Dispositions of the Driving Horse

by Jessica Mandt of Beavercreek, OR

Introduction

My husband and I have a small 7 acre farm in Beavercreek, Oregon, where we ride, drive, and farm with our horses. When working horses there can be as many opinions about how to do it correctly as there are people you ask. Here are some of my thoughts about how to apply knowledge of horse dispositions to the driving horse and farming set up based on my experiences working primarily with my three saddle-horse-sized Kiger Mustang mares.

Horse Dispositions

You may have run across the book The Color Code (Red, Yellow, White, Blue personalities) or the employee training DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness) assessments while working for a company. These tools are often used in the workplace to help employees navigate the various personalities of their coworkers and learn how to communicate with them effectively. Similarly it can be helpful to understand horse’s dispositions in order to help them work successfully while driving or farming.

There are four disposition traits that are important to pay attention to: confident vs anxious and fast vs slow. Confident horses analyze the world in a more assured and thinking manner while anxious horses are reactively worried and skeptical. Fast horses are quick physically and mentally (extroverted) while slow horses are slower physically and mentally (introverted). It is easier to read the fast horses because they project what they are thinking and feeling. They might rear and kick up their heels for fun (if they are confident) or spook in a big leap (if they are anxious). It is harder to read the slow horses because what they are thinking or feeling is internal and the physical signs are more subtle. They might be standing still to be defiant (if they are confident) or because they are tense (if they are anxious).

These traits can combine to form their disposition (for example, a horse that is confident and fast or a horse that is anxious and slow). Just like humans, horses can have one or multiple dispositions. Each individual horse can have a mixture of them and any horse can switch between them depending on the circumstance. That said each horse will have a specific disposition that is strongest in the standard everyday circumstance.

Parelli Natural Horsemanship has a great program to help humans understand how horses think called Horsenality ®. Developed and sold by Parelli Natural Horsemanship, the Horsenality ® system helps students quickly identify a horse’s innate character.

Influenceability

A horse’s spirit determines how strongly they exhibit any disposition trait. A high-spirited horse will put a lot of effort into their idea while a low-spirited horse is easy to influence. If you can get a horse to trust and like your ideas, they will start putting effort into doing what you want rather than opposing it.

Horse Dispositions In The Driving Situation
Assessing if A Driving Horse Is In The Right Frame Of Mind

Nature designed horses to watch out for danger and be ready to flee or fight for their life. As a prey animal, every horse can go into a fast and anxious frame of mind no matter what their everyday disposition is. For example, if they are in a new situation or location, this could cause them to switch into a worrying frame of mind where they tend to run or fight first and think logically later. When a horse is in this reactive or explosive frame of mind, it is not safe to be put in the driving situation which can make it feel entrapped. It is essential to work with the horse and get it settled and feeling confident with each step before progressing to the next. Always read your horse and see what disposition it has at the moment. Even if you complete one lesson today, tomorrow you may need to back up and repeat lessons to reinforce the horse being in a positive frame of mind. Despite being a prey animal, it is amazing how willing horses are and even enjoy interacting with humans and working with us. Once comfortable with the driving situation, horses will happily work for years doing all sorts of jobs.

Single-Horse Driving

In the driving situation it can be easier to drive a single horse, because you can use the correct strategy for that horse given its disposition to help that horse have the best experience. Once you start working with a team of horses, it gets harder if they have different dispositions. The strategy for one horse might be the opposite of what the other horse needs. My husband and I have set up many garden implements for a single horse. In the wet Oregon winters we don’t do a lot of driving but in the spring, when the horses are fresh and the garden needs to be worked, having the horses pull the implements single has been a good way to get them back into a better frame of mind for working in a team.

A Team With Opposite Dispositions

I have two mares named Hidalga and Oriana that are almost identical in color and height but they are a challenge to drive together because their dispositions are opposite. Hidalga is confident and slow while Oriana is anxious and fast. I constantly have to slow Oriana down and speed Hidalga up which makes Hidalga grumpy and bite and Oriana feels constrained which makes her push into the bit and prancy. I have to balance between asking the horses to walk out but in repetitive circles, while we plow or disc or mow, which helps Oriana relax and interrupting the work with stopping on the ends of the rows and letting the team rest so Hidalga can feel like there is a reward after she puts out some effort.

