Practical Uses For The Clicker Magnat's Emergency Brakes By Alexandra Kurland Magnat and his owner learning to piaffe.

This article was written in 1996 when Magnat was 16. He is now 22, still very much in work, and even more beautiful than ever.

Winter riding.

     One of the fun things to do in the winter when the weather is cold and the horses are shaggy is to ride bareback. It's something we all did as kids if we were lucky enough to have horses. There's nothing more glorious than galloping bareback across a field of fresh snow.

     Riding bareback is a treat, once you get used to it. The first time out without anything between you and the horse it can be a little disorienting, especially if you are blind.

    That's the case for Ann, one of my adult riding clients. She rides a wonderful school horse, a beautiful 16 year old arabian named Magnat.

    Magnat began his school horse career in 1994 when it was discovered that he had a severe heart murmur. Magnat likes to teach, and the low key life of a lesson horse suits him perfectly. Magnat introduces riders to lateral work, and the clicker is an important part of his training program. With the clicker telling him when he's gotten things right, he stays calm and relaxed. There's less stress on his system, and he can stay in work. That's important because the light exercise keeps him fit and healthy. With the clicker he can avoid emotional stress even as we teach him new things.

    Mag is a wonderful horse, very kind, and very soft under saddle. Whoever originally trained him gave him an excellent foundation, but even so, when I first started working with Ann, I wasn't sure how far I could trust him. I had never worked with a blind rider before. Should I keep them on a lead line? Would I ever be able to step away and let them ride on their own? I soon found I didn't need to worry. Ann and Magnat got along great. Even with other horses in the ring Ann was able to navigate safely.

Developing a secure seat.

   As a special treat, I started to let Ann finish her lesson with a little bareback riding. As she got comfortable, we introduced the trot. At first, Ann was unbalanced by the extra motion. Magnat is a little horse with a big springy trot. All that motion overwhelmed Ann's seat. It could have been a disaster. As Ann lost her balance she started to learn forward and grip, a sure signal to any horse to go faster. But Ann had an emergency brake. Before she got into trouble, she clicked. Magnat instantly halted.

  Clicker trained horses make great school horses. They give the rider such a wonderful feeling of being in total control. Each time Ann picked up the trot she knew she could stop Magnat instantly before  she got into trouble with her balance. The first time they trotted only two or three strides before she stopped him. The next time the same, and the time after, but then she started to feel more at ease. She was beginning to get the hang of riding bareback. Before long she was trotting a full circle and then two and three circles at a time. As her confidence grew, she let Magnat do more and more. At no point was she hauling on his mouth to stop him, or scaring him into going faster.

    The clicker kept the ride safe. That's important for any rider, but especially one who cannot see.

Overcoming fear.

    I first discovered this particular use for the clicker several years ago when I was working with a client who was phobically afraid of horses. She loved horses. She was just terrified of them. She owned a super little appaloosa named Candy who took beautiful care of her. Barb had never had a bad experience with a horse. Her fear didn't have a rational, identifiable basis, but it was still very real.

    One of the great challenges she faced was leading her horse anywhere outside of an enclosed paddock. Barb was afraid Candy would "do something", even though Candy was the quietest, safest, best mannered horse you could imagine.

    The solution was to condition Candy to the clicker. That put Barb totally in control. She could ask Candy to walk a step or two forward. As soon as she felt herself starting to panic, she would click, and that would stop Candy. However many steps Barb could handle was all she had to deal with. She could build her confidence totally at her own speed. Just like Ann she started to be able to ask her horse to do more and more, until she could lead Candy with a real feeling of ease. It was exciting to watch her overcome her fear.

Emergency brakes.

   Emergency brakes are great things to have on any horse. All riders can benefit from them. There are many times in training when a new exercise will seem to unleash tremendous energy in your horse. Suddenly the canter will be bigger and more energized than it's ever been before, or the trot will have an enormous huge stride. You don't want to block your horse while you're learning your way around this new balance. So, while everything is still wonderful, Click.

    Why does this work. The clicker is a secondary reinforcer, a bridging signal between behavior and reward. As such it ends behavior. Remember the original model of the dolphin swimming around in a tank? When the dolphin hears the whistle, it knows it's going to get a fish. It will stop whatever it was doing to go look for the fish. Through successive trials it learns to go back and repeat specific behaviors to prompt a food reward. The same thing happens in the horse. The clicker ends behavior, and in this case we're using it not to train a specific behavior in the horse, but to help a rider build confidence.

    Will this confuse the horse? No. Clicker training is a very forgiving system. The horses know when it's their turn to be the teacher. The clicker builds their confidence, too. They know their job is to keep their people safe. When riders feel in control, horses are happier. Taking the time to clicker train your horse is worth it just to have an extra emergency brake.



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Copyright 1996 Alexandra Kurland
All rights reserved.

Revised November 2000