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EXCLUSIVITY PRINCIPLE - Each response should be trained and elicited separately (don't pull on the reins (stop) and kick with the legs (go) at the same time).

The basic psychological principle of one signal at a time is appreciated by professional animal trainers but rarely by contemporary horse trainers. In fairness to horse trainers this is largely because the training of other animals rarely calls for two responses at any given moment. While the basic training of the horse involves just single responses (go, stop, turn and leg-yield), training after Elementary level begins to involve composite responses. For example, shoulder-in, travers, then later on half-pass, pirouette, then piaffe and passage all involve mixtures of the basic responses of go and stop etc. In fact these composite responses do not require simultaneous aids but a consecutive execution of them. The more consolidated a horse has become in his basics, the closer the aids can be brought together. Rein aids stimulate particular muscle contractions for turning and deceleration and during these processes the acceleration muscles simply stabilise the limbs. On the other hand during acceleration, the driving forward muscles are stimulated and the limbs are stabilised by the deceleration muscles. So it not possible for the horse to respond maximally to rein and leg aids simultaneously or the horse's limbs would go into some kind of tetanic spasm with no movement. The importance of separating aids has been known for centuries in horse training. In the French classical academic riding of the 18th century, a vital maxim was known as ‘the independence of the aids.' Francois Baucher was the first to elaborate this with his principle of "Jambes sans mains, mains sans jambes" (legs without reins and reins without legs). In other words no simultaneous use of opposing aids. Unfortunately this maxim was lost in modern training and the first to espouse a doctrine of using reins with legs and in fact never using rein aids without accompanying legs was Gustav Steinbrecht (1808-1885). I believe he was totally wrong here but unfortunately this doctrine is incorporated into the Handbook of the German National Equestrian Federation. Consequently many riders are inclined to apply two aids at once. The problem however isn't German but is throughout the world. Reiner Klimke and many other German trainers were very careful to avoid simultaneous aids. Perhaps the best known of the adherents to the correct principles of learning theory is Kyra Kyrklund, who was, in part, trained by the great Herbert Rebhein. For many, however, the parallel pressures of money and medals have resulted in many trainers being in too much of a hurry, and clashing aids are often the means to the end. So let's have a look at what happens when two stimuli are applied simultaneously. The famous American psychologist C.L. Hull defined the outcomes in two processes: blocking and overshadowing.

BLOCKING

When two novel stimuli that are perceived by the horse to be equally intense are simultaneously applied, neither aid will be learned. However if two aids that are perceived by the horse to be equally intense are simultaneously applied after acquisition, the learned responses will significantly diminish. If this occurs frequently the intensity of the aid will need to be increased (strong contact, strong bit and sharper spurs). Nevertheless the effort will be in vain as the horse's response possibilities are blocked, by not only the intensity of the aid, but also by the contradiction of simultaneous acceleration and deceleration signals. 

OVERSHADOWING

If however in the same situation as above, the horse perceives that one stimulus is more intense than the other simultaneously applied signal, it will give priority to the most intense. The other one will undergo diminished responding to the point of habituation (switch off that response). Because of the greater sensitivity of the mouth, most horses will, in the case of simultaneous rein and leg aids become dull to the leg aids because they prioritise the intense rein aids. In such an impoverished training system the rider is then compelled to use greater leg aids (sharper spurs with increasing frequency) until the leg aids finally overshadow the rein aids. Unfortunately the result is not infrequently seen as deep bleeding lacerations on the horse's sides from spurs. This is the reason why the call is urgent to promote self-carriage right from the start of every horse's training. No horse should endure overshadowing of the basic aids and responses during training, because then they must endure the pain of stronger aids forever after. It is common to hear that riders will say that heaviness of rein pressures is not only typical in training but to be expected if training is deemed, in their eyes, correct. Part of the problem lies in the traditional misunderstanding of what the rein aids should produce. In terms of psychological principles, the rein aids like the leg aids (and unlike the seat and weight aids) are trained via operant conditioning. The effect of the rein aids should be an opposite mirror image of the go aids. While the go aids should be trained to produce faster strides, upward gait changes and longer strides in the horse, the reins aids should similarly be trained to elicit slowing, downward again changes and shorter strides and their effect should be not only immediate and from light aids but also in three beats of the rhythm, just like the go aids.         

HOW CLOSE CAN THEAIDS BE?

