bad idea. Luring a horse to do something while holding a piece of food is asking even the nicest natured horse to snatch at you. The horse's whole focus is on the food, not the behaviour, so the behaviour is rushed and ends with a grab. We stopped after two days, and began the process of training the stretches by shaping, and clicking for the right behaviour. Jackson relaxed when I started doing this, seemed less anxious and immediately started to offer nicer behaviour - instead of snatching for carrots, he will now stretch to the spot I touch on his side and hold it for a few seconds.

Today, we had a new adventure. I have been walking him out to keep his hooves hard and keep him fit - we have been concentrating on the big hill up to the field. For a change, today I attached a line to each side of his headcollar, and "drove" him, as though I was sitting behind him in a carriage. I started by walking beside him with one rein over his back, and then I gradually dropped back until I was walking behind him. He accepted this the way he tends to accept every new thing - with a calm attitude. We worked on steering from side to side, stopping and walking on. Stopping I had to teach from scratch, because I've never used simultaneous pressure from two reins to ask Jackson to halt, so it was something new for him. After a few tries, he was stopping quickly and standing quietly.

If I ever get tired of riding, I can see I'll have a nice driving horse - Jackson likes exploring and is happy to walk in front. He is unspooky and doesn't tune me out just because he can't see me (I am in his blind spot directly behind him). I think I'd like to keep this up, and aim to do it about once a week. It doesn't have the subtlety of in-hand work, but I can see how it is closer to riding, so a worthwhile exercise.

Since it's the start of a new year, I spent a little while thinking about the things we lost during 2007. I normally focus on the things we've achieved and the things we've found, but things that go away or disappear are easily forgotten, but can be revealing.

We had some snow over the break, and I got to ride Jackson along the roads near us. I'd left my saddle at my friend's house, so we risked bareback, on the grounds that we'd hear any cars long before they arrived - in actual fact, no cars appeared at all, so I got to experience hoofprints in virgin snow. We walked and trotted, for once without thinking about concussion: the snow was lovely, and thick enough to absorb a lot of impact.



We seem to have lost Jackson's overwhelming urge to eat once he's out of the field. It's funny to look back and see that our first hacks were difficult due to his propensity to snack along the way. I wonder now if it was insecurity, rather than hunger? He also needs less reinforcement - to begin with, I was trying hard to distract him from being away from his herd, and spent a lot of time asking for things so that he could get a treat. We're now down to very occasional treats and I'm getting back from quite long hacks with my pockets still bulging. So we've lost snacking on the hoof without actually trying to do anything about it. The behaviour simply extinguished, or was replaced with something else.

We've lost biting. I'm not sorry to have lost that, but if it comes back, I know what it means. Jackson still conveys his mood very well: if he's not at all happy, he won't take a treat, if he's a bit unhappy, he takes it but I can feel his teeth. If he's happy and relaxed, he's all lips. When he arrived, in October 2005, he was not very happy. He'd been trained pretty conventionally, and knew that when a head collar and lead rope were on, he needed to follow. But he'd walk all over you, pull you in whatever direction he wanted, and if he felt anxious, he'd take chunks out of your arm. This stopped quickly, but it took a few weeks of patiently ignoring biting, avoiding being bitten and training walking nicely to get there. There was one point only when it returned: I took him way out of his comfort zone, on a walk with another pony, and if I'd been on my own, I'd have gone straight home. He was very stressed, and trying hard to show me. Only at the end did he start biting.

It was one of the things that told me I needed to go back to the beginning with him and start from scratch. It was in March, and he has not done it since: he is a gentle horse, likes exploring things with his mouth but doesn't bite for no reason.

I know the usual way of dealing with biting is through punishment, but then what communication do we accept from the horse? If he's not allowed to say he's unhappy, he starts to suppress a lot of emotion: when he can't suppress any longer, I for one wouldn't like to be the one to deal with the resulting eruption.

