So - what is the AAoR by Bent Branderup?
So - what is the AAoR by Bent Branderup?
Bent coined this name many years ago to describe the fact that it is necessary to study and to also put that study into practice in order to learn how to train horses and ride them well. He thinks of it as being similar to experimental archaeology where the old masters training advice is read, scrutinised and put into practice with the additional benefit of modern scientific biomechanical understanding.
Almost all horses are used for leisure activities. Very few horses work for a living now, only those used by the police, military and a few draft horses. Competitive equestrian sports are a form of leisure use.
People used to study horse craft in great depth because it was vital to use horses to earn an honest living, or to ride them into successful battles. Whole countries were won or lost on the backs of highly trained horses and the skills of their riders in hand-to-hand combat. From the moment guns were used in battle from horseback, the military training became more of a numbers game, concentrating on replacing lost soldiers and horses as fast as possible. People now study mechanical engineering and computer technology more avidly and our collective connection with horses is dwindling away.
Xenophon educated about equestrian skills in 4th Century BC
The first riding school was in Naples in 1532 (with Frederick Grisoné)
Antoine de Pluvinel was teaching in 1624
Duke of Newcastle 1665
Gueriniere 1733
Baucher 1842
Steinbrecht 1886
Oliviera 1970
Von Neindorff 1990s
Many others such as Hazlinsky, Schmitt Jenson and Stanier taught the lost gaits and used classical training in its various forms.
Bent Branderup was born in Denmark. He states that he was always curious to learn more about history, especially if it was related to horses. He travelled to Iceland, the Iberian peninsula and across Europe to learn, research and acquire hours in the saddle. He was a student with Maestro Don Francisco Javier Garcia Romero and Don Alvera Domecq Diaz, Salvador Sanchez and Egon Von Neindorff and a brief student with Nuno Oliviera.
His approach embodies peace and meditative calmness while working with a horse and is a welcome contrast to the stressful world which predominates. He devoted his development of the Academic Art of Riding to his beloved Knabstrupper, Hugin who had broken bones in three of his legs and became totally blind by the age of 8. Hugin passed away aged 28 having lead a full and meaningful active life to the end.
Bent says that his horses are very dear to him, which is why he wants to train them optimally and keep them happy and eager to work into old age.
Groundwork with AAoR. An overview.
AAoR Groundwork
Begin at the Beginning.
Don’t hurt the horse *** Don’t annoy the horse *** Don’t frighten the horse
The word “Groundwork” means different things to different people.
Academic Art of Riding Groundwork is working to improve your horses’ balance, coordination, flexibility, and overall physical wellness using the gymnastics of dressage movements, while prioritizing the horses calm mental state and emotional wellbeing. During this process the teacher aims to educate the horse in the mutually understood language used for communication between horse and human. AAoR Groundwork is usually a perfect place to start - both for human and horse, but there will always be exceptions to every rule and flexibility is key.
It is similar in some ways to other Groundwork training approaches, popularised with online marketing in the last 10 years, but there are some significant differences. It begins with very simple, easy steps and gradually builds up in complexity for both horse and human. The progression is paced to suit the horse and the human, and the developmental progression can smoothly flow into either lunge work, hand work, long reining or ridden work as appropriate for each individual, rather than following a prescribed route.
Groundwork is primarily working on the horse’s head and mental attitude, but work done at the head reflects and affects the rest of the body. The equine skull photograph was taken with the authors permission from Atlas of the Equine Musculoskeletal System, A Practical Guide for Equine Bodyworkers, written by MVDr, Ivana Ruddock-Lange. This is an excellent book illustrated superbly with very high-quality photographs throughout.
I must mention that before a horse starts School, the horses’ daily care, living environment, feeding and husbandry needs must be met, with The Five Domains strongly in mind, (Mellor D, McGreevy et al, Animals Journal, Volume 10, Issue 10 (2020)) and relaxed, trusting, safe behaviour near humans must have been well established. The horse should feel able to mentally relax in the School environment itself with the human and be physically and mentally prepared and comfortable. The “School” can be any flat and level marked out safe space which has a consistent footing, which is not slippery, uneven, stony or sloping.
L.I.M.A. Principles has been coined by Equine Science Behaviourists as part of humane and effective Learning Theory application which must be applied to all training for all animals. L.I.M.A. stands for “Least Intrusive, Minimal Aversive”. These four words express how we must avoid deliberately triggering fear responses from the use of Aversives in any part of the training process.
With the rising concern about the Social Licence to Operate concerning sport horses, ethics questions are currently being raised with the spotlight especially currently focussing toward the equestrian competition world, but this is also highly relevant to the wider, every day equestrian community, which is far larger in number than the competition horse communities and so thankfully kindness and consideration towards horses are beginning to be ever more important to actively demonstrate.
The word “Aversive” is used scientifically to describe anything that the animal prefers to avoid, and the individual determines how strong they feel an aversive is.
Every individual is different. If there are many fears, it will be necessary to carefully untangle these before formal training can begin. This must be done gradually, interpreting the responses using the Science of Behaviour derived from neuroscience research findings and avoiding the use of forceful or flooding techniques, which have many very serious pitfalls long term.
I like to deliberately aim to engender an optimistic attitude in my horses, which is demonstrated by the fact that they engage readily and are obviously trying to respond accordingly to requests are made, even if they don’t always get the right answers. Provided no unreasonable requests are made, mistaken responses are not punished, and the rate of reward is kept high for all efforts, this cultivation of attitude, mindset and overall mood should all prevail.
If we want horses to want to work with us, they must be able to predict “work” and being in the School to be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience.
Training in a formal sense begins long before we even enter the arena and good quality informal training, providing appropriate environments, stimulating safe and enriched habitats, and demonstrating good handling and husbandry care will all create an increased likelihood of the right level of an optimistic mood being carried into the School. Animals are very good at predicting outcomes and they base their predictions on what happened last time. Unusual or challenging behaviours can be caused by varying degrees of pain and pain responses which are either chronic (long term) or acute (sudden onset) must be investigated first by a Vet, as you can’t train pain.
There is a free Lameness Trainer App, created by Sandra Starke, Gregory Miles and Stephen May who collaborated to produce this at the Royal Veterinary College London. https://www.lamenesstrainer.com/ the aim of this is to help owners learn how to identify a lame horse.
There are also some excellent scientific papers written about identifying lameness and the often more subtle signs of the behavioural and facial expressions of pain in the horse:
(S Dyson, The Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram, Equine Veterinary Education (2022))
https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eve.13468
(D Lebelt et al, Development of a Horse Grimace Scale (HGS) as a Pain assessment Tool in Horses undergoing routine castration, PubMed (2014))
(GC Lencioni et al, Pain Assessment in Horses using Automatic Facial Expression Recognition Through Deep Learning Based Modelling Plos.org Journal (2021))
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0258672
Your Vet may suggest that physiotherapy of some kind would be appropriate, and I find it very effective to use The Equine Touch. “The Equine Touch is a non-diagnostic, non-invasive Equine Bodywork System which is a holistic soft tissue address, effecting mostly connective tissue – muscles and tendons, joint capsules and ligaments using a very specific move”. It was developed by Jock and Ivana Ruddock-Lange.
Use Science based Learning Theory, with Observation, Science based Behavioural Interpretation, Empathy, Sympathy, Patience, Reflective Thought and Creativity to train your horse, but a vison of your goal must be in mind and your eye must develop to recognise when your horse is losing balance, coordination or suppleness. Once you have identified the problem, as you are the horses’ friend, advocate, and supportive teacher you must find the root cause of the problem(s) and guide the horse to learn how to develop healthier movement patterns or more confident emotional responses. The training aim is to build the horse up mentally and physically and not break them down. I have been recommending to my students since publishing Dr. Rachael Draaismas’ Language Signs & Calming Signals of Horses (2018) as an essential read to educate yourself about how to observe and correctly interpret equine behaviour responses.
