Re: How much training is too much?

[K S Swigart <katswig@deltanet.com>]

On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Wendy Milner wrote:

> If the horse refuses to drink, give her time, lots of time, at each
> water stop.  Since you are doing this ride for a completion, you
> can just get off and sit there at the water tank, till Tiki decides
> to drink.  I have seen riders do this and win BC.  They waited till
> their horse drank, while other riders just blew past.  It helps
> the horse a lot to understand that they must drink, and you'll give them
> the time to do so.  

While waiting until they drink may be the right thing to do AT the ride (a
water trough is a pretty good place to rest, as long as you are not in the
way of other riders), but I cannot agree that this is the proper way to
train your horse to drink.

If what you do when you come to water is stop until the horse drinks, what
the horse learns is that it gets to stop/rest (i.e. not work) as long as
it doesn't drink.  Instead, what I do is teach them that they get to rest
AS LONG AS they ARE drinking.  They get about 5 seconds to decide whether
they want to drink or not.  If they don't drink in that time...we are off
down the trail.

It doesn't take them very long to learn, "Drink when it is offered" rather
than "Futz around for as long as I feel like it until I've decided that
I'm bored with standing around."

In order for this to REALLY work, you have to work them long enough so
that they drink some time during the work out (i.e. they don't get to go
back to their stalls and drink at their leisure...they drink, or they
work)  I consider this a far better lesson for an endurance horse than to
teach them that they only have to do any work after they drink, but as
long as they don't drink, they don't have to go anywhere.

kat
Orange County, Calif.