Whether you’re riding an impressionable young horse or a twenty-year veteran of lesson programs, you’re serving as a horse trainer. There’s no getting around it. Everything you do in the saddle makes some kind of impression on your horse and trains it to respond in some way.

That’s one reason why it makes sense for you to learn as much as you can about horses and horse training. It’s the only way you can do your part to keep your horse trained as well as it should be.

But there are other reasons, too, and some of them have a very direct bearing on your own skills as a rider. Here are some examples.

Become a Better Judge of Horses

First, becoming more knowledgeable about horses and training makes you a better judge of horses.

Obviously, this can help a great deal when it comes to acquiring a horse. It can spell the difference between success and failure in the show ring, especially when there’s no turning back from your purchase.

But there’s more to it than that.

Help Your Horse Become All He Can Be

Being a good judge of horses also means that you have a good eye for a horse’s capabilities, personality, strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, more knowledge of horses and their training helps you work with these strengths and weaknesses to produce better results.

Taken together, these skills and knowledge give you what you need to help your horse become all he can be. For example, they can help you:

• Understand what your horse can and can’t do, and not set expectations for him he can’t fulfill
• Develop an approach to riding and competition that makes the most of his strengths and prevents his weaknesses from affecting his performance
• Detect when something has changed in your horse and you need to do something to fix it or compensate for it
• Assess your horse’s readiness for competition better

In the end, becoming a better horseman can help you take your horse to heights that you could not otherwise achieve.

Avoid Teaching Your Horse Bad Habits and Poor Performance

Third, greater knowledge helps you avoid the all-too-common problems of teaching your horse bad behavior or creating performance issues.

This happens all the time with younger, more impressionable horses. A trainer will fix problems and get a horse tuned up for superior performance. And then an unknowledgeable rider will get into the saddle and undo all that work in just a few rides.

If you don’t want to be this kind of rider, you need to develop a better understanding of horses and horse-training techniques.

Become a More Adaptable Rider

Fourth, greater knowledge can help you become a more adaptable rider.

The principle here is straightforward. If you have a better idea of what’s going on in your horse day to day, or even stride to stride in a class, you have the power to adapt your riding in ways that keep your horse performing at his peak.

If you sense that he’s feeling scared or insecure, you can ride in a way that calms him and keeps him focused. If he has developed a physical problem that’s impeding his performance, you can figure out how to work around it and make the best of the situation. If he has difficulty with a particular skill, you’re in a position to help him compensate for it.

Perhaps even more to the point, a greater knowledge of horse-training principles and techniques will help you come up with solutions to problems on the fly. You’ll already have a good of idea of what might work to get you through a tough spot.

Become a More Intuitive Rider

Finally, greater knowledge will make you a more intuitive rider.

Far too many riders ride like they’re riding a machine. They just do what they’ve been told to do, without any real understanding of why the techniques they’re using work.

If you can get past that, everything changes.

Once you truly understand horse-training principles and appreciate why certain techniques work the way they do, your riding elevates to a much higher level. You’re suddenly able to see beyond your rote learning of specific techniques and instead ride intuitively.

To a much greater extent, you become one with your horse and just know what he needs from you to perform his very best.

Next…

Explore our training products to discover how you, too, can become a more successful rider.