Sadly, there is still a huge amount of disinformation about interpretation of equine behaviour responses globally on the WWW, which is often put forwards in a very convincing glossy packaged manner. It is a good idea, having first read and digested Rachaels’ book, to turn down the sound as you watch videos online to avoid clouding your observations with the trainers’ fine words or attractive music and observe the horses’ responses to the human.
Bent says that theory without practice is an empty shell, but practice without theory is just guesswork, so educate yourself by taking regular lessons, studying from reliable accredited sources, and don’t be afraid to take advice from a suitably qualified person, as guessing and hoping are rarely successful.
Equipment used for Groundwork.
It is helpful to educate your horse in Groundwork using a good quality light padded leather cavesson with a single short length flat woven cotton or flat leather lunge line with a lightweight clip clipped to the central ring on the cavesson. Not all lightweight leather cavessons are the same, but the differences between the cheaper versions and the better-quality ones often only become apparent after some use.
A schooling whip is optional, and although some AAoR trainers elect not to use one at all, many are opting to use a straight twig of hazel or apple wood cut to something about schooling whip length. I use an old schooling whip which has worn to become nicely fluffy on its tip, held lightly it can make little downwards strokes, presses or tickle touches to indicate a body part, and I also sometimes use a twig or a long stiff feather, like a Peacocks tail feather - we used to have Peacocks living here, so these have been readily available!
The whip should not be used as a threat, because research shows that the threat of pain being inflicted is worse than the pain itself, which is why waving/flappy whips, flappy/shaking ropes or chase horses forwards with waving/flappy flags are bad ideas. Obviously, a whip is not to be used for administering punishment.
Aligning training as strongly as possible with the L.I.M.A. Principles creates a likelihood for a caring and trust-based partnership being built, rather than using the outdated dominance based leader and follower, or master and servant style relationships.
The cavesson must be fitted onto the horses’ head with meticulous care, as the horses face has many sensitive facial nerves, some in bundles entering the infraorbital foramen on the skull, and many running across the face, just under the skin. The facial nerves do not run in the same places on all horses, so we need to pay attention to specific feedback from the horse about anything placed on the face.
The image I have used with kind permission granted from Equine Touch co-founder, Dr. Ivana Ruddock-Lange, a veterinarian who developed The Equine Touch and VHT with her husband Jock Ruddock, shows the variations of the equine facial nerve positions.
I have one horse, who is a head-shaker and he prefers not to wear a cavesson but is happy to be trained wearing a soft pliable fleece headcollar.
The padded leather cavesson must be fitted with great care to avoid being so high that it could rub on the protruding bony facial crest or so low that it falls over the soft tissue above the nostrils, or flops over the cartilaginous end of the nasal bone. Sharply worn teeth touching the inside of the cheeks where the cheek-pieces touch will make it especially uncomfortable, and it should never be fitted tightly.
The padded leather cavesson is intended to only be used gently.
The horses’ bending, *stellning, suppleness, balance, thoroughness of spine, and straightening are considered by careful use of standing exercises, forward movement and lateral movement while always placing calmness and the human horse relationship first. The Art is to introduce and teach the different aids to the horse at the right speed for the human with that horse. Bent says however, somewhat candidly, that the horse is not usually the limiting factor in the speed of progression!
*Stellning is a German word, which literally interprets as meaning posture/setting/placing and it is sometimes also written as “stelling”. The action of “Stellning” is the rotation of the horses’ skull on the first vertebrae of the Atlas joint and the gently guiding hand on the horse’s face can feel how smoothly or uncomfortable the horse finds this, which is used as an information gathering opportunity.
Synchronisation of the horse and human while moving together during Groundwork becomes an effortless natural result requiring no conscious thought and it will assist a true partnership to be formed.
Sometimes the best results in Groundwork can be created by walking backwards in front of your horses’ head, taking care to avoid the lead rein being pulled tight as you walk, and sometimes it can be better at first to partner your horse by walking next to the withers. Each of the different positions where we walk bring different benefits, and it can be said that backwards is the new way forwards! A small person with a tall horse may, however, find walking backwards in front of their horse challenging and their understandable difficulty with walking backwards fast enough may inhibit the forwards movement of the horse too much, making the horse become frustrated and irritated. AAoR Groundwork educates both the horse and the human at the same time, with feedback loops going both ways about physical biomechanics, two-way feel and correlating observations regarding you and your horses’ emotional states and paired movement patterns. Walking backwards in front of the horse has its potential downfalls (pun intended), but with practice it allows the human to observe the movement of the horse’s skull, spine, pelvis, shoulder balance and foot placements and how they vary when walking a circle in each direction. This information gathering is important to be able to understand your individual horses needs and then tailor a strategy to support your horse as they learn to overcome their idiosyncrasies and imbalances. Partnering the horse by walking forwards, can also work, but it requires the human to turn and look over the shoulder as they walk to be able to observe the horses’ body, legs and feet.
Bending and stellning is one of the first places to start in Groundwork and this is carried out while the horse is standing still with the horse’s head and neck in the right orientation. The neck itself should not become very bent during this process. The lower jaw should slide a little to the outside bend as the skull slowly and slightly rotates to left and then to right and it is important to observe the effects of the stellning action in the lower jaw, the poll, withers, and further along the horses’ spine to the pelvis. When a horse stiffens against you when being asked to bend, this must be accepted as feedback and the horse must not be forced to bend. We can note the differences between the effects of the horses’ left and right stelling. The horses head must never be pulled down by the line on the cavesson as however tempting that might be even small pulls will recruit muscles to brace or oppose the pulling hand.
The human hand can become very sensitive when practicing Groundwork and this is part of what makes it a wonderful simultaneous education for both the human and the horse, which is a valuable education to carry over into ridden work. Only correct training of the hand enables the trainer to communicate information via the cavesson and receive information from the horse. Less is indeed more, but it must be possible through the Aids to ask for less or ask for more within each movement.
An important element of AAoR Groundwork, after relationship building, synchronicity, and relaxation, is to teach the horse the Secondary Aids, which are designed to eventually support a mutual language of communication between horse and human when we ride.
The Primary Aids are our Seat when we ride, and our Body Language when we are working with the horse from the ground. We must learn to ensure that our Primary Aids of the Seat and Body Language do not contradict the Secondary Aids we are giving, as this will confuse and frustrate the horse. Strong Aids teach the horse to go against the Aids. Initially it helps the human to work in the slower gaits or while standing as this gives us time to process what we are seeing, learn to feel and learn the correct responses. I will leave discussion of the Primary and Secondary Aids in more detail to another AAoR info-post.
During AAoR Groundwork, we can teach the Shoulder In, Quarters In (or Travers), Renvers, Pirouette, Half Pass, Piaffe, Passage, Levade and more. All movements can be made using walk, trot and canter, so AAoR Groundwork is useful all the way through the horses’ education, and it can be used for all gaits. Once the movements have been trained, it is incredibly useful to use some of the exercises listed above for maintaining or building muscle strength when unexpected situations arise making riding not possible, such as weather limitations, injury rehabilitation, saddle fit problems or age-related degeneration.
Groundwork is just one of the AAoR components where we try to affect a series of changes to our horses balance and coordination during training, with the aim of preparing them for ridden work or repair them from their own genetic or epigenetic heritage, or training histories. Splitting down training approaches into parts is sometimes necessary, but it is important to keep in mind the “whole”, and the relationship each part has to the “whole” as all parts are inter-connected and each part affects the entire system. This was why I discussed the Five Domains earlier, and mentioned the importance of behavioural interpretation and pain recognition as these are obviously important parts of the “whole”.