I think this seems to be the issue with a lot of novice horse owners. They try a horse at a dealer's yard, or try a horse belonging to a more experienced rider. The horse seems perfectly behaved, until it arrives home with them. Depending on how much the horse has been suppressing, it takes a few days, or a week or so before the suppressed emotions come to the surface. Everybody then says "your horse is testing you, you need to get tough". If you get consistently tough, the horse will suppress again, which works fine if you're happy to be tough all the time and to deal with the fallout from suppressed behaviours: higher stress, spookier horse, lots of niggly illnesses, poor appetite etc.

Your alternative is to ask: "what is this horse trying to communicate, how can I deal with it without getting tough, and what do I need to train?" That's what I did with Jackson (who has never suppressed much at all): I trained the behaviour I wanted, and now I can look back and see the behaviour I didn't want has disappeared.

We've also lost rearing. When things got scary for Jackson, he would start to lift. He did this under saddle, and he went a whole lot higher in hand. I realised it had gone away today, when the other horses started galloping past when I was leading and he just walked calmly on: up to the middle of last year, he would have gone up, tried to pull the rope away and gone after them. I'm not sorry to see the back of rearing either. Under saddle, it mainly happened when I wanted to go in a direction he wasn't comfortable with. Strangely, the lateral moves seem to have helped here: there is no situation where a little leg yield doesn't get the feet moving in the right direction, and a little shoulder-in seems to calm him down and regain focus. He's not hopped for about 3 or 4 months.

We've lost the statues game too. It just disappeared and I still can't say why, because I never had a clear cause figured out. So I won't rule out a reappearance of that one, but I'm not too worried.

We had some lovely riding over Christmas, the best ride of all on Christmas Day. The weather was perfect, the sun came up over the hills, the countryside was stunning. Jackson likes that sort of weather, and had a spring in his step. The strangest thing of all was that all along the upper road, I could smell incense, as if I was in a vast, outdoor church. One of the cottages must have had an interesting Christmas morning fire.

2007 was a good year for us: we have come a long way for two novices and we're still on speaking terms. 2008 feels promising and I'm looking forward to it. In April or May, Jackson won't be 5 any more: he'll be a grown-up young horse of 6, and I hope a fit, brave and happy horse too.

It was such a beautiful morning this morning - it had been about -5 degrees overnight, and the horses were lightly frosted. I don't groom Jackson much before riding - he needs the oils in his coat to keep him warm, so by the time I'd flicked the dust off, tacked up and mounted, he still had frosting on his mane, rump and tail.

He's been lovely to ride after his few days off last week. During his time off, we learned rein back in hand, and now it is 100% from the saddle as well. It is a nice light rein-back, pairs of feet, and body nicely balanced without a head in the air effect. In fact, on the last two hacks Jackson has been very responsive, extra calm and very brave indeed. On Sunday, we rode confidently past the scary house in the village without a single snort, then down the main street for the first time (two buses passed us). This morning (Monday), we rode in the opposite direction - and for the first time in months, rode without hesitation past the scary culvert (where I had been dismounting to lead for the last while). I didn't dismount, because I knew from quite a long way before that Jackson would walk past - I don't know why, but my hunch was correct.

So maybe I've become a better leader from Jackson's point of view? It is such an interesting question - does he even consider me in the same class as a horse that he would follow? He will follow at liberty, away from the herd, will follow at liberty while out of the field, will circle, stop and drop his head when requested. But I only appear at his field for an hour or two a day: it would take almost a month before I spent as much time with Jackson as he spends in a single day with his herd.

Then there is the definition of a leader. A stallion can move the horses in his band when danger threatens. He moves them from behind, he drives them. But when there's no danger, he can just about move one horse at a time, and the horse will be running away from him. That's not the sort of leadership that's useful to me. I can make Jackson run away from me - but how does that help? I need a horse that stays with me, and a horse that will stay with me and stay calm even when he detects something that is very scary to him. The stallion succeeds because he is defending something that is important to him - a resource. But he will often defer when it comes to other resources. Other horses may drink before him, other horses can choose to keep him out of their space.

Jackson's little group is an older gelding, three younger geldings and a mare. If I want to move Jackson, I call him and he follows. If I want to move the whole group, I lead the mare. She does not drive the other horses: they follow her.


