Warmblood By Michael Barisone Building on the Basics
pline. We’ve been talking all week at our barn about how
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you never let kids train horses. I don’t care if they’ve won Olympic medals, it simply takes time to learn. Even though she is an amazing rider, Charlotte Dujar- din, for example, can’t make the training decisions at age 27 that Carl Hester can at age 50. I think Ashley Holzer is spectacular; she creates
horse after horse after horse. I watched her at Global [Dressage Festival] yesterday and she’s not thinking of the training scale, it’s just IN her at this point. Ashley also has a lot of success- ful students, which reflects on her training abilities. Everyone needs an in- structor who sees what’s going on: Ashley Holzer, Lars Peterson, Robert Dover, they’re all see- ing things. As a trainer, my eye sees something very different from what you as a rider feel. If you’re a breeder you need help bringing horses along. If you’re an owner, you need a rider. If you’re a rider, you need a trainer. As a rider, “feel” only gets you so far. You have to
have the basic education to understand what you are feeling. Most of my poor life decisions, outside of horses, have been based on feelings rather than thinking. Feelings and emotions will mess you all up! Feelings (and hormones) have contributed to all the bad, impulsive decisions in my life while rational, clear thinking has contributed to the good ones. Logical thinking always trumps feeling, as far as I’m concerned. There are riders out there who have tremendous feel,
hat does it take to make a horse trainer? It takes years of hard work, clarity of thought and disci-
yet they struggle; while there are others who achieve great things through clarity of thought, hard work and discipline. Passion will fool you and emotion will fool you. You
may have bred a really nice horse that the resident trainer is riding, but you may be so passionate about that horse you don’t see clearly what that horse needs. In dog breeding it’s called ‘kennel blindness.’ Discipline is critical. When you ride around at home
and have a fancy piaffe, you want to do it all the time because it’s fun. I hope I’m mature enough now that I work on the things I don’t do well. Your horse may not like working on the hard stuff, especially at the beginning, but horses are just like kids: they have to learn the concept of ‘no.’ You are the trainer, so it’s your job to teach. If the horse isn’t doing what you want, you don’t have a fit and become harsh, but you also don’t cave in. You quietly stick to your guns. Who can out-
wait whom? That’s horse training in a nutshell: who can outwait whom.
Horsemanship and good parenting are essentially the same thing. Successful parents know what they want and they don’t give in every time their kid has a tantrum. You don’t build anxiety and fear; you teach the child to be accepting of instruction and do what he or she is told. In general, children all have the same curriculum; they all learn many of the same things, which is very helpful. If your kid is a super mathematician, he or she shouldn’t only do math all day, because that wouldn’t create a well-rounded individual. Language arts, gym and music, among other subjects, are all the things that
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