This keeping in mind the “whole” is sometimes referred to as “Systems Thinking”, though I think of these as different aspects of the training loops which are entwined and entangled and prefer to use the description “Loopy Training”.
So, Groundwork is an excellent preparation for progressing into lunging, hand work, long reining, driving or ridden work and the sequence of choices can be fluid enough for you to choose which would be the next best approach to use to help you with your own horse. Groundwork remains a supportive constant and is used periodically throughout the horses training. There are many aspects to Groundwork which I haven’t covered, and it is best to find a trainer who can teach you correctly as unlearning takes a lot longer than corrective re-learning for both horse and human.
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If you would like to learn more, there are some excellent educational videos which can be purchased to live stream on demand from Bent Branderups’ video website here: https://www.bentbranderupfilms.com
If you are curious about becoming a trainer, please watch this YouTube video. Since recording this, Bent has begun to teach online for limited numbers of students, but he is only able to observe and comment about changes needed if the quality of the internet connection is good enough.
https://youtu.be/BxTqU55ts_s?si=ftlfdlAOtuCRziCt
There is a list of AAoR currently Accredited and Certified trainers available and some will be able to offer online training if you have a good internet connection, or pre-recorded video lessons if you do not have good internet where you ride. Each AAoR trainer will have their own nuanced personalised approaches and specialities and they will not be scripted clones. The risk of choosing to learn from a person who is not accredited and certified or who has not passed any of the AAoR tests, is that you will not have the AAoR training taught to you. If the horse training and riding styles demonstrated by the trainers in the AAoR are what attracted you to learn more about the AAoR in the first place, it makes no sense to learn from a person who has had no experience of passing the tests in Groundwork and Lunging, or the ridden Squire test and above.
You can find out more information about the Knighthood and the list of members, and find trainers in their various countries here:
https://knighthoodoftheacademicartofriding.eu/fundamental-ideas/#
There are no AAoR Accredited Certified Trainers residing in UK at present. As I have passed the AAoR Groundwork and Lunge Test and Squire Test, I am offering tuition myself, but I must inform you that I am not an AAoR Accredited Certified Trainer.
I will look at another aspect of the AAoR by Bent Branderup in another info-post.
Remember:
There are only three answers you can receive from a horse:
1. I can
2. I can’t
3. I don’t understand
Some good advice:
“Anything that is forced cannot be beautiful” Xenophon.
“Don’t try to impress others but do try hard to impress your horse!” Bent Branderup
“Who am I in my horses’ eyes?” Bent Branderup
“Two spirits who want to do what two bodies can” Bent Branderup
“Spend time well” Bent Branderup
Contact me Jacquie.flyingfox@btconnect.com if you would like a lesson or to organise a clinic.
Some of you who know me will know I am also a Bat Ecologist and a Sculptor of horses in bronze. My website contains information about my Artwork and my Equine Training.
My website is: https://www.jacquiebillingtonart.co.uk
In case you are curious, (!) our Bat Ecological Consultancy Website is here: https://www.greenaeco.com
14 Reasons why horses get nippy using R+ Training
Nippy, grumpy, ears back frustration is sometimes seen in R+ horses. Here are 14 reasons why:
1. A previous history of undisciplined hand feeding is likely to cause nipping. This can be resolved.
2. Never try to train a hungry/hangry horse. If more than 30 minutes has passed since the horse ate roughage, the stomach is already getting emptier.
3. Always use the lowest value reinforcer possible. Apples and carrots are often so desirable for the horse that the horse becomes over excited by their presence. Use wither scratches, handfuls of hay or grass nuggets as lower value reinforcers but be very generous with scratches or handfuls.
4. Training can be a form of enrichment and bored horses can become over eager while training. Make the daily living environment more interesting and enriched to reduce boredom.
5. Inexperienced R+ trainers are often too slow with marker timing and use an incorrect reward delivery style, which can cause frustration, ears back or nipping. The bridging sound must be made exactly while the horse performs the behaviour asked for. Rewards are Classically Conditioned to be linked with the bridging sound to enable there to be more delay with delivery after this sound. The horses’ nose must remain away from your body during delivery of food rewards.
6. Use a high Rate of Reinforcement, with constant reinforcement to maintain engagement in the lesson for new learners, or when teaching a difficult or new behaviour. Novice R+ trainers often don’t use a high enough Rate of Reinforcement and this causes frustration, ears back and nipping.
7. Give the horse visual cues to know when training session starts if you are using food rewards (the food bag) and when it ends (the jackpot “end of session” pile of food).
8. Don’t reward behaviour that you don’t want to see again.
9. Do reward the horse for being quiet, calm and relaxed around you and food.
10. Allow horses to say “no thanks, not now” to avoids coercion and avoid “Rock and a Hard” place type choices, handing control back to the horse, with no bad consequences for failure to comply, and so help to build the relationship.
11. If the horse is confused, doesn’t understand, or is unable to do as you ask, they will fail to perform behaviour and therefore not earn the reward, leading to frustration, ears back, nipping and reduced enthusiasm. Ask for something simpler to re-engage. Reward for all tries.
12. Learning by “trial and error” is not the best way to train, as it leads to frustration. Set up the training environment to assist desired training outcome by creating a likelihood that the horse will do what you have in mind. Try to set up the environment to create “errorless learning”.
13. Reward well for approximations at first, to maintain engagement and SEEKING but increase your criteria gradually to refine and shape the approximations towards the goal behaviour. Reward for saying “no thanks not now” too to give control back to the horse and provide true choice to reduce risk of coercion.
14. If you lose behaviour, reduce the criteria to a simpler level to reduce frustration related to failures, and reward well to restore confidence. Continuing to ask for a raised criteria of a behaviour not yet fluently understood can result in frustration, ears back and nipping.
R+ is simple, but it isn’t easy to do well.
Spend time Well
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944661/
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/12/21/2904/htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181986/
Can AAoR help a young horse?
The AAoR approaches will help to teach a young horse to learn the human/horse language that will be needed throughout the horse life.
This is achieved slowly and without force, fear or gadgets. The language taught is tailored to be suitable preparation for ridden work, driving, or liberty connections and each of these goals have both differences and shared similarities of communication styles. Tactile cues, finger touches, verbal requests and guidance are designed to enable the young horse to begin understanding not to fear a human interaction and to understand what each communication means. This is not something which can be rushed, and there is no place for shouting metaphorically or literally at the horse if they don’t understand at first.
When teaching another human a new and different language, it is important that the teacher has a good grasp of that language themselves, otherwise the learner will become confused and it is the same with teaching a young horse the horse/human language and it is well documented that confusion can lead to anxiety and frustration behaviours with horses.
First impressions count with a naive young horse and can give the horse a life long view of how working with humans looks like and feels from their point of view. For this reason it is important to make certain that human mistakes are minimised, errorless learning is set up, over trying is limited and an optimistic attitude must be cultivated regarding the horse view of how work, handling and husbandry skills are progressed. The kindest thing you can give to a horse is time. Time to grow, time to understand, time to acclimatise and time to relax with their human.
Is the AAoR by Bent Branderup new?
The AAoR is not new, but has been developed by painstaking study and testing of a selection of old masters’ theories, extracting the best parts, disregarding the unethical aspects and then overlaying the chosen selections with modern scientific understanding of biomechanics, ethology, equine behavioural science, affective neuroscience and modern horse breed variations in order to understand the training of horses even more deeply.
This is then disseminated into practical skill sets and training work, testing the theories and then sharing the findings for further discussion.
For this reason, the AAoR does not stand still, as there is evolution of approaches which come to light as time passes and there are many AAoR trainers involved in the process, bringing different skill sets and encountering different problems as the training unfolds. The AAoR trainers adhere to L.I.M.A. Principles, and do not use gadgets, devices or force.