The black mare is not the leader because she drives the other horses and makes them do what she wants. She is only dominant over one of the horses in the group when food is scarce, the others can all take her food if they want. She is frequently bitten and chased by the grey pony. She has a preference for the older gelding and for Jackson - at the moment, in the mornings, there are usually two separate groups. Jackson, the mare and the older gelding stick together, and the two ponies stick together. Jackson is the only horse in the group who can defend food over all the other horses - but he only does so for the first half of his meal. When he's not too hungry any more, he becomes less dominant over the food and will often allow the mare to share.

But of the group, only the mare will follow Jackson, and she only does so when she wonders where he's gone - she often comes up the field to collect him when he comes back from a ride.

If it's the mare I want to be, it means Jackson will follow me confidently and trust me to take him where there is good grazing, water and safety from predation. He knows I won't chase him, run him off or hurt him and he knows - because he's been taught - that there are certain behaviours that I like (they're reinforced) and ones I don't (they're never reinforced).

I don't believe that anyone, who appears for an hour a day, can consider themselves to have any standing within the herd. I don't think Jackson considers that I feature in any contest over food - I provide it within certain parameters, but don't eat it myself. He respects my space, because he's always been rewarded for keeping a distance and ignored for coming too close.

I think Jackson has learned that in many situations, I am equivalent to his mare - still not quite as good and a different species, but at least approaching her in terms of the confidence I give him by staying calm, staying brave and providing leadership without any dominance contests.

After a long hack on Sunday that ended with Jackson going lame about half a mile from home, I've not been riding the last two days. The hack was lovely and went a bit further than we usually do, along a busy main road. Jackson was fine and even unworried when a car screeched to a halt beside us! It was the owner of the mare I used to loan, and she was surprised to see us, I think - last she heard. Jackson had been unrideable for about four months!

When he went lame, it was in trot and I spent a day as usual going endlessly through what could have caused it.

I led him out in hand the next day, and of course he was absolutely fine in walk, and when I asked for shoulder-in, he wanted to do it at trot... All I can think of is that when we started trotting, he had kicked up a little pebble that caught in the top of the boot.

Today was very frosty and the roads were too icy to go out, so we played in the field. I rode bareback and had a bit of fun going up and down the hills. Jackson likes doing his sidepass so much now that he does it up and down hills as well as on the flat - very strange! He also does it with a bit of forward as well as sideways, and bent into the direction we're travelling - I thought this was a leg yield, but with the bend it may be approaching a half-pass - he bends beautifully through his body and crosses his legs quite neatly now. When I started groundwork, every time he crossed his legs to turn on the forehand, he used to nearly fall over, so big improvement in balance and coordination.

When I'd finished, I decided that since I had the bareback pad on rather than the saddle, I'd try that thing where you slide off your horse backwards. I've never done this before (on any horse) so wasn't too sure, but I just leaned forward, lifted my legs up onto his rump, and edged backwards (keeping a sharp eye on how he was looking). He did look back at me, but it was a sort of "what on earth are you doing back there?" kind of face, and he didn't bother at all when I finished the slide down his bum (especially as he heard a click about then!)

I thought it was so much fun I did it about four more times. Next time I might try kneeling on his bum circus style!

Although the camera is still a bit unhappy, I can take pics without the menu and since today was a beautiful morning, Jackson agreed to pose.
He is looking very nicely hairy (and is so nice and warm to sit on). I love his winter coat, with the mealy muzzle and funny little blond points on his legs. He looks like an overgrown Exmoor pony (very overgrown indeed!)

I tend to avoid doing anything in the rain, but this week, it just hasn't stopped. I worry about Jackson's feet if I'm not doing anything - I don't like the idea that he's just standing on the soft ground and not getting any stimulation. The contracted heels need to fix themselves, and the soft ground won't help.

So today, we got out on the road for an in-hand session. I thought he'd be dragging his heels a bit - the rain was the nasty, misty, very wet sort and he'd managed to stay relatively dry by sheltering under the hedge and standing back to the wind. I was surprised how keen he was. As soon as we were out the gate and onto the road, he was walking briskly, and started offering the shoulder-in we've been working on. After a while, he offered to trot (I can't describe this, but there's something that changes about his walk that means he'd trot if asked). So I asked, but at the same time gave the cue for shoulder-in. He gave shoulder-in at trot! This was very nice - not rushed, just nice deliberate steps, with his back end stepping under and a nice bit of sideways.

