Principles of Horsemanship: Part 8 – The Fear Principle

The fear response is the horse trainer’s greatest adversary. Fear in animals such as horses expresses itself as the flight response – the horse’s attempt to flee from threatening situations. Fear is the activation of the flight response. The flight response involves the animal’s entire body. Behavioural scientists describe all levels of fear as the HPA axis (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). This unwieldy name suggests the origin of the flight response – the brain and the adrenal glands. A structure deep inside the brain called the amygdala, sorts out stimuli as to whether they are fearful or not. Fearful stimuli receive special recognition by the brain in terms of remembering – unlike other information, once learned fearful responses are not forgotten. You can layer new responses on top, so they become less easily retrieved, but forever after, fearful responses need careful training to keep the lid on them.

Once the brain has perceived a fearful stimulus, alertness is raised and the adrenal glands give the heart a kick start. Other, less important stimuli are ignored. That’s why a horse in a full blown flight response can gallop into fences, cars and can collide with trees and other obstacles. Even if the horse manages to jump a fence, its jumping response is diminished to the extent that its legs drag over the wires, perhaps taking out the top couple of wires. A flat hollow jump characterises the flight response and is not uncommonly seen in not so well trained eventing horses in cross-country. The greater the amount of flight response, the more it is inclined to accelerate and the more it is tuned out to almost everything else, including the aids.

The flight response is extremely variable. It’s like a dimmer switch on a light – it can be fully on or partly on. The flight response shows up in various behavioural ways too. For example, bolting, bucking, rearing, shying, tension, running, hurrying, jogging, rushing, hollow back, high ‘upside down’ head carriage, teeth grinding, tail swishing, tail clamping. In all of the above responses, the legs lose their smooth rhythm and become quick and jerky.

Bolting is the strongest expression of the flight response. It is a defence mechanism allowing the horse to run away from threatening situations. Few animals on earth are as fleet as the horse, especially over a longer distance. Bucking is also a defence mechanism. It is a movement evolved to remove predators from the horse’s back. Rearing is an aggressive/defensive move that is not only about predator removal but also part of stallion to stallion rivalry. Shying is a small component of the bolting reaction where a sudden swerve assists in avoiding capture. Bucking, bolting and shying are reinforced (rewarded and thus repeated) by the loss of grip of the predator. Under saddle and in hand if the rider or handler loses contact during these hard-to-control manoeuvres, they are similarly rewarded through loss of contact.

Not all horses run away from their fears. Running away is most prevalent in Thoroughbreds, Arabians and racing-bred Quarter horses. The running away genes that these animals possess in varying amounts are derived from hot adapted ancestors whose principal predators were members of the big cat family.

Running away is a great solution because members of the cat family are not long distance runners. They rely on short bursts of speed, and only one member of the cat family, the lion, is cooperative. Cooperative hunting increases the chasing distance by a few hundred metres. But with a head start, fleet animals such as horses and antelopes can out run them. Cooperative hunting is the most efficient form of hunting, yet even cooperatively hunting lions have a success rate of only one kill in six attempts.

With the dog family, it is a different matter altogether. Cooperatively hunting dogs such as wolves and the African hunting dog don’t tire and give up so easily, once they have singled out their prey. The main canine predators of the ancestors of domestic horses were wolves and while few animals on earth can beat a horse over a couple of miles, a pack of cooperatively hunting wolves could soon catch up. Therefore, these cold adapted horses of central Eurasia that were preyed upon mainly by wolves tended not to run but to strike. While zebras won’t defend their young against lions, they run for it, they will stand their ground with hunting dogs and hyenas and are deadly with their hooves. Most of our domestic horses are mixtures of the cold adapted striking strain and the hot adapted running strain. You may have noticed that some domestic horses will run away while others might stand their ground and strike when threatened.

While most things we try to train the horse to do involve a number of repetitions, unfortunately the flight response can be learned in just one experience. Usually it takes a couple of repetitions but even so, that is a very short time for acquisition. You can imagine why fear responses would need to be remembered and repeated. Patterns of escape that result in surviving a predatory attack need to be instantly recorded for later use – there’s little room for trial-and-error when you are lunch for a lion. It is for this reason that during training, when it comes to fear behaviours the best solution is to delete the fear and give it the least chance of practise. This is what error-free training is about and I will describe it later.

The flight response is confirmed when any running away behaviour results in escaping the object of fear. In other words by increasing the amount of distance between the horse and the scary object. This reinforcement is not just about large distances of many metres that are made between the animal and its fear, but even over centimetres. For example if a horse is fearful of the whip or is headshy, moving its stepping one step away from the whip or raising its head from your hand confirm the flight response and in very few repetitions. If a horse is afraid of the farrier, it is confirmed when its stepping away increased distance between itself and the farrier. So the farrier should not step away if at all possible. What he should do is attempt to make contact with horse and repeat the advance/ touch retreat session a few times.

It is important that as horse trainers we learn to identify the flight response for what it is. Universally horsemen get this wrong at all levels of equestrian skill. It has long been central to classical dressage and is seen in the modern German training scale that the horse should maintain his own speed until requested otherwise. This is what rhythm is about. If a horse cannot go in self-carriage he is either running away (accelerating) or slowing down. If the horse is running away he will be showing some degree of flight response.