The AAoR is not a training method, or a training system as such, but it is methodical and systematic in its approach. AAoR does not blindly adhere rigidly to absolute rules, as the AAoR Certified Accredited Trainers have come from different equestrian backgrounds and will recognise that all horses are individuals, taking into account the horses’ histories, their genetic predispositions, their idiosyncratic individual traits, their ages, and their temperaments, combined with the students own set of skills sets, backgrounds, histories and physical capabilities.
There are many options to be able to vary and adapt the work and each person who has passed the AAoR Squire test is a member of the. Knighthood, and is encouraged to develop a special area of interest within their AAoR training frameworks and bring those findings back to the Knighthood group brainstorming sessions for open discussion, lectures and demonstrations.
What can I teach my horse using the AAoR?
What can I teach my horse using the AAoR?
The concepts within the AAoR training in itself can teach your horse to understand the basics of performing accurate gymnastic dressage exercises, required for a well educated advanced ridden, driven, non-ridden or liberty horse.
Goal behaviours may differ according to the trainers aims and objectives with each exercise taught will become a basic component for the next exercise and this continues, like building blocks, taking the horse and human right through into the refinement stages of the goal behaviours. If some of the earlier building blocks are not fully or not correctly put in place, the later stages of training will inevitably show a level of failure and progress beyond that stage will not be possible. This can often be corrected by investigating an earlier trained movement and analysing where it may be a little off key and this process of correction should not be feared as it will inevitably continue throughout the horses training.
End goals, which are fair and reasonable are a good idea to have tucked in the back of your mind, but it is important to avoid over focussing on end goals as this can lead to a sense of the human feeling dissatisfied and frustrated about your horses progress to achieve that, and those emotions will detrimentally affect your training because your horse will feel them.
The AAoR is not exclusive to be focussing on one breed, or one goal preference, but each horse will have their own limitations and it is important to remain sympathetic to the horses particular bodily or mental challenges. There will be limitations from every human and every horses’ perspectives, but there is room for flexibility and creative modifications which can be made to find a suitable route. The use of AAoR style of groundwork, lunging, hand work, long reining and the AAoR ridden education are all available to use, but they are not rigid in order of preference or importance and if the horse is not destined to every become a ridden horse, the education from the ground can still be taken to a very advanced level potentially.
More about Learning Theory
Little Bob is not registered with the Shetland Pony Society. He is a tiny 7hh 12 year old Mini Shetland who was bred on the New Forest.
He was sold as Bob-The-Uncatchable so we knew what to expect and he was clearly pretty terrified of me at first, perhaps because I am a giraffe sized human, but whatever the reason, he was a very tiny, very frightened pony.
At first, I often sat down on the floor to get down low enough to meet Bob at his own height to help him choose whether to come over or not. He was a little bit less afraid of shorter humans, as long as they moved slowly and didn’t try to touch him.
Making yourself small in a safe way, either metaphorically or literally is always helps when meeting a fearful animal.
He follows me like a little black fluffy dog these days, having lived here as a free roaming pony for three months since late October and he is finding a new confident way to be while amongst the lanky giraffe people, who mean no harm.
He was very difficult to catch when he arrived but has become much easier unless something goes a bit wrong - like I fumble and drop the headcollar or a funny sounding noise happens somewhere. He is still sound sensitive, and movement aware and has clearly had to live a vigilant life, living by his wits, at least in his view. I am now working on him improving his confident cooperation even more by using R+ to get him to thrust his own nose voluntarily into the open noseband of his headcollar.
I hadn’t really considered that a Mini Shetland would be a fearful character but it seems obvious now that these tiny pones are likely to feel very easily threatened. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why they have acquired a reputation for being difficult and uncooperative as defensiveness or anger is learned to be used as one of the coping mechanisms for frightening situations.
Most of my other horses are Spanish, who are noted for their fiery nature, connect-ability and cleverness, but it is very easy to frighten an Iberian horse. Their response to fear is often shown in their tension, hyper-alertness, rapid reactivity, flightiness and excitability and they also need us to become less threatening even though they are far bigger animals than a Mini Shetland. If we behave like a predator, we deserve to be treated like a predator, and it isn’t difficult to stimulate one of the fight, flight, freeze or fidget responses in any breed of horse as they are all prey animals. It is worth remembering that all of us can be triggered to use flight behaviour if the threat is big enough.
Fearful animals, who have needed to use their wits to devise avoidance or defensive survival strategies, definitely increase their powers of observation and ability to predict antecedents as this skill has become imperative in order to survive the perceived or real threats. Anxious animals will have learned to live in a state of semi constant heightened awareness, which will cause long term stress. Chronic stress is one of the major factors adversely affecting overall health.
*Dominance Theory *(1) is still a surprisingly popular training approach long after it has been debunked as a flawed method with damaging consequences. It is an ethically questionable approach to use at any time, but most especially when used if the cause of the horses’ behaviour is fear. The use of dominant over-controlling tactics with a fearful horse will cause a breakdown in the horse/human relationship bond and it will exacerbate existing fear and increase stress. Incorrect terminology is used to describe behaviour by the dominance theory practitioners, with oversimplifications and unsuitably anthropomorphic labelling used to describe observed behaviours.
It is worth remembering that the more often a behaviour is rehearsed, the more deeply it becomes embedded as a functional go-to coping strategy.
*Learning Theory *(2) on the other hand, is a scientifically proven, evidence-based approach which has unravelled the connections between environmental stimuli, emotional responses and observed behaviours. There has been vast university research data gathering on learning theory, providing overwhelming evidence from multiple research efforts across a wide variety of equine breeds over the world to prove the hypothesis. The emotions and behaviours uncovered by neuroscience research are observable across many animal groups, with the same areas of the brain being stimulated and linked to the same emotional responses.
A problem with horse owners is that interpretation of behaviour has become clouded by the plethora of internet disinformation. The use of convincingly reasonable words, drawing from reductions of earlier forms of horsemanship and supported with anecdotal human-centric plausible explanations. During a recent post-graduate survey, horse owners were asked to interpret photos and short videos of horses facial expressions and postures provided by the researchers. Over 1000 horse owners participated with the survey which was self recruiting from a wide variety of backgrounds, and their responses determining the emotion behind a behaviour, posture or facial expression were staggeringly inaccurate *(3) & (4).
So, back to the use of Learning Theory and Positive Reinforcement, where fish can be taught to successfully respond to simple “match to sample” task requests, marine mammals can be taught to make huge gymnastic efforts, (of course, ethically, just because we can do this with our marine mammals, it doesn’t mean we should, but it clearly demonstrates how a huge powerful animal can be trained to make complex and difficult behaviours without the use of fear, force and dominance) and groups of alligators can be taught to take turns and share food rewards nicely.
None of these activities could be taught using the dominance, force or fear based training approaches.
If dominant behaviour is noted with a domestic horse, then the animals environment is now, or has been suboptimal. An environment may be suboptimal for a variety of reasons, and as we are part of the environment too, this could include us, and more particularly, the way we typically behave and interact with the horse.
Using dominance, fear and threats of control towards an animal is guaranteed to make your animal increasingly less able to trust you. An animal who does not trust you will always be looking for get out options and therefore will be unreliable. If you use dominance, force and fear to control your horse, one day something will appear that the horse fears even more than you.
Adhering to the Five Domains *(5) rules will take you a long way into an improved equine environment, adding with habitat enrichment too, but it’s essential for the human to also change their responses to the demonstrated fear behaviours in order to help the horse better regulate the emotions. Our responses to the horses behaviours affect the horses deeply.