We did this all the way down the road (I was panting at the end). We also managed to get a lot further than usual, which was nice, so my hoof worries abated a little.

It's something I need to remember - just because I think it's too wet to work, doesn't mean that Jackson thinks the same. The only concern that's left is that the saddle will dissolve - but otherwise, two drowned rats can hack perfectly happily.

I also need to work on the shoulder-in to the left (because it's on the road, we tend to overdo shoulder-in to the right). It's not that he's not doing it, he just finds it harder to soften to the rein on the left. When he does, though, in some ways it's a nicer movement than s-i to the right. We also managed some leg yield in hand today too - I think I now see what the leg yield cue is for working in-hand (just move my hand further back along his flank while lifting the rein).

And as usual, I found a new cue accidentally. Rein-back. He can back very nicely if I stand in front of him and shake my finger (I think this might be a Parelli thing, but originating from wiggling ropes - I just free shaped it). Today, though, he learned to step back in a unrushed and collected way if I lifted the rein at halt, and didn't ask for bend. Yet again, Jackson shows me that I know nothing, he knows everything, and all we need is for me to learn to ask!

Just a short update - we managed to get out for a quick ride in between the awful heavy rain. It's reminding me of last winter, when the rain never seemed to stop and everything flooded.

When I started using the bridle to ride out (we still just use the neck strap in the field), Jackson found the whole procedure very annoying. It took too long and all that fidding with his ears and pulling bits of his mane out from under the headpiece frustrated him. He would either try to bite the noseband as it went on, or frisk all my pockets for treats while I tried to do up the throatlatch. I started clicking for nose away from me. I'm not quite sure what happened (or exactly when it happened), but when I produce the bridle now, it's the bridle that gets mugged. Provided I hold out the cavesson bit, Jackson rams his nose into it, and keeps his head right down until I've got the ears and mane sorted out. Then he stands gazing away from me until I've got the fiddly throatlatch done up.

All I rewarded was the not frisking me behaviour, but I seem to have set up a behaviour chain that he likes - sticking my nose in here and holding my head down means a treat, rather than keeping my nose out of her pockets means a treat.

I'm not complaining - but it does make me think about the difference between what I set out to train, and what I get in the end. I'm glad the bridle is less of an issue (and seems to be a fairly positive thing now).

Our ride was a bit wet today, but enjoyable. Yet again, I'm feeling a bit torn - I want to go away to a lovely hotel and have a nice cosy weekend with D, but I also want to make the most of my opportunity to have a nice long ride without having to rush off to get to work on time. I know D thinks I have a lovely time and get to ride my horse everyday, so what's the problem with not riding at a weekend, but it's just that I want to have at least one time in the week where I can go up to the field and spend as long as I like without the guilty feeling that I should be elsewhere.

The bigger picture is sometimes hard to see. It's too big to take everything in at once, so it's easier to focus on a small part, and see that clearly. That's a fine approach, as long as you remember that the small perfect piece you see doesn't exist in isolation.

So am I a clicker trainer? I think, on balance, I'm not. I used to think I was, but there are things that don't fit. Clicker training is a way of training animals (and humans) that's based on the science of learning theory. That's my background, so in that sense, I'm a clicker trainer.

On the other hand, the bigger picture is big. Learning outcomes are modulated by other things. There's ethology. Ethology is something pretty new to me, the scientific study of how animals behave in their natural environment, and includes concepts like preparedness. Jackson's "prepared" - primed and designed - to act in certain ways. So going underneath something is difficult for him, because horses need to protect themselves from predators that jump from ledges or out of trees. It's more difficult for him to respond to my request to walk under a bridge than over - although to me, these two actions are pretty much identical. Changes in ground surface may look like depth changes to him, so walking over the white "STOP" written on the road, or over a newly filled in pothole, may be risky. He has no ability to reflect, that these things mean something: to him, they're simply aspects of the environment, and in common with natural features, they imply something to him that they don't to me.

