Ashley Griffin, University of Kentucky
Over a long period of time, horses have the capability to learn and remember commands and to respond to those commands. Basically, horses learn through repetition. That is why it is extremely important to be consistent in how you ask the horse to perform certain tasks. To successfully train a horse to perform specific tasks, it is essential that you have a good understanding of behavior as well as how a horse learns or processes information from its environment.
The Brain
The horse has a relatively small brain in relation to body size. The horse has little if any reasoning power and responds to its environment based on previous experiences and instinct. The design of the horse's brain does not allow for the transfer of information from one hemisphere of the brain to the other. Therefore, when training a horse, you have to teach the proper response from both the left and right. For example, as a young horse becomes proficient at leading from the left side, you will find that the horse will not lead as well when you switch to the right side. You will need to teach the horse to lead from the right side just as you did from the left. Horses are creatures of habit and produce a response due to a conditional request. These requests and responses are stored in the horse's memory for future use.
Natural Tendency
Many of the tasks we ask the horse to perform are not natural behaviors it would choose to perform. For example:
- Polo ponies are required to follow a fast-moving ball while trying to avoid a swing mallet. Chasing a ball and running toward swinging objects are things a horse would not naturally choose to do.
- Cross country or stadium jumping is not something a horse would naturally choose. The natural tendency is for the horse to go around the obstacle rather than to discriminate the width and height of the obstacle in order to jump it.
- Most horses, when given a choice, instinctively avoid entering a dark, narrow area such as a stall or trailer.
Therefore, in order for the horse to perform the tasks given in the examples, it must suppress many natural tendencies and learn to discriminate and respond to a variety of stimuli. The ability of the horse to learn and respond efficiently to different stimuli and suppress its natural tendencies will have a direct influence on the usefulness and monetary value of the horse to you.