A typical example is a horse that is said to be too bold into his jumping obstacles. These horses accelerate when faced with an obstacle, and even at pony club level the dangerous behaviour of these horses is explained away as ‘keenness’. This is completely wrong. Such behaviours are almost always learned where, in the first place, the horse runs away from obstacles (the rider has not controlled the rhythm) and soon he associates the obstacle with the acceleration and the obstacle itself becomes the cue that elicits the manic acceleration. When this happens, the slowing effect of the reins are progressively lost and eventually need retraining, or a stronger bit is used. The horse develops a hard mouth which is a switching-off behaviour rather than an actual loss of feeling.

In this instance the horse’s blood profile has the same signature of fear, chemical wise, as a horse that is running for its life escaping a pack of wolves. Jumping horses as well as riders need to be trained about rhythm, where it is clearly understood that the horse must be trained to keep his speed himself and the jump must never elicit any more acceleration than a soft and quiet drawing effect towards the obstacle. It is not only a matter of horse welfare – it is a matter of rider safety. In dressage and all other areas of equestrian pursuit we should recognise tension as fear.

In most equestrian work the horse’s legs should not be quick. In dressage, for example, changes in the body speed of the horse are effected by keeping the speed (Activity) of the legs the same but lengthening the stride. The ‘great masters’ of the past centuries who are responsible for what dressage is today knew much more than we give them credit for. They knew that fast legs lead the horse down the track of the flight response and it is often a one way street. They knew that a hollow back is tense and fearful and can feed increasing tension. They realised that increases in speed were best arranged by keeping the legs at the same speed of revolution, but within that revolution a longer stride means more speed. The fast jerky leg movements of shying and jogging feed the flight response and keep it well oiled for increased use.

If a horse shies at a certain place it should be ridden there more slowly and the rider should be ready to use the reins and decelerate the horse immediately it begins to shy. If the object that elicits the shy is on the right, it will be the horse’s right foreleg that pushes the forehand away in panic, so the rider needs to be ready to slow the right foreleg with the right rein more so than the left. This should be repeated until the horse maintains his rhythm past the scary object.

However, if the shies are random it is a strong hint of conflict behaviour – it means that the horse is confused about the aids and that it is heavy and delayed to either the stop, go or turn signals.

Any acceleration or deviation from line should result in the immediate application of the stopping or turning aids so that the fast movements are not incorporated into the animal’s repertoire and even worse that they are not further developed. This means we need to train in an error free way and when the horse shows a flight response we must prevent his legs from expressing it as much as possible. Error-free means delete the behaviour during its expression (not after it) and then immediately ask the same request again. This means slow the legs then ask for ‘go’ again. This often requires initial tuning up of the stop response in hand.

If bucking is dealt with by just kicking on forward, the buck pattern may elaborate before it stops, and thus it may become incorporated into the horse’s repertoire of behaviour from the ‘go’ aid. Of course if the horse is only doing a minor pig-root, (a single kick up of the hindlegs) applying the go might be all it takes to achieve the correct ‘go’. If it isn’t fixed this way, then it needs to be trained error-free. Any sudden quickening is most effectively dealt with using the reins to immediately slow the stride, and the amount and strength of the slowing is governed by the severity of the horse’s behaviour. Whether the horse is shying, swerving, accelerating, shooting backwards or bucking, it seems that the faster the legs move, the more indelibly it is remembered.

An important aspect of horse behaviour is that increasing amounts of flight response or adrenaline are necessary for increases in speed. So not all aspects of the flight response are detrimental. Galloping would not be possible without an increase in heart rate. So eventing and the various codes of racing require some of the internal mechanisms that are associated with the flight response. The big problem is how much is too much. Anyone who has had the misfortune to ride a bolting horse knows that they don’t slow or turn. Yet a properly trained racehorse going at the same speed is still able to be slowed and turned. The bolting horse is clearly in a much firmer grip of the flight response than the well trained racehorse. When the flight response is involved in the forward response more than the minimum necessary amount to maintain a particular speed, the animal is running away. This again raises the question of self-carriage. A key feature of self-carriage is that the horse is in cruise control. Ridden and led horses whose speed is held by the hands are expressing a minor form of bolting. Confused horses also tend to run away and are held in speed and rhythm by the rider. The horse is unable to escape and his back is further hollowed, his steps tense and choppy.

How much experience with tension and running away can we safely allow our horses? None. Because behaviours that are associated with the flight response can be remembered with just one episode, fearful experiences lie there in the archives of the brain in storage, waiting. Fear responses are subject to what behavioural scientists call ‘spontaneous recovery’ – the tendency to suddenly reappear in the behaviour of the animal at the original response strength.

The greater the amount of the flight response that the animal has experienced, the greater its likelihood to show spontaneous recovery. So ignoring a reasonably serious bolt or buck or a shy can result it coming back to haunt you when you least expect it. Usually the behaviour returns during periods when the animal is challenged and stress levels are a little higher – i.e. during the acquisition of new behaviours.