As well as ethology, there's physiology. The ethology of a horse differs significantly from that of, for example, a pet dog. The horse eats constantly, while remaining on the alert for chasing predators. The dog expects to eat once daily, if that, and the meat is shared with its family group - more important animals eat first and less important and younger members may get little. The horse has no such constraints - food is held in common. In a natural setting, all the horses look the same, condition wise, provided they are healthy. Just because your herd mate is eating, doesn't mean there is less food for you. There is no way one horse can take all the food, or prevent another horse from eating - and indeed, no advantage - having healthy, fit, alert herdmates increases everybody's chance of survival. The only high value food source with restricted access that a feral horse meets is the milk provided by its dam. She can determine when a foal can nurse - and through this, the foal learns contingencies and rewards. Its first actions are attempts to nurse, and if rewarded with milk, they are strengthened. This is what a clicker trainer hopes to emulate - the control of high value food resources without attempting to stress the horse by restricting the constant availability of low value forage.

But in the bigger picture, as well as learning and ethology, there is physiology. A stressed horse loses its appetite. There are times Jackson tells me he is unsettled by allowing me to feel teeth when he takes his treat. And there are times when he doesn't accept his treat: arousal is difficult for me to work around. We passed another shoot on our last hack (two days ago - the weather has been very poor since). It was the first time Jackson has turned and tried to speed up away from the frightening sound. It took me a few seconds to react, but I was able to bend him to a stop and face the noise. After a few seconds, we were able to head back towards it again, but it was a minute or two before he would respond to a click. So I wasn't a clicker trainer for those few minutes, I was working against his increasing arousal and trying to work out how to allow him to reach homeostasis again. I know enough not to increase the level of arousal by adding pain or discomfort or fear, and recently, I have been quicker to dismount and reassure from the ground where I know he prefers me to be. I managed without on this occasion, and the indication that he was back with me was his ears responding to a click for walking quietly and offering a neck yield. It is interesting, in training terms, that as he calms down, he will offer a neck yield without me asking. In terms of preparedness, he is relaxing his muscle tone and looking back at me instead of ahead at the scary noise - he can quickly override the fright, even if he is still more alert.

Adrenalin has a longish "wash-out" - once it's released for any reason, there is often positive feedback to increase it, and even if not increased, it remains active in the body for a while. After the fright, it took about two minutes for Jackson to be back with me, and a further 20 for him to be able to walk with his head low and swinging. I am still very happy with this - his quick neck yield response shows the training is having an effect, and the (relatively) non-explosive nature of his fright response is also reassuring (it was a few steps of brisk trot!).

So I think, on balance, I'm not a clicker trainer. I'm not sure what kind of trainer I am - I seem to find that very few people take more than the immediate situation and a very human interpretation of it into account when they offer behavioural advice. They're still fixated on fixing the symptom, and seem to feel it's somehow "hippy dippy" to look beyond it. I might not be a clicker trainer - but I'm closer to that than to any other school of thought. I think I'm falling out of love with any group of people whose response to even mild unwanted behaviour in a horse is to hit it sharply, and who refuse to believe that it's possible to interact with a horse without ever hitting it, pinching it, kicking it or spurring it. No more internet forums for me, they're starting to make me feel bad about people's ability to learn and reflect, let alone how sorry I feel for the horses.

We have had nice hacking over the last week or so. There has been no more sticking, Jackson has passed other riders without even thinking of following them, and he has been keen - walking faster and more engaged. I hope this is a combination of the schooling as well as feeling more settled in his group.

Yesterday, instead of riding out, I went for a brief run in the field with him. He is livelier in the field too - he will leave the others and trot and canter with me well out of sight of them. He is definitely playing, he cannot resist occasional acrobatics, and looks very pretty as he prances along, tossing his head. He is good at looking after me, though, and although he will canter down a hill behind me, he keeps his distance and stops when I stop. It's pretty good for my fitness, too, even if I have to lean against trees for a minute after charging up the hill.

I will be away for the weekend and won't get to ride, which I'll miss - I'll try to make up for it with longer rides next week. I would also love to get Jackson over to use the sand school - I really want to work on our lateral moves somewhere where we can ride circles - and I am fairly confident I can now ask for canter from a shoulder-in and want to try it.