Animals can become fearful for so many reasons, and this may include pain. The surprisingly common practice of using one of the popular dominance theory- styled methods, (even when they’re watered down and made to sound prettier), convinces humans to try to use fear inducing threats to overcome a pre-existing fear, which could be caused by undiagnosed pain. Humancentric preconceptions and past investment into the methods using dominance to control in training is probably what makes it hard for owners to let go of dominance theory approaches. It maybe harder if the horse is a very tiny, young or weak to let go of trying to dominate by force and strength.
Whatever the cause of fear behaviour, the use of dominance, force and the threat of painful control measures will escalate fear behaviours to a point where the animal will either become subdued to the now all too familiar zombie obedience state (freeze), or they will try to challenge the human (fight), or they may try to escape (flight), or they might become unable to settle and stop wriggling (fidgeting).
The fearful animals learning history will need careful evaluation to determine why the fear driven behaviour may have been learned. Some individuals are more genetically prone to being naturally cautious so become fearful with relatively less aversive stimuli and my learned Learning Theory teachers who are very much more knowledgeable than I, believe that any fear learned behaviours cannot be totally forgotten, but can only be diminished and only then with patience and the right kind of support avoiding flooding and force.
Many people believe that training past fear isn’t really possible, partly because the fear itself prevents training in the true sense. Fear behaviours often re-emerge under situations of stress or pressure, though in time they may be seen in a much lesser form.
Buying into trying to understand the animals very real (to them) fears is absolutely essential, offering sympathetic, empathising, kind non forceful communication, not trying to ignore the fears and push the horse through, and avoiding the use of behavioural anthropomorphic labelling. We can help these horses better by accepting the individuals anxieties are genuine and real and not dismissing them as trivial. This doesn’t mean we cannot help horses move forwards past challenging behavioural fear related problems.
Improving the overall daily living environment, keeping the Five Domains strongly in mind, plus investigating the horses internal and external environment, checking hooves, teeth and general overall health and of course, ruling out problems caused by pain if possible.
Once the horse is more healthy and is mentally strong enough to train, (mental damage from being forced to comply normally takes a lot longer to resolve than physical damage) then ensure that the training environment feels safe (for the horse), improve your observational skills, and gain a better education using equine science to interpret behaviours to help gradually ease away historical anxieties at the horses pace.
This approach, using science based learning theory, will escalate the horses’ trust and confidence in humans rapidly and the horse will change their emotional state around you when working, becoming more optimistic, better focussed, less vigilant and less impulsively hyper reactive. If trust is not building with a fearful horse within a few weeks or months, or if fearfulness suddenly re-appears, a comprehensive re-evaluation of the whole situation must be made to rule out unidentified or new problems.
Consultations with experienced equine centred qualified equine science behaviourists with good track records with their own horses is advisable if you are facing working with a fearful horse with established patterns of fear response behaviours. Two heads are better than one, but beware the slick quick fix statements on websites and the flashy adverts on fb, often with the Nouveau Horsemanship “behaviourists” as these will be rarely using Learning Theory but mostly are using varying degrees of the use of fear, flooding, force and dominance to train.
Except for absolute emergencies, working with a horse cannot be just about getting the job done in the 21st Century, with our SLO to ride a horse coming increasingly under threat, there must be a focus on the ethics of how we ask for and gain trust and train co-operative care using equitation science to reduce the horses anxiety levels in all spheres of training.
Good training looks fairly boring and slow moving that is unless you know what you are looking for as each subtle change being asked for will be small avoiding flustering the horse and staying within the horses threshold.
If the horses’ behaviours are obvious, loud, demonstrative or reactive rather than quietly responsive, this is a sign that mistakes are being made by the humans.
Horses definitely know that we two legged creatures with no ears and no tail and flappy arms are not another horse, and we need to stop kidding ourselves about how translatable our body language is for a horse and instead teach a new consistent and unthreatening body language intelligence, formulated together with the horse and the human to forge a relationship of trust, relaxation, precision, predictability and understanding, using our body language, energy, verbal and tactile communication educations ensuring that our horses are thriving in our environment and not just surviving.
*Look for a person who has studied equine behavioural science, (not just canine) and is knowledgeable about equine centred learning theory, equine psychology and adheres to the LIMA Principles.
*Look for a person who can demonstrate that they have implemented good quality training with their own horses, who look happy to be with the trainer even when they have made a little mistake in training.
*Look for a person who has accreditation from a body who insist their members fully understand the use of Learning Theory and adhere to LIMA Principles and therefore ethical equitation science.
(1) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0737080617300059
(2) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159117300710
(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5575575/
(4) https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/24338/fenner_kh_thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
(5) https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1870/pdf
How Can AAoR help me with my horse?
How can AAoR help me with my horse?
A lot of the AAoR images online look like amazing horses. Of course, all horses are amazing and have their own strengths and weaknesses, but it must be said that many of the horses in AAoR training have only found this training as a last chance because all other approaches have failed them.
Hundreds of “ordinary“ horses have found out how to become extraordinary with a little help from the carefully tailored training which is mindful of both their horses minds and their bodies.
To make an exercise which does not address the body in a constructive way renders the exercise worse than useless and may even become harmful and detrimental to the horse.
To make an exercise which does not address the emotional state of the horse is also worse than useless and will also be very harmful to the horse.
Mental damage is usually harder to resolve compared to physical damage.
To train without consideration to the horses’ emotional state is to risk reducing the horse to a robotic servant at best and this will be destructive in many ways.
AAoR training will help you to raise up the horse, and will never break the horse down mentally or physically.
AAoR and R+ Blog
It all begins with an idea.
AAoR Groundwork
Begin at the Beginning.
Don’t hurt the horse *** Don’t annoy the horse *** Don’t frighten the horse
The word “Groundwork” means different things to different people.
Academic Art of Riding Groundwork is working to improve your horses’ balance, coordination, flexibility, and overall physical wellness using the gymnastics of dressage movements, while prioritizing the horses calm mental state and emotional wellbeing. During this process the teacher aims to educate the horse in the mutually understood language used for communication between horse and human. AAoR Groundwork is usually a perfect place to start - both for human and horse, but there will always be exceptions to every rule and flexibility is key.
It is similar in some ways to other Groundwork training approaches, popularised with online marketing in the last 10 years, but there are some significant differences. It begins with very simple, easy steps and gradually builds up in complexity for both horse and human. The progression is paced to suit the horse and the human, and the developmental progression can smoothly flow into either lunge work, hand work, long reining or ridden work as appropriate for each individual, rather than following a prescribed route.
Groundwork is primarily working on the horse’s head and mental attitude, but work done at the head reflects and affects the rest of the body.
I must mention that before a horse starts School, the horses’ daily care, living environment, feeding and husbandry needs must be met, with The Five Domains strongly in mind, (Mellor D, McGreevy et al, Animals Journal, Volume 10, Issue 10 (2020)) and relaxed, trusting, safe behaviour near humans must have been well established. The horse should feel able to mentally relax in the School environment itself with the human and be physically and mentally prepared and comfortable. The “School” can be any flat and level marked out safe space which has a consistent footing, which is not slippery, uneven, stony or sloping.
L.I.M.A. Principles has been coined by Equine Science Behaviourists as part of humane and effective Learning Theory application which must be applied to all training for all animals. L.I.M.A. stands for “Least Intrusive, Minimal Aversive”. These four words express how we must avoid deliberately triggering fear responses from the use of Aversives in any part of the training process.
With the rising concern about the Social Licence to Operate concerning sport horses, ethics questions are currently being raised with the spotlight especially currently focussing toward the equestrian competition world, but this is also highly relevant to the wider, every day equestrian community, which is far larger in number than the competition horse communities and so thankfully kindness and consideration towards horses are beginning to be ever more important to actively demonstrate.
