Galop 5Knowledge
Contents
- 01WelcomeOverview
- 02How the horse learnsKnowledge
- 03Pied, spotted, additionsKnowledge
- 04The skeletonKnowledge
- 05The musclesKnowledge
- 06DigestionKnowledge
- 07SIRE, microchip and registersKnowledge
- 08Presenting in handOn foot
- 09Lunging and long-reiningOn foot
- 10Loading and stable bandagesOn foot
- 11The riding basicsIn the saddle
- 12TransitionsKnowledge
- 13The leg-yieldIn the saddle
- 14The dressage partIn the saddle
- 15Snaffle bitsKnowledge
- 16The jumping partIn the saddle
- 17The cross-country partIn the saddle
- 18RevisionRevision
How the horse learns
Every time you handle a horse, you teach it something — including things you never meant to teach. Knowing the main principles of learning means teaching on purpose rather than by accident.
In the exam programme
- Know the main principles by which a horse learns — habituation, sensitisation, positive reinforcement (rewards), negative reinforcement, punishment — and give examples, conditions and limits of their use.Common module B
A horse does not reason as we do, and it does not “misbehave” out of spite: it repeats what worked for it and avoids what cost it. A few simple mechanisms explain most of its education. They all turn on the stimulus: a signal or an event the horse perceives — a noise, a touch, the pressure of a leg, the sight of the bucket.
Habituation and sensitisation
The response fades
Habituation
The horse stops reacting to a repeated stimulus that has no consequence for it. The clippers, the hose, the trailer ramp, the morning tractor end up not worrying it at all. You get there step by step, raising the intensity very gradually and never crossing its fear threshold.
The response grows
Sensitisation
The horse reacts more and more strongly to a stimulus, often because it first met it too intensely: a plastic bag once cracked in the wind beside it, and now the faintest rustle makes it jump. The word is also used when you teach a horse to answer an ever lighter aid.
Common mistake
The saddle-pad trap
You put the saddle pad on, the horse fidgets, you take it off. It has just learned that fidgeting makes the pad go away: next time, it will fidget more. Leave the pad calmly in place and take it off when the horse stands still. The moment the stimulus stops decides what the horse remembers.
Did you know?
People often talk of “desensitising” a horse when they mean getting it used to something. The word is common but loose, since it assumes the horse was sensitised first. The right term is habituation.
Reinforcement and punishment
A reinforcement makes a behaviour more frequent; a punishment makes it rarer. “Positive” and “negative” do not mean good and bad: positive, you add something; negative, you remove something.
| Aim | You add | You remove |
|---|---|---|
| The behaviour increases | Positive reinforcement: a treat, a scratch on the withers, just after the right answer. | Negative reinforcement: the leg goes quiet as soon as the horse moves forward; the lead rope slackens as soon as it follows. |
| The behaviour decreases | Positive punishment: a sharp word, a brief tap of the whip, just after the unwanted behaviour. | Negative punishment: the treat disappears when the horse goes through your pockets with its teeth. |
Classical riding rests first of all on negative reinforcement: nearly every aid is a pressure that stops when the horse answers. It is the release, not the pressure, that tells the horse it got it right. Positive reinforcement motivates the horse and improves the relationship; in the saddle, you carry it on with your voice, which the horse has learned to link with a pat or a treat.
Using them well
- At the right moment: reinforce or punish within a second of the behaviour. After two seconds, the horse may link it to something else.
- Always the same: the same signal for the same request, followed by the same consequence. Consistency makes for a calm horse.
- From lightest to strongest: start with a quiet request, build up gradually, and release everything the moment the horse answers.
- Below the fear threshold: a frightened horse stops learning; it defends itself or runs.
- No free treats: reward a precise answer, or the horse learns to beg — and then to nip.
Safety
The limits of punishment
Punishment does not teach the horse what to do, only what cost it. And it can link the wrong things: a smack given after a refusal, once the horse has set off again calmly, may attach itself to the calm or to the fence itself. We also punish without meaning to — a rider who gets left behind and jabs the mouth at every fence teaches the horse to fear jumping. Before any correction, ask yourself whether the horse understood, whether it is afraid or whether it is in pain. The FFE’s rider’s charter puts it simply: “I keep calm: I am never violent.”