Chasing fearful horses in round yards can also have the same effect in spontaneous recovery. If the horse is running around with all the signs of tension – high head, hollow back, short choppy strides, problems could be brewing. It’s bad for the horse’s mental well-being and bad for his associations with humans. Basically the horse is practising and storing the flight response for later. What’s more the horse is storing an association of fear and humans.

All of the eminent ethologists I know are in agreement here. If a horse is being chased around a round pen with a hollow back, a high head carriage and with fast legs, then despite the immediate short term benefits proclaimed by the advocates of round pen work, it can be a recipe for further and sometimes more severe expressions of the fear response, and for rifts in horse human bonds. Humanistic interpretations aside, you should try to put yourself in the horse’s shoes. Eons of being high on the menu of predators has meant that the horse is particularly vulnerable to interpret whatever fits with being chased.

The best you can do for your horse is to avoid chasing it, if tension is likely to appear. On the other hand there is nothing wrong with correct lunging, provided the horse is relaxed. If a horse goes around the round pen or the lunging yard in cruise control and not hollow, there can be great training benefits there. Any sudden quickening can be dealt with through downward transitions via the lunge rein.

An American ethologist, by the name of Temple Grandin, showed a few years ago that ‘holding therapy’ works with horses. She observed American cowboys putting wild mustangs in crates with only their heads protruding and then filling the crate full of wheat via an overhead silo. Then they were subjected to bags etc swinging toward their faces. The horses were unable to express their fear responses because their legs were immobilised. When horses emerged from this contraption they were far quieter and easier to control; their flight response was dulled for some time afterwards.

For many years Australian breakers and horse whisperers have been hog-tying horse’s legs and throwing them to the ground or hobbling them. All of these techniques temporarily subdue the flight response, although they are mostly misinterpreted as producing ‘respect’ and ‘submission’. What is actually happening is that fearful stimuli are disconnected from the flight response. However doing these sorts of things are nowadays mostly seen as ethically unsound practises.
The best and easiest way to control the horse’s feet on a more permanent basis is to do very effective groundwork on a regular basis. Correct groundwork provides complete control over the horse’s legs. In the AEBC system of groundwork we condition the horse to move only from a lead rein signal, and that the lead rein signal should be trained thoroughly so that the horse can be stepped forward and backward immediately from a very light lead signal and will continue doing so until signalled otherwise, maintaining a straight line and a wither-height head carriage. The horse also is required to ‘park’ until signalled to move.

Other trainers have similar techniques, however the common denominator of them all is that the legs of the horse are under control and no random movements are allowed, especially no fast random movements. It is well recognised that the more the horse practises fast random movements, the more he is prone to do so. Similarly under saddle, complete control over the horse’s mobility is the solution for prevention of dangerous behaviours as well as for their rehabilitation. As I have mentioned earlier in this series, the various pressures of rein and leg place boundaries around the animal’s mobility, by achieving complete control over the horse’s feet in terms of acceleration, deceleration and direction. The transformation of these pressures to light aids adds relaxation to obedience because the light aids are unobtrusive and predictable.

When animals experience the flight response regularly over a long time, they develop higher levels of certain stress chemicals such as cortisol. In behaviour studies, cortisol is a fairly reliable indicator of stress and over a long term has damaging effects on an animal’s physiology. Long term tension can also result in conflict behaviours that include separation anxiety, aggression, and even self-mutilation.

When a horse becomes confused, its first reaction is usually tension. This tension generally makes the horse inclined to run away from the stressful situation. The more confused the horse becomes, the greater the tendency to run away, leap away or shy away. Opposing responses predispose the horse to high levels of flight response. Opposing responses to aids involve reactions such as slowing from the leg aids, accelerating from the rein aids, turning left from the right rein or right from the left rein (as in falling-in or falling-out) or leg-yielding into the leg rather than away from the leg.

In horse training however, the greatest amount of tension arises from the blocking effects of rein and leg at the same time. Only a small amount of horses show no clinical signs of tension under these circumstances. Animals simply can’t accelerate and decelerate simultaneously so the horse learns that aids are only ‘aids’ when they occur from pressures above the tight-pressured contact. Such a training regime means that sharp rowelled spurs and double bridles with crank-up nosebands become mandatory items of training yet common sense would dictate that higher standards in training should require less rather than more weaponry.

Identifying and treating fearful behaviour is one very essential part of horsemanship. For the sake of ours and our children’s safety and we have to throw away the myths that the horse that is rushing toward the jumps is displaying ‘keenness’ and knows what he is doing because he is basically willing to please. If horse trainers learned to correctly identify the range of fear responses that horses exhibit during training, and learned the value of not incorporating fear patterns of movement in all equestrian disciplines, horse riding and training would be far safer for both horse and rider. It is heartening to see that the equine science universities in the UK and Australia are embracing this understanding which will ultimately filter out to the rest of the equestrian world.

Next in the final article in this series. In this article I describe the ‘Mentality Principle’ where I describe the mental template of horses through which all training must be interpreted in order to have maximum effect.

Originally published in the February 2004 edition of The Horse Magazine