The word “Aversive” is used scientifically to describe anything that the animal prefers to avoid, and the individual determines how strong they feel an aversive is.
Every individual is different. If there are many fears, it will be necessary to carefully untangle these before formal training can begin. This must be done gradually, interpreting the responses using the Science of Behaviour derived from neuroscience research findings and avoiding the use of forceful or flooding techniques, which have many very serious pitfalls long term.
I like to deliberately aim to engender an optimistic attitude in my horses, which is demonstrated by the fact that they engage readily and are obviously trying to respond enthusiastically and accordingly to requests made, even if they don’t always get the right answers. Provided no unreasonable requests are made, mistaken responses are not punished, and the rate of reward is kept high for all efforts, this cultivation of attitude, mindset and overall mood should all prevail.
If we want horses to want to work with us, they must be able to predict “work” and being in the School to be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience.
Training in a formal sense begins long before we even enter the arena and good quality informal training, providing appropriate environments, stimulating safe and enriched habitats, and demonstrating good handling and husbandry care will all create an increased likelihood of the right level of an optimistic mood being carried into the School. Animals are very good at predicting outcomes and they base their predictions on what happened last time. Unusual or challenging behaviours can be caused by varying degrees of pain and pain responses which are either chronic (long term) or acute (sudden onset) must be investigated first by a Vet, as you can’t train pain.
There is a free Lameness Trainer App, created by Sandra Starke, Gregory Miles and Stephen May who collaborated to produce this at the Royal Veterinary College London. https://www.lamenesstrainer.com/ the aim of this is to help owners learn how to identify a lame horse.
There are also some excellent scientific papers written about identifying lameness and the often more subtle signs of the behavioural and facial expressions of pain in the horse:
(S Dyson, The Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram, Equine Veterinary Education (2022))
https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eve.13468
(D Lebelt et al, Development of a Horse Grimace Scale (HGS) as a Pain assessment Tool in Horses undergoing routine castration, PubMed (2014))
(GC Lencioni et al, Pain Assessment in Horses using Automatic Facial Expression Recognition Through Deep Learning Based Modelling Plos.org Journal (2021))
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0258672
Your Vet may suggest that physiotherapy of some kind would be appropriate, and I find it very effective to use The Equine Touch. “The Equine Touch is a non-diagnostic, non-invasive Equine Bodywork System which is a holistic soft tissue address, effecting mostly connective tissue – muscles and tendons, joint capsules and ligaments using a very specific move”. It was developed by Jock and Ivana Ruddock-Lange.
Use Science based Learning Theory, with Observation, Science based Behavioural Interpretation, Empathy, Sympathy, Patience, Reflective Thought and Creativity to train your horse, but a vison of your goal must be in mind and your eye must develop to recognise when your horse is losing balance, coordination or suppleness. Once you have identified the problem, as you are the horses’ friend, advocate, and supportive teacher you must find the root cause of the problem(s) and guide the horse to learn how to develop healthier movement patterns or more confident emotional responses. The training aim is to build the horse up mentally and physically and not break them down. I have been recommending to my students since publishing Dr. Rachael Draaismas’ Language Signs & Calming Signals of Horses (2018) as an essential read to educate yourself about how to observe and correctly interpret equine behaviour responses.
Sadly, there is still a huge amount of disinformation about interpretation of equine behaviour responses globally on the WWW, which is often put forwards in a very convincing glossy packaged manner. It is a good idea, having first read and digested Rachaels’ book, to turn down the sound as you watch videos online to avoid clouding your observations with the trainers’ fine words or attractive music and observe the horses’ responses to the human.
Bent says that theory without practice is an empty shell, but practice without theory is just guesswork, so educate yourself by taking regular lessons, studying from reliable accredited sources, and don’t be afraid to take advice from a suitably qualified person, as guessing and hoping are rarely successful.
Equipment used for Groundwork.
It is helpful to educate your horse in Groundwork using a good quality light padded leather cavesson with a single short length flat woven cotton or flat leather lunge line with a lightweight clip clipped to the central ring on the cavesson. Not all lightweight leather cavessons are the same, but the differences between the cheaper versions and the better-quality ones often only become apparent after some use.
A schooling whip is optional, and although some AAoR trainers elect not to use one at all, many are opting to use a straight twig of hazel or apple wood cut to something about schooling whip length. I use an old schooling whip which has worn to become nicely fluffy on its tip, held lightly it can make little downwards strokes, presses or tickle touches to indicate a body part, and I also sometimes use a twig or a long stiff feather, like a Peacocks tail feather - we used to have Peacocks living here, so these have been readily available!
The whip should not be used as a threat, because research shows that the threat of pain being inflicted is worse than the pain itself, which is why waving/flappy whips, flappy/shaking ropes or chase horses forwards with waving/flappy flags are bad ideas. Obviously, a whip is not to be used for administering punishment.
Aligning training as strongly as possible with the L.I.M.A. Principles creates a likelihood for a caring and trust-based partnership being built, rather than using the outdated dominance based leader and follower, or master and servant style relationships.
The cavesson must be fitted onto the horses’ head with meticulous care, as the horses face has many sensitive facial nerves, some in bundles entering the infraorbital foramen on the skull, and many running across the face, just under the skin. The facial nerves do not run in the same places on all horses, so we need to pay attention to specific feedback from the horse about anything placed on the face.
The image I have used with kind permission granted from Equine Touch co-founder, Dr. Ivana Ruddock-Lange, a veterinarian who developed The Equine Touch and VHT with her husband Jock Ruddock, shows the variations of the equine facial nerve positions.
I have one horse, who is a head-shaker and he prefers not to wear a cavesson but is happy to be trained wearing a soft pliable fleece headcollar.
The padded leather cavesson must be fitted with great care to avoid being so high that it could rub on the protruding bony facial crest or so low that it falls over the soft tissue above the nostrils, or flops over the cartilaginous end of the nasal bone. Sharply worn teeth touching the inside of the cheeks where the cheek-pieces touch will make it especially uncomfortable, and it should never be fitted tightly.
The padded leather cavesson is intended to only be used gently.
The horses’ bending, *stellning, suppleness, balance, thoroughness of spine, and straightening are considered by careful use of standing exercises, forward movement and lateral movement while always placing calmness and the human horse relationship first. The Art is to introduce and teach the different aids to the horse at the right speed for the human with that horse. Bent says however, somewhat candidly, that the horse is not usually the limiting factor in the speed of progression!
*Stellning is a German word, which literally interprets as meaning posture/setting/placing and it is sometimes also written as “stelling”. The action of “Stellning” is the rotation of the horses’ skull on the first vertebrae of the Atlas joint and the gently guiding hand on the horse’s face can feel how smoothly or uncomfortable the horse finds this, which is used as an information gathering opportunity.
Synchronisation of the horse and human while moving together during Groundwork becomes an effortless natural result requiring no conscious thought and it will assist a true partnership to be formed.
Sometimes the best results in Groundwork can be created by walking backwards in front of your horses’ head, taking care to avoid the lead rein being pulled tight as you walk, and sometimes it can be better at first to partner your horse by walking next to the withers. Each of the different positions where we walk bring different benefits, and it can be said that backwards is the new way forwards! A small person with a tall horse may, however, find walking backwards in front of their horse challenging and their understandable difficulty with walking backwards fast enough may inhibit the forwards movement of the horse too much, making the horse become frustrated and irritated. AAoR Groundwork educates both the horse and the human at the same time, with feedback loops going both ways about physical biomechanics, two-way feel and correlating observations regarding you and your horses’ emotional states and paired movement patterns. Walking backwards in front of the horse has its potential downfalls (pun intended), but with practice it allows the human to observe the movement of the horse’s skull, spine, pelvis, shoulder balance and foot placements and how they vary when walking a circle in each direction. This information gathering is important to be able to understand your individual horses needs and then tailor a strategy to support your horse as they learn to overcome their idiosyncrasies and imbalances. Partnering the horse by walking forwards, can also work, but it requires the human to turn and look over the shoulder as they walk to be able to observe the horses’ body, legs and feet.
