Slow Down. It's Easy To Go Too Fast.

Here Magneto Is unbridled with a soft, unconcerned expression on his face. It is so easy to miss the cues of where your horse's nervous system is as you tack and untack him.

Mistakes teach. I wanted to re-shoot this little video I made about Magneto’s progress with the saddling and unsaddling process. Then, I realized its teaching value was greater by showing the mistakes I made in this video.

Magneto has a bad trigger around saddling that is improving. When I finally realized his trigger, I gave him a year off and decided to restart him in a completely different way and even in a different location.

This time, I did the whole process loose and invited him to participate with a few treats as payment. I wanted to work totally off his will to join me in the process.

Look for the moments when I race him and do not respect his concerns. See if you can catch them. After the video, I have posted still shots where I could have moved slower, gotten present, and waited until he did not object or react by increasing his concern.

All in all, I am very pleased with his progress in getting over what was a really bad fear of being saddled. He used to shut down in a frozen state, with a completely frozen look on his face, frozen eyes, clamped in tail, and a super tense body no matter how gently one put the saddle on him. He was also scared of the bridle and the rein coming over his head. The slightest brush or noise after saddling could unglue him completely, causing him to fly into a series of bucks whether you were on the ground or in the saddle.

When I finally understood that his response was born of a deeper place than the conscious brain and that he was reacting from a set nervous system pattern to a traumatic experience around saddling, then I began to make progress as I addressed healing his nervous system instead of trying to “train” the reaction out of him.

To do this, I am careful to stay below threshold and to bring his mind back down every time it starts to come up too far. If I can keep him calm and far from a freeze response, he can begin to make new associations with being saddled, and that is what is happening. The advice to myself is to keep my focus on the horse and to slow down even more. Wait out that last bit of concern and resistence.

Saddling And Unsaddling Magneto

First sign of Magneto's resistance. He is starting to turn himself to the left to block my saddling him. I should have stopped, got present and waited for him to straighten out, showing me he was ready.

Again Magneto blocks me by moving even more around to the left.

This time I wait for him and stop. He bites the saddle which is a sign that he still holds some anxiety around the saddling.

I withdraw the saddle and get present, which is the right move.

I am present. Magneto is relaxed and is coming into sniff the saddle.

Red flag, slow down Julia! I should have backed away and gone back into the present moment for a moment. Instead, I brace my arm against Magneto.

Magneto stands for the saddling but their is a lot of tension in his face and his eye is almost frozen. This is an indication that though he is tolerating it, I have moved too fast.

Thank goodness we have made a lot of progress and even though I raced the saddling, Magneto has been able to come back down quickly. You can tell by the relaxed expression on his face. I am kneeling because a low head also helps to calm the horse's nervous system along with me being present.

Even though he is still relaxed you can see some tension in Magneto's muzzle as I do up the girth.

Magneto had a tense muzzle as I was doing up the girth but here he is starting to chew and relax back down. He is regulating himself well.

Here I can see that the girth is pinching him as it rides too far forward and blocks his stride. I will not be using this saddle on him to ride or to even lunge.

Magneto starting to show a little concern as I flip up the girth to remove the saddle.

Note the wide eye, high head and flared nostrils of Magneto still showing a little concern as I pull the saddle.

A return to a gentle, relaxed expression as I wait for Magneto to drop the bit. All in all he has done this at will and below threshold where he is making a new association about the whole saddling process.