Portland Jones Sophie Warren Illustrations Barbara Hinchcliffe What

What is Equitation Science? • Equitation Science aims to make life better for horses by studying the best ways of training and managing them. • No-one owns Equitation Science. It is not a “method” or a theory. • Equitation Science uses evidence based training principles. • There is a clear link between the use of evidence based training and improved rider safety and horse welfare. • Equitation Science is like a super hero for horses! © Portland Jones and Sophie Warren

About the Horse • Good science is like a pair of goggles that only lets us see the truth. We should put our scientific goggles on when we work with horses. • The horse has been around for over 55 million years and has lived with people for about 6000 years. This is about the same as three days in a 75 years. So, he’s much better at being a horse than he is at being a dressage horse or a show jumper… • Anthropomorphism is the belief that horses (and other animals) have human characteristics. But it’s much better for the horse if we use science to tell us how he thinks, and learns and what he needs to be content with his life rather than imagining that he is just like us – because he’s not. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

More stuff about the horse…. • Horses aren’t great at thinking, working stuff out and understanding. But they are great at habits, remembering, running away from stuff and making friends. • Sometimes we think of the horse a bit like a slightly silly, furry human. But he’s not. • • • Memory Mirror test, Object permanence, Habit formation, Learning by observation. . . Stereotypies © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Your Horse’s Eyesight • Horses have two kinds of vision: Monocular and Binocular. • When your horse uses his monocular vision he can see almost all around him. This makes him hard to sneak up on! • Binocular vision is used when the horse wants to focus on something. When your horse uses his BV he will often lift his head up. His pupils are long and narrow, unlike ours which are round. • Horses can’t see below their nose. That’s why they have so many whiskers – which are also known as vibrissae. These help them “see” what they are eating and also to navigate at night or in tight spaces. • The horse is not colour blind but his world is less colourful than ours – a bit like looking through an olive green glasses. • You can make glasses like the ones below to really experience what a horse’s vision is like. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Your Horse’s Mind, His Sense of Smell and His Hearing • The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain responsible for emotions and planning. Your horse doesn’t have this part. • When you are hungry or thirsty at school it is your prefrontal cortex that stops you eating your eraser or walking out of the class room and stealing food from the canteen. It stops you from doing silly things. Your horse doesn’t have this… • Your horse’s sense of hearing is a lot better than yours. • His ears can move, like furry satellite dishes, able to catch sounds from all around him. Flehmen allows the horse to trap scent molecules inside his nose so that he can work out what he is smelling. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren • The horse’s sense of smell is about 1000 times better than ours. Horses can’t vomit so it helps him to avoid food that’s gone bad.

The Flight Response! • The flight response is an instinct that tells the horse to run away from danger. • The more the horse practices the flight response the better he gets at it. • The flight response causes bolting, bucking, shying, leaping, quickening, rushing jumps, tension, taking off, launching and spinning. • What do all those behaviours have in common? The horse’s legs move quickly. • How do we control the horse’s legs? By training really good responses both in hand under saddle. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

The equine herd • Horses are great at making connections with other horses. • The herd is not like the ranks in an army with one guy at the top and everyone else below him. It’s much more complicated than that. • Horses talk to other horses with their tails, four legs, long mobile ears, large moveable nostrils, long flexible necks and big eyes on the sides of their heads. • Humans have none of those things. • Horses don’t see humans as part of their herd – although they can form attachments to us. • When people try to use the ways horses communicate with each other to try and train them they generally focus on things like chasing. It’s a bit like trying to communicate in another language only using swear words! © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

The horse trainer’s tool kit • The Foundation Responses 1. Stopping (as training progresses this includes shortening and slowing) 2. Going forwards (as training progresses this includes lengthening and quickening) 3. Turning shoulders right (direct and indirect turn) 4. Turning shoulders left (direct and indirect turn) 5. Turning hindquarters right (yield) 6. Turning hindquarters left (yield) • These are trained using operant conditioning. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren • There are other tools in the horse trainer’s tool kit and these include shaping, habituation and classical conditioning.

Operant Conditioning: Positive Reinforcement • Adding something that the horse wants immediately after he does something makes it m ore likely he’ll do that thing again. • That is, giving the horse a treat or a scratch on the wither when he stands quietly makes him more likely to stand quietly again. • To be effective reinforcement must be meaningful. Yelling “GOOD BOY!” loudly and slapping the horse on the neck is unlikely to be reinforcing in any way at all. • Reinforcement must also be instant. You cannot reinforce jump seven by scratching at the end of the round. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Operant Conditioning: Negative Reinforcement • Removing a mildly annoying pressure after the horse does something makes him more likely to do that thing again. • That is, taking away a mildly annoying pressure (like the pressure of your leg) when the horse goes forward makes it more likely that he will go forward again. • Negative reinforcement is in three phases: 1. The light signal - this is like saying, “Please” 2. The stronger signal. This is applied if the light signal does not produce the desired results - this is like saying, “Do it!” 3. The release of the signal - this is like saying, “Thank you” © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren • There is no gap between the light signal and the heavier signal. • The release of the pressure is the most important part of the signal as it is not the pressure that trains the horse it is the removal of the pressure that trains him.

