Liberty Training & Leading

Whether you are working towards riding in Lightness, or you want to improve your in-hand work, groundwork or Liberty training, everything really starts with the ability to connect with and lead your horse.

“Leading”, in my opinion, means to walk with or walk in front, pave the way and walk the way. In other words, you are walking your talk, you are behaving the way you want the horse to behave and teaching him what that means. It also physically means that you are leading the way, that you know where you’re going, what you’re doing – and that you are in front of your horse. To me, it means that you are the matriarch or the patriarch showing the horse how to survive and be a better more successful horse in this human world.

At this stage of leading, the horse is led from the front and the horse follows several feet behind, keeping a safe and respectful distance to you at all times. You are the leader, not him.

“To walk with” – means that you are walking with the horse – in other words you are present and tuned in to what your horse needs. You are not stressed out or focusing your attention on anything other than him. You tune into the breathing, the rhythm of the walk, how aligned the two of you are, etc. At this stage the horse is a more mature partner that always respects your personal safety space and can therefore join up right next to you like an old friend. Now you walk together and can both share the responsibility of leading.

Once you reach that level of partnership and understanding which springs forth from strengthening your leadership, the growth that can be accomplished together is endless.

However, it all starts with the simple ability to lead the horse from A to B.

Many people have been taught to lead a horse by grabbing the lead rope right under the chin of the horse with the right hand and then holding the rope with the left hand. This is a very unsafe way to lead a horse and every time it is used, it teaches the horse to disrespect your personal space. It also teaches the horse to be lopsided, only used to leading from the left.

This type of leading often looks stressful too. The horse is fresh, high-headed, whinnying or screaming, and the handler is slightly in front and directly underneath the eye of the horse, which is a perfect place to be if you don’t want the horse to be able to see you. Horses only have a couple of blind spots in their 340-degree vision, but this is one of them.

The handler often looks scared or stressed and is being pushed around by the shoulders of the horse, maybe even stepped on, and at the same time the horse seems to be pulling or leading the handler, not the other way around.

This is all happening because the horse is not being “led” by you. To be led by you, the horse would have to pay attention to you and do as you ask of him without putting up a fight first.

We have to center ourselves and ask, how do I want my horse to follow me? and then follow-up with the question: And how am I going to achieve that?

Surely nobody wants to be the handler in the horse’s blind spot being pushed around, hoping and praying that the horse doesn’t step on you, rear or kick out!

The first decision you need to make is this: Somebody has to be the leader and someone has to be the follower.

If you’re not the leader type, then go buy a horse that is sensible, broke broke broke and older, between 15 and 30, and then you might be ok to follow his lead in some situations. Except please remember that horses don’t know traffic rules or really any kind of human rules, so even here you might find yourself in trouble pretty quickly.

I’m not kidding. Your best bet is to get over your fear of saying no, setting boundaries and strap on your big girl pants because someone has to lead and that someone has to be you! Not your horse.

On a personal note, there are actually times when I let my horses decide what we are going to do. But that’s only because they ask very politely and because I trust their judgement in certain situations.

With my Icelandic, if the ground underneath our feet is not safe, he will let me know ahead of time because he won’t go forward no matter what I do. This has come in handy many times in California where I would have landed in quicksand had I not listened to him. I also let him decide which routes to take out on trail. He likes to find new paths and I know he loves the adventure, so I let him choose and simply go along for the ride. He also warns of large predators such as mountain lions in California or bears in Florida before I can see them, and he does so without putting my safety at risk.

My stallion will guide me as to what mindset to establish for the training session. He also decides what we end up working with. I come out with an exercise in mind, but gradually he takes over and we end up working on this exercise primarily from his angle. I get my opinion in there too, but it always works better if I listen to him and allow him to let me know how he wants to approach the exercise I want to work on, and that way we both win and we both get heard.

Being heard is an incredibly important thing. In most leading situations the horse is not listening to the handler and the handler is not listening to the horse. No one is being heard or seen.

That’s a bad place to be.

To successfully lead a horse, you must establish a safe distance between the two of you. You are in front and he is 3-4 feet behind on a loose rope (but not so loose that it touches the ground). Start practicing at a standstill first. If the horse walks up next to you, get out in front and swing the rope in a circular movement towards his chest to get him to back up and out of your space.

Once you have established this at a standstill, move onto the walk. Walk slow not fast and wait for the horse to match your walk rhythm without shortening or pulling on the lead rope. If he passes you, stop your feet and pull the rope towards your belly a little sharply. At the same time focus your eyes and some pressure on his hind quarters until he disengages and stops to look at you. Now you have his attention.

You can choose to back him up again to reinforce the safety distance at a standstill before you start walking again. Keep practicing these 3 steps until the horse can walk in the same rhythm as you, whilst staying calm and maintaining his safety distance. Practice stopping and going without touching the rope. Use your body language to teach the horse to stop. Prepare by slowing your feet, then gradually bring your hands up in front as you stop your feet and say “whoa!” in a firm way at first to keep his attention. Then practice refining this and asking him to stop and go in a softer and softer fashion as long as his attention stays on you.

So much more can be said about leading, but I hope this helps you train your horse to listen and look at you, not everywhere else. If your horse is truly jumping all over you, I recommend starting in the roundpen first and establishing some trust and respect at liberty in there before putting the horse on a lead rope and leading him around.

Finally, the third way of leading is from the rear.

Leading from the rear is something that can be done easier if the horse is at liberty. This method can also be used in the roundpen or pasture and can be used to control a whole herd of horses. This method is actually how most horses lead other horses, by pushing them in front of the leader towards the direction that the leader wants to go. The followers are in the front, looking back at the leader, and checking in that the speed and direction they are traveling in is the right one.

If you are able to lead from the front, the side and the rear with your horse and have him listen to you acutely, then you are truly ready to work liberty as you have demonstrated that you have good connection and control of your horse no matter his/your position. He is tuned into you and you are tuned into him, both in the present and in constant communication through the smallest changes in body languages, breathing rhythm, voice, etc.

It’s a beautiful place to be.

If you don’t have that connection just yet when you lead your horse, I highly recommend that you practice the first 3 steps listed in this article to get started on building your partnership!

Ride with Lightness

Celie xo

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