Sideways motion! Lots of it, too.

The sticky hacking problem persisted for quite a while, and I tried a few different approaches to working out what it was about. I'm coming around to the thought that it was partly due to the changes in the field (although these happened after it had started). Another part was probably due to Jackson just being tired - the hacks were long for him and he's still very much on the forehand, so his back must get tired. Since he would generally lead on fine once I dismounted, and then ride on fine after a short break, this seems likely. The final part was that something near or around the gate of the field made him feel apprehensive.

I did nothing directly about the first, but led out in hand a bit more often, with lots of breaks for games and grazing. The second I dealt with by making rides shorter for the moment. In addition, I started to ask Jackson to step under himself and to lighten the forehand by trying some exercises. I also used the best learned exercises to distract him from some of the sticky spots during rides out.

The last part I dealt with by waiting - for a long time, but not passively: I asked him to take a step to the right, rewarded. Then a step to the left, and rewarded. Inch by inch, we moved into the heart of the sticky spot, and then we walked calmly out of it. The next day, we walked right through.

During the process, I worked on little exercises, mainly the beginnings of lateral work. It's easier to do this on the road (provided there is no traffic around), because I have a level surface, with clear edges. This means I can judge how he's moving relative to the side of the road.

It's been getting better and better over the last few days, with Jackson keen to offer lateral moves off the lightest touch on his side. I've also cued them in hand, by lifting the rein and putting my hand on his side. Today, it all came together well. He can now do a full Western sidepass from a standstill - complete lateral movement with no forward movement at all. To do it, I lift the rein on the side we are moving towards, and press my opposite leg against his side. He seems to hesitate for a second, then lifts himself and lightens himself into a lovely pose. Once he's sure he's balanced, he starts moving sideways, crossing his legs perfectly.

He'll do it forwards too, in a standard leg yield, again balancing himself and lifting his shoulder before he moves. Suddenly, from the saddle, it looks as though I'm riding a dressage horse. Shoulder-in is also coming along, though not every time I cue it.

So that's what I found when I went looking for something else and it's definitely something worth having.

I've been working on a series of lectures for next semester and it's made me think about how concepts I've known about for a while apply in how people interact with horses. It also relates to something I've been wanting to post about for a while: why do people apologise for being "soft" with their horse, and why do people congratulate them for "getting tough"?

The Actor-Observer Bias - what an off-putting name! It's not something that I've ever thought about applying across species before, but today I'm going to have a go. When people talk about how bad their horses are, they frequently blame the situation. If only I could have access to a better trainer, or if only the horse hadn't been mistreated, or if only I could ride every day. All my problems would be over!

Strangely, though, when they look at other people, what they see is the effect of personality: "her horse is fine because he's just a naturally laid back horse", "she never has any problems because she's just naturally talented with horses". This also works when they see the other person having the same problems they do: "my horse is impossible to handle in the stable because I haven't been able to sort out a proper livery situation" but "her horse is impossible in the stable because she's just too soft with it".

There are aspects of this that reflect on each person's belief about how the world works, but overall, it's a way of making yourself feel better. I do it myself - Jackson bucks because he's still very unbalanced, it's nothing to do with my skill as a rider or my weak and laissez-faire attitude with him.

I guess I have two points - first, other people may be doing well despite their horse's innate quirks because they're doing something right. And second, it probably doesn't help to attribute how things are going to anything at all - you might as well just work out what the problem is, and then find a solution. A good start would be to look at what you're doing and think to yourself that it might just not be working.

Another nice little bias is people's ability to criticise what other people do with their horses on the basis that their world view doesn't agree with yours. So their horse is acting a little strangely (but not badly) because it's testing them or is bored with what they are doing with it. Oddly, your own horse's terrible behaviour is just something you have to put up with, because you have the horse with the worst personality in the world (but nothing you do with them is boring and your approach is fine :-)).

Jackson is not perfect at the moment. He's pretty close, though, and hasn't changed. The problem is mine. The small behavioural blip he's exhibiting at the moment is one that frustrates me - he is napping, very slightly, on hacks. To be exact, he is stopping and not walking on when we are heading home. I time my hacks in the early morning so that I can get into work, and when I'm 3 minutes from home and my horse is playing statues in the middle of the road, I feel rather frustrated. I feel especially frustrated since my reactions are to kick, hit or generally "get after him".

