Don’t Waste Your Time

By Professional Clinician Jeff Davis

I remember a conversation Clinton had with my Academy class during our first year at the ranch. We were talking about backing our horses up—during a training session and going to and from the barn. He said, if every time you ask your horse to back up, you’re not prepared to make that the best backup the horse has ever done, don’t do it. It’s a waste of time. When you work on the backup, either maintain what the horse is doing or make it better. Whatever you do, don’t make it worse.

We see this all the time at clinics. During the class, people will back their horses up really well because we’re there coaching them and telling them what to do. Then, when it’s time to break for lunch, we’ll say, “OK, guys, back your horses to the barn. Ask them to go six or eight steps, pause and then ask them to back up again.”

Without fail, almost everyone’s backup drops about 80 percent. All of a sudden, people start doing a combination of all four Fundamentals Backing Up methods, the horse’s nose is so close to their chest that they can smell the alfalfa on his breath … it completely falls apart.

Horses are quick to pick up on the fact that in the arena they need to listen and perform at a certain level, but once they leave the arena, they don’t have to put in any effort. It becomes clear to them that listening to their owners isn’t an all-the-time thing.

Unfortunately, repetition is what gets horses trained. In time, all the hard work the people put in in the arena comes undone. The horses are back to being disrespectful and pushing them around. They know their owners aren’t particular about their behavior, so who cares?

The lesson Clinton was teaching us that day in the Academy and the one I’ve seen played out at my clinics is if you’re not prepared to be particular about how you ask the horse to back up, don’t even bother with it. It’s far better for you to lead the horse back to the barn and not wreck anything than get really particular with him in the arena during the training session, and then five minutes later, when you’re taking him back to his stall, you let him regress and he’s back to where he started.

We’re all human. We know there is a correct way to do something, but there are times when we’re in a hurry or impatient and we don’t want to follow the rules. To this day, whenever I feel like taking a shortcut, I remind myself that if I’m not prepared to do something with a horse the way I know it’s supposed to be done, don’t do it at all. In other words, if I’m not going to do it properly, I’m not going to make it worse.

There’s a good expression from Ian Francis that I use a lot while teaching clinics. He says, “If you don’t care enough, they won’t care enough.” That means if you don’t care enough to be particular, consistent, and follow through, you can’t expect your horse to be any of those things, either.