Bending and stellning is one of the first places to start in Groundwork and this is carried out while the horse is standing still with the horse’s head and neck in the right orientation. The neck itself should not become very bent during this process. The lower jaw should slide a little to the outside bend as the skull slowly and slightly rotates to left and then to right and it is important to observe the effects of the stellning action in the lower jaw, the poll, withers, and further along the horses’ spine to the pelvis. When a horse stiffens against you when being asked to bend, this must be accepted as feedback and the horse must not be forced to bend. We can note the differences between the effects of the horses’ left and right stelling. The horses head must never be pulled down by the line on the cavesson as however tempting that might be even small pulls will recruit muscles to brace or oppose the pulling hand.
The human hand can become very sensitive when practicing Groundwork and this is part of what makes it a wonderful simultaneous education for both the human and the horse, which is a valuable education to carry over into ridden work. Only correct training of the hand enables the trainer to communicate information via the cavesson and receive information from the horse. Less is indeed more, but it must be possible through the Aids to ask for less or ask for more within each movement.
An important element of AAoR Groundwork, after relationship building, synchronicity, and relaxation, is to teach the horse the Secondary Aids, which are designed to eventually support a mutual language of communication between horse and human when we ride.
The Primary Aids are our Seat when we ride, and our Body Language when we are working with the horse from the ground. We must learn to ensure that our Primary Aids of the Seat and Body Language do not contradict the Secondary Aids we are giving, as this will confuse and frustrate the horse. Strong Aids teach the horse to go against the Aids. Initially it helps the human to work in the slower gaits or while standing as this gives us time to process what we are seeing, learn to feel and learn the correct responses. I will leave discussion of the Primary and Secondary Aids in more detail to another AAoR info-post.
During AAoR Groundwork, we can teach the Shoulder In, Quarters In (or Travers), Renvers, Pirouette, Half Pass, Piaffe, Passage, Levade and more. All movements can be made using walk, trot and canter, so AAoR Groundwork is useful all the way through the horses’ education, and it can be used for all gaits. Once the movements have been trained, it is incredibly useful to use some of the exercises listed above for maintaining or building muscle strength when unexpected situations arise making riding not possible, such as weather limitations, injury rehabilitation, saddle fit problems or age-related degeneration.
Groundwork is just one of the AAoR components where we try to affect a series of changes to our horses balance and coordination during training, with the aim of preparing them for ridden work or repair them from their own genetic or epigenetic heritage, or training histories. Splitting down training approaches into parts is sometimes necessary, but it is important to keep in mind the “whole”, and the relationship each part has to the “whole” as all parts are inter-connected and each part affects the entire system. This was why I discussed the Five Domains earlier, and mentioned the importance of behavioural interpretation and pain recognition as these are obviously important parts of the “whole”.
This keeping in mind the “whole” is sometimes referred to as “Systems Thinking”, though I think of these as different aspects of the training loops which are entwined and entangled and prefer to use the description “Loopy Training”.
So, Groundwork is an excellent preparation for progressing into lunging, hand work, long reining, driving or ridden work and the sequence of choices can be fluid enough for you to choose which would be the next best approach to use to help you with your own horse. Groundwork remains a supportive constant and is used periodically throughout the horses training. There are many aspects to Groundwork which I haven’t covered, and it is best to find a trainer who can teach you correctly as unlearning takes a lot longer than corrective re-learning for both horse and human.
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If you would like to learn more, there are some excellent educational videos which can be purchased to live stream on demand from Bent Branderups’ video website here: https://www.bentbranderupfilms.com
If you are curious about becoming a trainer, please watch this YouTube video. Since recording this, Bent has begun to teach online for limited numbers of students, but he is only able to observe and comment about changes needed if the quality of the internet connection is good enough.
https://youtu.be/BxTqU55ts_s?si=ftlfdlAOtuCRziCt
There is a list of AAoR currently Accredited and Certified trainers available and some will be able to offer online training if you have a good internet connection, or pre-recorded video lessons if you do not have good internet where you ride. Each AAoR trainer will have their own nuanced personalised approaches and specialities and they will not be scripted clones. The risk of choosing to learn from a person who is not accredited and certified or who has not passed any of the AAoR tests, is that you will not have the AAoR training taught to you. If the horse training and riding styles demonstrated by the trainers in the AAoR are what attracted you to learn more about the AAoR in the first place, it makes no sense to learn from a person who has had no experience of passing the tests in Groundwork and Lunging, or the ridden Squire test and above.
You can find out more information about the Knighthood and the list of members, and find trainers in their various countries here:
https://knighthoodoftheacademicartofriding.eu/fundamental-ideas/#
There are no AAoR Accredited Certified Trainers residing in UK at present. As I have passed the AAoR Groundwork and Lunge Test and Squire Test, I am offering tuition myself, but I must inform you that I am not an AAoR Accredited Certified Trainer.
I will look at another aspect of the AAoR by Bent Branderup in another info-post.
Remember:
There are only three answers you can receive from a horse:
1. I can
2. I can’t
3. I don’t understand
Some good advice:
“Anything that is forced cannot be beautiful” Xenophon.
“Don’t try to impress others but do try hard to impress your horse!” Bent Branderup
“Who am I in my horses’ eyes?” Bent Branderup
“Two spirits who want to do what two bodies can” Bent Branderup
“Spend time well” Bent Branderup
Contact me Jacquie.flyingfox@btconnect.com if you would like a lesson or to organise a clinic.
Some of you who know me will know I am also a Bat Ecologist and a Sculptor of horses in bronze. My website contains information about my Artwork and my Equine Training.
My website is: https://www.jacquiebillingtonart.co.uk
In case you are curious, (!) our Bat Ecological Consultancy Website is here: https://www.greenaeco.com
AAoR and R+ Lunging
AAoR and R+ Lunging
AAoR Lunging
***Don’t hurt the horse *** Don’t annoy the horse *** Don’t frighten the horse***
The purpose of AAoR Lunging is never to intentionally tire the horse and lunging at speed is to be avoided. When horses are moving on the lunge, there is a risk that the horse may have the freedom to decide to move in a way which is not in the least bit beneficial for them, and the decision to use the lunge as a means of education for the horse must be based on the horses age, temperament, training history, and the environment. A lot of damage can be done in a short space of time by running horses in circles on the lunge and no benefit comes from chasing horses around in unbalanced circles.
Lunging is complex and when done well it has an important role to play with the horses’ education, but lunging is not so easy to do well: it is an Art form in itself, which needs education, tuition and hours of carefully evaluated practice to learn.
Sending a horse around in relentless circles is always going to be a bad idea due to damaging strain caused to the horses’ joints and tendons, plus it will adversely affect the horses’ mental attitude to training too. At the end of a lunge session the horse should not be breathing hard, sweating profusely, or looking anxious as this would indicate that it is becoming a punishing experience physically and mentally for the horse. Lunge work is good for beginning with gaining better basic low level fitness, but there are better ways than the lunge for improving horses’ stamina, endurance or aerobic fitness. There is no place for fear at any part of a horses training life, so the use of strong aversives to drive horses forwards or slow horses down with threats must be avoided on the lunge as well as at all other times too. A horse can feel a fly land anywhere on the body, so use calm, gradual education rather than force to help the horse to understand soft Aids.