Oh no! It's another bias - called Hyperbolic discounting. We all prefer an immediate payoff - even if it's small - over a larger one we have to wait for. So we find that hitting our horse works really well at making it go - but then we wonder, a few weeks down the line, why our horse doesn't want to leave the field and runs off when they see the saddle. No action exists in a vacuum - if you are sufficiently insistent and your horse submits, you chalk it up as a success, but you completely fail to see how that will affect everything else you do with him.

So I'm continuing to be soft on Jackson. If he stops, he has a reason. He does not stop on the way out, and when he does stop on the way home, if I turn him around and hack back out again, he's fine. Something is making him anxious about returning to the field and it's up to me to find out what it is, because it's certainly going to affect other things I do with him.

In the meantime, I'm fine with getting off and leading, and have no outdated belief that, in a battle of wills, he's won. Battles and wars aren't good situations around horses - firstly, they're not fighting us, they're fighting something they perceive as scary. If we escalate, they do too and the battle becomes a war. If we don't turn a situation into a conflict, we have time to work out what's going on.

In the meantime, Jackson has learned to leg yield. The first time he did a little step to one side, I celebrated. Then it was no longer an accident, he would leg yield perfectly from the middle of the road to the verge. It took a little longer for the leg yield from the verge to the middle to click, but now we can move out, move in, with lovely crossing over of legs (and a little bend when going from left to right).

Jackson has also learned how to do gates - meriting a big smile from a local farmer yesterday when he saw us walk calmly up to a gate, unlatch it, walk through and turn to close it again. I just wish the gates were a bit higher up - leaning down far enough to get at the latch from Jackson's back is not easy!

Same pic as last week for a few day, though, because the digital camera has repeated its trick of last year and died, just as the cold weather sets in.

This wasn't the post I had planned for this week, but I had such a lovely morning that it has displaced all the things I wanted to write about.

There is something about sitting on your warm horse with no saddle or bridle on a cold autumn morning that is frighteningly addictive. Two days in a row now, I have done all my chores, applied salves and creams, groomed and fed and then found that Jackson was looking at me as if he expected more.

The mounting stool is in the pen where we groom and tack up, and so I have stood up on the stool and waited for him to come over. He is completely clean, because I have spent time brushing out his long mane and tail, and flicking the dust out of his coat. He stays so warm, even in the cold weather, and when I sit on him, I feel his warm muscles moving under me, and I hold on to his silky mane. If I put a hand on one side of his withers and sweep the opposite hand around towards his rump, he'll turn in that direction. So we walk in little circles, and sometimes we just stand, looking out at the view towards the Campsies and Ben Lomond. The warmth from his muscles warms my legs, and if my hands are cold I can put them under his thick mane or bury them in his winter coat.

It is very peaceful, doing this, and satisfying in a way that's hard to explain. It's because he's allowing the contact, and because the contact between us isn't modified in any way by straps or reins, it feels closer. His face seems softer with no bridle, and his eyes are gentle, although he seems more alert than when we ride out.

It's all the books I ever read as a child and dreamed about, and never really believed. Now I believe, and now I've done it. In fact, now I can't stop doing it. It's also in the way he responds: when I do groundwork, and he and I are like dance partners, he gets quite excited and nickers when he backs up or swings around. When I ride out, he is well behaved and responds correctly when I ask, but without the tangible enthusiasm. When I sit on him like this, we seem closer to the feeling I get when we do groundwork - dance partners, where we've agreed that I lead and he follows.

When he moved to this field, last January, it was months before he was willing to stay with me when the others weren't in sight. Now I can open the gate, and he stays with me. I can mount up and sit on his back and he stays with me. It seems I'm enough for him now, he doesn't have to have the others with him anymore, and that's a humbling feeling.

I didn't want to get down, just sitting on his back, looking at the view, looking at the shine on his neck the colour of the autumn beech leaves, but when I did, I kept the feeling all morning. A feeling like this is medicine for the soul.