Nice to see you back reading article 4 in the series ’10 Lessons learned from a true Horseman’. In our last article you would have read about what a bit of patience can do for you when it comes to training your horse. In this article we’ll discuss the worth of the ‘c-lick’…exactly; especially the last part of the word. I’m sure you’ll get what I mean by this while riding this article.
If you understand a little bit about reading your horse’s body language then you know what it can mean when your horse communicates with his lips; licking, chewing, yawning. Of course there is the weird exception but we know that in most cases these signs are there to show us that our horse is getting relaxed and…usually he has learned something.
A clear example from the NH Experience course with Berni Zambail was one of the students and her horse who had gotten the exercise of corners; riding from one corner to another and stopping in each. You keep at it until you reach your goal (this could be; your horse is getting more relaxed, more excited about going faster, keeping his gait nicely until the next corner or starts to follow your focus so you don’t have to steer or stop him with either legs or reins to get to the next corner).
Of course there are different ways of playing with the pattern but for this exercise they were supposed to stop in every corner and actually wait there until the horse would lick her lips. Only then would they be allowed to go to the next one.
You can imagine that this type of exercise can require a lot of discipline and patience from us riders. Sometimes waiting for that lick (and the mechanisms in your horse’s brain to click) can feel like it’s taking forever.
Fortunately this student kept on at it and it was clearly visible that, anytime they left their corner after waiting for the c-lick, the horse was more enthusiastic to go forwards and follow her partners focus on lighter phases.
Whether the exercise is supposed to be repeated with smaller breaks until your horse licks or, like in the exercise above, you’re actually waiting for the c-lick; it’s so important that you do not proceed without your horse showing you that he’s gotten it.
Just imagine that your horse is like a computer; I’m sure one day or another (especially with older computers!) you’ve started your computer or laptop and while it was still loading you couldn’t stay patient and already started opening all kinds of programs. The result, if you were lucky, was that starting the computer now actually went even slower, and you’re impatience cost you time. If you weren’t so lucky your computer would actually get overloaded, cut on you and you would have to restart it with the risk of losing data.
This is exactly what happens when you ask your horse for an exercise but don’t give him the time (whether it’s through repetition or waiting) to process; then data gets lost or your horse’s brain will quit on you and you can start all over again.
So if you want to make sure the message came through to his brain; then check out if he’s licking or chewing (these usually follow blowing out, sighing or yawning as well). And if you haven’t seen any? Then repeat or just wait a little longer; at least then you know for sure that the systems in your horse’s brain have c-LICKED! The results you get after that will be amazing!
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