Janet L Jones, PhD

I love questions that get my mind whirling, and someone asked me a good one the other day: “How many repetitions are necessary for a horse to learn something?” Well, of course, the answer depends partly on what we’re trying to teach. A horse can learn a behavior that fits his nature much faster than one that goes against it.

For example, we can teach most horses to stop at the word “whoa” pretty quickly. But it takes a lot longer—10 or 15 years longer, sometimes—to teach a horse to ignore the hard wiring in his brain that tells him to shy at something new and scary. In the latter case, we’re working against 56 million years of evolution and a brain that dictates instant flight. In the former, we’re banking on the likelihood that the horse kinda wants to stop and stand still for a minute.

But that answer barely scratches the surface of the question. In brain-based horsemanship, I try to take all features of the horse’s learning mind into account. Her memory capacity, her age and experience, her mindset at the time of learning, the method used to teach her, the emotional bond she has with her trainer, the consequences of her behavior, the environment she lives and learns in.

(For the moment, let’s ignore all the physical conditions that must also be met. A horse can’t learn a lesson that hurts because of an undiagnosed veterinary problem or find the stamina to produce results while starving, and so on. I’m assuming here that we are talking about a sound, healthy horse who is receiving good care on a daily basis.)

My friend wanted a quick concise answer to her question, not a dissertation. So I chose the two features I believe are most important: A horse learns not by virtue of repetitions, but by mindset and consequence. True has been taught his ground manner and performance lessons with exactly those conditions in mind. The bond is critical too, but it lies at a higher level—bonding and learning are both produced by considering mindset and consequence.

Mindset refers to the horse’s levels of calmness and attention at the time a new maneuver is taught. No one—horse or human—learns well when nervous, fearful, excited, or distracted. So before I teach True something new, I make sure he is calm and relaxed, receptive to something new. If he isn’t, I spend the time needed to create that mindset before starting a new lesson. Sometimes it takes 60 seconds; sometimes it takes 60 days. We’re on horse time, here, not human time.

Consequence refers to what happens after the horse tries to perform the new maneuver. We all make mistakes while learning—that’s what learning is all about: Try: fail. Try: fail less. Try: that’s a little better, -- and so on. If the learning horse does well at a new task, does he get rewarded? In what way—edibly, non-edibly, profusely, grudgingly, sparingly? If he makes a mistake, what happens? Does he get punished? Does he sense that his trainer is angry? Does he receive a neutral response that neither rewards nor punishes the behavior? Is he given a chance to try again? Does the trainer give up with a huff and put him away? Is she teaching... or just drilling? (Please see Post 95 if she's drilling.) Is the overall experience pleasant for the horse?

During a new lesson, a horse’s mindset and the consequences she receives for her learning attempts are critical. Try to achieve a calm, attentive attitude in the horse before presenting the new lesson. And offer a generous kind consequence (usually non-edible) for good effort even if the result isn’t perfect yet. Think more about these two features than about repetition, make the experience positive for the horse whether she succeeds or fails, and you will be on the way to improved performance and a well-bonded horse who looks to you for loving guidance.