The AAoR Lunging differs from BHS style of lunging in that the human remains closer to the horse and is not required to stand in the centre, with a long reaching lunge whip, rotating on the spot while the horse moves on a large circle around them. The AAoR Lunging also differs from the various Natural Horsemanship styles of lunging where the horse is required to make a circle which continues behind the humans’ back, or where a flag or rippling rope is used to keep the horse moving away, sometimes contained within a high sided round pen.
In AAoR Lunge work, the human does not have to remain static in one place but can smoothly change position to be closer or differently aligned to the horses’ body to improve support for the horse where necessary. The human body alignment, posture and positioning provides Body Language as a Primary Aid which helps to explain the Secondary Aids. It can be appropriate to support the horse by walking closer to the horses’ shoulder, or further back along the body towards the tail towards a long reining position by the hind quarter and variations such as this are designed to open up different possibilities to check and improve the horses’ education while at the same time building beneficial muscle, improving coordination and balance and rehearsing moving between a more forward or more collected manner using increasingly refined Aids which are ultimately transferable to ridden work or used for clarification of postural requests.
A good time to introduce AAoR Lunging to your horses training repertoire is often when the horse has shown that they understand the Aids taught during their AAoR Groundwork education. Groundwork is almost always a good place to start a horses’ education, whatever their age, and Lunging is often, but not always, the next natural logical progression from Groundwork. At first Lunging can be introduced to the novice horse using only a slightly greater distance from the horse than Groundwork so at first, the horse can remain close enough to reach out and touch finger-tips to their shoulder or rib cage while walking together.
AAoR style of Lunging requires no gadgets, auxiliary side reins or devices and adheres to L.I.M.A. Principles in that it is preferred to use gentle tactile suggestions to ask the horse to move forwards on a circle with us. The lunge cavesson used is the same padded leather cavesson used for Groundwork. The cavesson is definitely not designed to deliberately control using strong pulls against the horses face. If the horse shows that they don’t understand, or are less confident, anxious or even worse becoming afraid, the human must work to resolve the problems using a kind and sympathetic approach, reassuring the horse by walking closer again before perhaps trying to walk a foot or two further away again or changing the environment or approach to support the horses emotional or physical problem better. As a Positive Reinforcement trainer, I use a Bridging Sound exactly at the point when the horse is showing the response I want to see, and I immediately walk over to the horse after the Bridging Sound to deliver the reward. Typically, at first, the Bridging Sound itself will stop the horse moving forwards because the horse has been Classically Conditioned to understand the linked association between Bridging Sound = Reward delivery. This tendency for stopping and waiting for the Reward delivery after the Bridging Sound can be phased out later on in the training process by using Keep Going Signals, though there must be caution using KGS too soon. It is important that the horse does not show body language or a facial expression suggesting they are not in a good emotional place when the Bridging Sound is used, as linking an unhealthy emotion to a certain behaviour will cause problems later. It is fine to make a mistake now and then of course, but the motto must be “Make Haste Slowly”.
Correct interpretation of the facial expressions and body language is vital here in order to respond suitably and make changes according to the horses’ emotions and I strongly recommend reading a book by Rachael Draaisma entitled “Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses” in order to avoid falling into the trap of believing all too commonly repeated misinterpretations of the emotions behind the observed behaviours.
First impressions count, so introducing the horse to AAoR lunge work must be done with this in mind, bearing strongly in mind your own posture and demeanour, your vocal intonation, the environment, the horses age and training history. Walking in front of the horse or at the shoulder should feel familiar after Groundwork has already been established. The circle size needs to be placed in the arena away from a perimeter fence and small enough to create a meaningful amount of bend for the horses’ body size and educational level, but not so small that the bend is too difficult for that horse to manage. Increasing the distance away from the horse is gradually achieved so that the horse remains initially at finger-tip arms-length or even closer, but ultimately the horse will be asked to stay as far away as an outstretched human arm combined with schooling whip tickle touch length. This will give the horse more independence from the human, and the horse will be able to make more choices about their own posture and movement patterns too, which can cause some horses to feel insecure, unbalanced and try to stay closer, or other horses might become anxious and begin to move faster, but with sympathy and skill these moments of anxiety can be quietly worked through until the horse feels more confident and balanced in their capability without a supporting nearby human.
The central ring on the padded leather cavesson helps the human to be able to communicate through the lunge line by creating little vibrations, acting as tiny half halts or to gently direct the horses head in a manner already taught when standing closer to the horse during in Groundwork Bending and Stellning. Keeping the horses nasal bone aligned with the direction of travel on the circle, is very important and using a lightweight cotton or leather lunge line with a small clip on the central cavesson ring helps to reduce inadvertent drag due to the weight of the line while not actively trying to communicate with the horse. One of the reasons why it is very important to ensure that the horse does not look to the outside of the circle while lunging is because it can cause the lower jaw to be wrongly placed relative to the skull which can in turn affect the thoracic spine rotation. The horse will either tend to fall in on the inside shoulder or out onto the outside shoulder and the horse will be unlikely to bring the inside hip forwards and step properly underneath the body with the hind legs. All of these mistakes will cause problems later on for the horse if not noticed or corrected.
The AAoR style of Lunging approach uses a schooling whip or a slim twig to point to or lightly touch a body part. The long lash of a schooling whip lags far behind the thought to move it so is difficult to time or place the touches with sufficient accuracy, coupled with the fact that the lunge whip carries the risk of being a perceived threat of unpredictable risks of stinging, flicking touches. This anticipated threat will be more keenly felt if horse has had unpleasant experiences of flicking touches from a long lash before.
The schooling whip Aid pointing towards the horses’ hind quarter at the top or to left or to right of tail are taught to be understood as different communications asking either for more downwards “sit” and folding of the hind legs or for the hind quarters to move to the left or to right and not for indicating more forward speed required. This education or re- education has to be made gradually as soft tactile touches initially in order not to frighten the horse, usually using Groundwork to calmly introduce the new Aids, and this is especially important if they have had unpleasant experiences while lunging, or are afraid of whips. Horses are remarkable in their ability to accept, forgive and learn new things and provided the new training is presented in an quiet, calm, clear and unhurried manner and they are not made to feel afraid, they will begin to trust that the human means no harm with the thin twig.
Lunge work is used for improving horses at all stages, from novice to advanced including work in collection and lateral movements. The beauty of lunging is that the horse can be easily observed by the human eye from a little distance which gives a different perspective on how the horses’ co-ordination, rhythm, stride length and balance in movement are all progressing and the horses’ strengths and weaknesses or lateral unevenness may be more obviously identified, provided the human eye is sufficiently educated to see the mistakes as they are happening.
Sometimes solutions for corrections can be made as they arise by minor adjustments during the lunge work, but others may need a different Academic approach to help the horses to find balance in movement.
Variation within the pace and transitions from one pace to another will be valuable exercises for the horse, and horses can be educated in AAoR Lunge work to worked in shoulder in, quarters in, piaffe, passage, as well as working trot, collected canter, working canter, relaxed walk, school walk, and the school halt.
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Please note that there are no AAoR Accredited Certified Trainers residing in UK at present. As I have passed the AAoR Groundwork and Lunge Test and Squire Test, I am offering tuition myself, but I must inform you that I am not an AAoR Accredited Certified Trainer.
I will look at another aspect of the AAoR by Bent Branderup in another post.
Remember:
There are only three answers you can receive from a horse:
1. I can
2. I can’t
3. I don’t understand
Some good advice:
“Anything that is forced cannot be beautiful” Xenophon.
“Don’t try to impress others, but do try hard to impress your horse!” Bent Branderup
“Who am I in my horses’ eyes?” Bent Branderup
“Two spirits who want to do what two bodies can” Bent Branderup
“Spend time well” Bent Branderup
Message me or email me on Jacquie.flyingfox@btconnect.com if you would like a lesson or to organise a clinic.