If your horse had a break in his training, his mental attention and physical fitness aren’t going to be up to par. The biggest mistake people make when bringing horses back to work is getting straight on them. They drag the horse out of the pasture, yank the girth up as hard as they can, jump in the saddle and kick him in the belly. Thirty seconds later, they’re sitting on the ground wondering why the horse dumped them. If your horse has had a break in his training, spend several days doing nothing but groundwork.

I have a saying: Two eyes are always better than two heels. If I want to teach you something, I need you to give me your eyes and your attention. If you’re looking out the window and staring at the people walking on the sidewalk or the cars going by on the street, all the information I am teaching you will go in one ear and out the other. But if you have your eyes on me, there’s a chance that what I’m telling you is going to sink into your head. Have you ever worked with a horse and came back the next day to repeat the lesson and the horse acted like he didn’t remember a single thing?

The only way the horse is allowed into your personal hula hoop space is if you invite him in. And you’ll only invite him into that four foot circle if you know you can get him out of it. Think of how you want your neighbors to treat you. You might like your neighbors, but you never want them to just barge into your house. You always want them to walk up to the door, knock and ask to come in. At that point, you can invite them in or you can ask them to come back at another time. You always want the option to turn them away.

The safety category of respect refers to your personal hula hoop space. This space is a four foot circle that surrounds you and serves as your safety zone. Whenever you are working with a horse, always imagine that there’s a four foot circle drawn around you —almost like an invisible electric fence. Unless you invite the horse into your personal hula hoop space, he should keep a respectful, safe distance from you. The horse should never come into the circle unless you invite him in. Most injuries people suffer while working with horses occur because the horse was too close to them.

When horses feel safe, comfortable and have enough food and water to sustain them, their next need is stimulation. Your horse needs to be stimulated both physically and mentally on a daily basis. As with many other things when working with horses, you need to balance between the mental and the physical. You have to keep things interesting for your horse mentally and provide enough physical activity to keep him satisfied. One of my mentors, Gordon McKinlay, once told me that horses need three things – long rides, wet saddle pads and concentrated training – in even doses.

When a horse respects you as a leader and uses the thinking side of his brain rather than the reactive side, you can stop worrying about getting hurt or not being able to handle a dangerous situation. Horses are big animals, and it’s only natural to be scared of them. A lot of people come up to me and say, “Clinton, I’m afraid to ride, I’m frightened to fall off, or I’m scared of getting hurt.” All of those feelings are very real and very healthy. Fear is your brain saying, “Hey, if you don’t stop doing what you’re doing, you’re going to get hurt.” I never tell people to ignore fear.

It wasn’t until I started attending clinics and apprenticing under Australian horseman, Gordon McKinlay, that I realized that horses are just like humans – they don’t learn perfectly. When you first introduce a new lesson to a horse, he’s going to get confused, frustrated and maybe even agitated or nervous. And you know what? That’s absolutely OK. Horses are allowed to express all of those emotions when you’re training them. It’s your job as a trainer to learn how to help the horse understand in the easiest way possible what you expect of him.

Before you can train a horse, you have to understand basic horse psychology and what makes your horse tick. When you understand how the horse processes his thoughts and why he does the things that he does, both good and bad, you will be able to accomplish anything. If you don’t understand how your horse’s brain works and why he reacts to certain situations the way that he does, then you will struggle with your horsemanship goals. Horsemanship isn’t always easy to do, but it will be easier to understand when you can identify what motivates your horse to act in a certain way.

To balance your horse so that both sides of his body are equally relaxed and responsive, you’ll spend two-thirds of your time working on his bad side (the side that is stiffer, pushier or more reactive), and one-third of your time working on his good side. If your horse is spookier on his right side, then you’ll want to spend two-thirds of your time desensitizing that side of his body. Or, if your horse is really stiff when you ask him to flex his head and neck to the left, you’ll want to spend two-thirds of your time practicing the exercise on the left side of his body.

Horses have two sides to their brains: the left brain and the right brain. Each side of your horse’s brain is like a completely separate horse. You’ve got Lefty and you’ve got Righty. Horses hear, smell, think and react differently on each side of their brain. Whatever you do on one side of the horse, you have to do on the other. Just because you desensitize or sensitize your horse to pressure on one side of his body, it doesn’t mean that he will automatically understand what to do when you move to his other side.