It comes back to whether or not we accept that definition of a good horseman or horsewoman: “A good horseman or horsewoman is someone who, in an educated way, always puts the best interest of the horse first and foremost.”

This is a quote from the book, Begin and Begin Again - The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses, by Denny Emerson.

Welcome to the Senior Horsemanship Podcast. Which was the Second Half Horsemanship Podcast. We'll be talking about better horsemanship in the senior part of life. For most of us that means horsemanship for the love of it.  That means horsemanship where we always put the best interest of the horse first and foremost.

I'm your host. Paul Sherland.

Denny goes on to say the following:

So any aid applied strongly enough to create nervous tension is an aid applied too strongly. There’s part of my problem, I realized. A kick tells the horse what I want, but it also creates tension, so I have to teach my horse to respond instead to a nudge, a tickle, some pressure that allows him to stay below his anxiety threshold.

Everything I had been doing was based on too much — too much force, too much pressure, too much too soon, too much assumption that my horse knew what I wanted but was simply not doing it right, too much, too much. I wasn’t teaching, I was forcing. And force always escalates, because force creates anxiety in the horse, anxiety creates resistance, resistance elicits more force from the rider to counteract it and down the rabbit hole we go.

It is a fundamental truth that I wish I had learned half a century earlier, and if it can help some riders and trainers — at any age — on their journey, I believe it will help them create stronger bonds with their horses.

I’m working on the website for Senior Horsemanship with the goal of getting it up and running by the new year. If you have comments or feedback about this podcast or any of the podcasts, please visit one of my other websites, SaddleUpAgain.com, and contact me there. I appreciate your comments.

I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead. Thank you for listening.