Operant Conditioning: Positive Punishment • Adding something the horse doesn’t like after the horse does something makes him less likely to do that thing again. • In theory… smacking the horse for biting makes it less likely he will bite in the future. • In reality punishment is less effective than is often believed. • Punishment canmake the horse very scared of whoever punished him. • Punishment doesn’t tell the horse what you want him to do. Instead of biting he might rear. • Punishment expects the horse to change his future behaviour to avoid future consequences. If used, punishment must occur as the incorrect behaviour does. It’s no use smacking the horse for biting 30 seconds after he has bitten you – it’s too late. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Operant Conditioning: Negative Punishment • Taking away something that the horse likes when he does the wrong thing makes him less likely to do the wrong thing in the future. • If you are scratching your horse and he tries to bite you, walk away. • Negative punishment is hard to use with horse training but parents use it a lot. Have you ever done something wrong and had your mobile phone taken away? That’s negative punishment! © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Habituation • This is just a fancy way of saying – getting used to • Some things are hard to habituate to. Things that are too close, too loud, appear suddenly or move erratically are hard to get used to. • There are three ways to help your horse habituate to things like the clippers: 1. Gradual…Turn the clippers on while the horse is in the stable. 2. Counter conditioning. . . Turn the clippers on and then give a treat. The horse will quickly associate the clippers with treats. 3. Overshadowing. . . This is the most effective way. See next slide. • Habituation must be done slowly or it can make the horse more afraid! © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Overshadowing • When two pressures are presented at the same time only the “strongest” one will get a response. • Horses can’t multi-task, so to make him get used to things more quickly it is possible to use trained responses like forward and backward steps to overshadow something frightening like a needle or clippers. • This need to be done very gradually. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Shaping • This is the process of gradually changing behaviours over time. • Michelangelo the sculptor was once asked how he managed to sculpt such amazing pieces. He replied that it was easy – he took a hammer, a chisel and a big bit of marble and he took off all the excess marble and underneath was a beautiful sculpture. • This is a bit like horse training – we take away all the behaviours we don’t want, like bucking, shying and refusing to jump and eventually we have a beautifully trained horse. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

Classical Conditioning • Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Scientist. He did experiments with dogs. • Pavlov rang a bell and then gave his dogs some meat. After several repetitions he rang the bell and the dogs salivated without the meat. • Classical conditioning explains why the rider’s seat, voice and weight signals work. It is because they are associated with already conditioned responses. • The rider’s seat won’t fix a failure of stop or go. It has to be corrected with negative reinforcement. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

The Ten Principles of Training 1. The horse's brain is very different from ours. His memory, senses and way of learning are very different too. Understand these differences and always remember them when training. For example horses can't pretend or tell lies and they never do things just to annoy you – even if sometimes you might think that they are doing all three. 2. Know how training works. Understand the most important scientific principles, in particular – operant conditioning, habituation, classical conditioning and shaping. 3. Every signal (also known as an aid or cue) that you use in training should be different and distinct so that there is no confusion for the horse. For example, the signal you use for turn should be easily distinguished from the signal for go and the signal for stop. 4. Don't have unrealistic expectations when you are first training responses. Reward small improvements and understand that the shaping process takes time. Remember what Michelangelo said about sculpting and take very small chips from the block of marble every day. 5. Horses can't multi-task so you should only ever give one cue at a time. For example, don't ask for stop and go at the same time because this is impossible for the horse and causes stress. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

6. Each signal should produce only one response. For example, pressure on both reins should only ever cause the horse to slow his legs, it shouldn't also be used to make the horse to lower his head. 7. Be consistent with your horse at all times, both on the ground and under saddle. Be clear about what it is that you want him to do so that he develops consistent habits. The rules should 8. Make self carriage a priority every day and at never change! every stage of training. This means that you should train your horse to maintain the speed you want while he is being lead and ridden. That is, that he doesn't need to constantly be asked to go forwards or to slow down. Aim to control your horse with light pressure cue. 9. Learn what the flight response looks like. Understand that it is a problem and learn how to control it during training. 10. Having a calm and obedient horse should be your ultimate goal at all times. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

What are horse surprise parties and how do we avoid them? • The horse's brain is very different to ours. • We have a big prefrontal cortex and we can cope with a little bit of unpredictability. • Lots of people love surprise parties because they're exciting and different. Your horse would hate surprise parties for exactly that reason – he has spent pretty much all of his evolution (that's 55 million years), running away from things that are exciting and different. • Without a prefrontal cortex for reasoning and complex emotions, surprises are scary. • When you use the science of learning correctly you become predictable – and that's a very good thing for your horse. • The really important thing to remember about the horse is that he didn’t ask to be trained. It is our job to make sure his training keeps him as happy as is possible. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren

If you would like to learn more about Equitation Science visit: www. sustainableequitation. com. au You can purchase Horses Hate Surprise Parties from the Sustainable Equitation website, from Saddle Plus (Byford) or from the PCAWA office. © Portland Jones & Sophie Warren