In inexperienced horses the aids should be separated to the point where one response is completed before asking for another (by at least 3 seconds). As the horse's training becomes consolidated, responses can be brought closer together, as by this stage they will be controlled immediately by the light aids and will be automatic habits. In experienced consolidated horses, the closest the aids can be to each other is from one footfall of the beat of the rhythm of the particular gait. Take Shoulder-in for example. The rein and leg aids should not be simultaneous but one after the other within the rhythm of the footfalls. The first part involves the turning in of the shoulders one step to the inside. The second is the forward driving aid of the inside leg. If both the turn and go responses are trained to be in self-carriage then the horse responds to the turning aid and maintains the forequarters to the inside, and the inside legs signals go forward and the horse remains so until signalled otherwise. Yet it is common that during the training of such movements that the aids are not independent.  

BUT SOME HORSES DON'T SEEM TO MIND TWO AIDS ON AT ONCE ....

What happens when two opposing aids are presented at once varies between horses. Some horses seem to tolerate these confusions and all that happens is that they dull to the pressures of both go and stop to some extent. The horse loses his immediate response to the go and stop aids and the light aid gradually transforms into a heavier one. Other horses however may react violently to the simultaneous application of two opposing aids, and may try to run away, panic, bolt, rear, buck or shy. Others might express various levels of conflict behaviour in out-of-context situations such as developing separation anxiety, become hard to catch, difficult on the ground or poor traveling. These out-of-context conflict behaviours are the hardest ones for riders and trainers to diagnose. The fact is horses can develop these behaviours because they are worried by their confusing training. Dogs and other animals certainly do manifest their training confusions in separation anxiety. In Britain, Professor Daniel Mills performed an exhaustive survey of dog obedience and its relationship to stressful behaviours such as separation anxiety and constant barking. He found that while most owners rated their dogs obedience far higher than independent tests proved, there was also a positive relationship between dogs that were poor at commands of ‘sit' and ‘stay' and those that exhibited stressed neurotic behaviours. It is only a matter of time before most horse trainers will see to their advantage that the same understanding applies to horses. Horses are not nasty, mean, naughty or malevolent, they are just plain confused and the blame rests fairly on our own shoulders. We have a moral responsibility to train them as best we can.

CLARITY

As trainers, you have to be clear to reward the same response each time. Furthermore you need to ensure that the goals of each response are sufficiently different from each other. For example you have to be careful that the release of the reins doesn't mean go. This is very confusing for the horse because the same stimulus (reins) elicits two opposite responses.  Around one hundred years ago, Pavlov showed what happens when the right and wrong response begin to merge and become too similar. He trained dogs to discriminate between a circle and an oval shape whereby one shape was punished, the other rewarded. He then gradually merged the two shapes until the dogs could no longer discriminate between the two. These events induced aggression and tension in some of the dogs; others responded randomly to all stimuli regardless of shape, and others just fell asleep. Most were unable to participate in the experiment any further. Constant confusion has that effect - it lowers the animal's tendency to offer responses in the future.

Another scientist, Masserman, trained cats to open a box when a light signal flashed to obtain a food reward. Later, when the box was opened the cats received a strong blast of air in their faces. Under these conditions the animals became severely disturbed. Some became hyper reactive and aggressive, others became dull and almost all of them showed signs of acute stress, with raised blood pressure and gastric disorders.

As I have mentioned previously, animals are wired to associate a stimulus with a particular response. Clear light aids that lead to clear consistent responses naturally result in calmness because they afford controllability and predictability to animals with regard to their behavioural world. In 1977, Professor Frank Ödberg and Dr Marie-France Bouissou pointed out the high wastage rate of performance horses in a presentation to the Waltham symposium. These researchers revealed that one study showed that 66.4% of horses sent to slaughter were sent there for behavioural reasons and were between the ages of 2 and 7 years. In another study they showed that of 2970 horses sent to a Munich slaughterhouse, between 25% and 50% were there for non-medical reasons, and most were less than 3 years of age. On the basis of their findings, Ödberg and Bouissou called for a return to the classical principles of academic riding of the 18th century. They were specifically referring to the importance of principles such as ‘legs without reins and reins without legs'. The aids can come close, but it is bad horsemanship if they clash, especially for extended periods.

The demands of horse training are complex. While it is possible and desirable to train more than one signal for a response, it is important to understand that there is a priority in training. The first priority is to train pressure release first so that the first light aids the horse learns are the light versions of the pressure aids such the light rein aid for stop and the light leg aid for forward. The horse naturally transposes these to secondary signals: seat and weight aids. Once these aids are consolidated some trainers like to use voice aids for various responses. This is now a problem as the horse is able to easily learn a number of signals - the important thing is that the signals always lead to the same response, and that opposing responses are not asked for at the same time. If your horse shows some kind of resistance or evasion, take the blame off the horse's shoulders and ask yourself how you managed to produce this kind of conflict behaviour. Honesty is the best policy, but in horse training it's also the safest and the kindest as well.