A Team With Complementary Dispositions

My third mare Rubi is anxious and slow. She is a different color and is smaller but she and Hidalga work well together because they both are introverted and move with the same slow pace and enjoy resting at the ends of the row. Hidalga in the team gives confidence, while Rubi wants to please and is willing to do as asked which helps the team be more responsive.

I have found that when selecting a team of horses, to have an easier driving experience it is more important to match their dispositions than it is to match color or size. Generally I have also found, it is more important to make sure that they are both introverted or extroverted and walk at a similar speed than it is to make sure they are both confident or both anxious. A team that is mixed with one confident and one anxious can be an asset because one horse will provide assurance while the other provides responsiveness.

How Horse Dispositions Affect The Equipment

The way horse-drawn equipment is set up, you really need both horses walking at the same pace or else one will get out ahead, messing up the draft on the eveners. With one horse ahead, it will keep pulling the implement to the side and you may find you are trying to hold them straight with the lines. Also team lines are not effective if the horses are uneven with each other. One horse will get all the bit pressure and you will lose communication with the other horse. They can start to walk with their heads turned to the side because they travel closer together when the evener is angled and the lines are set up for them being a specific distance apart. The horses will be pulled into the tongue of the implement and may bump into each other.

Additional Training For The Anxious And Fast Horse

After training Oriana (anxious and fast) to drive and starting her on some farm implements, she started pushing into the tugs on her hind legs or kicking at them especially on a turn with the outside tug pressed against her leg.

I used ground work to help get Oriana more confident and to learn to yield off the pressure and move over instead of pushing into the pressure. I held a long rope clipped to her halter in one hand that I used like a rein to ask her to move sideways in a circle. In the other hand I held a rope snapped to her outside tug. I held firmly on the tug rope so that when she stepped her front end over without moving her hind end the tug put pressure on her outside hind leg. At first she pushed into the pressure on her hind leg and even lifted her leg and thought about kicking, but, as I held firm and the pressure increased, she decided to step away from it and released all the pressure. I kept repeating the request for her to move over with the rope to her halter until she moved her whole body sideways and crossed her hind legs. We continued to repeat this lesson until she could step over with just a soft touch on her hind leg from the tug.

Since Oriana developed a bad habit of pushing into pressure on her hind leg, it helps for me to remind her of this lesson every so often especially if she hasn’t been driven in a while. In contrast when I trained Hidalga and Rubi to drive, they learned to step over off the tug pressure on their own just by becoming familiar with and harmonizing with the driving situation in the early stages when we practiced pulling logs. I didn’t have to have a special groundwork program to teach them how to step over.

One day after a year plus break I led Oriana out of the pasture to do a groundwork session with her. I asked her to step over the end of the forecart tongue and she started getting anxious and refused to walk forward over it. After a couple times of taking her away and then approaching it again (advance and retreat technique), she jumped over it. She has stepped nicely over that tongue many times when I trained her to drive and then later while hitching and driving her and a teammate. But with her disposition, it is especially important to do a refresher on the basics anytime she has had a long break. I kept asking her to cross it back and forth until she was stepping calmly over it again.

Teaching A Horse Confidence While Collaring

My mare Rubi (anxious and slow) is very sensitive. She is a wonderful little horse and usually very willing. She prefers to hang out and not get into conflict. I try to teach her new things slowly until she has become comfortable with them and once I have her trust then she will try so hard for me. She is afraid of the collar going over her head though. If you hold her lead rope and bring the collar towards her head, she will stand stiffly with her head raised, her neck tense, and her mouth tight. If you don’t notice the tightness in her body, you might think she is fine because she is standing still, but, if you keep moving the collar towards her head, she will suddenly move away (and, if she were tied she would pull back). To help her through this I started using advance and retreat, bringing the collar close to her and then away as I backed up in a circle and she followed me. By me backing up, it helps her feel less pressured and eventually I got it so I could rub her all over with the collar. At first she would keep stopping her feet whenever I brought it near her and her footfalls were uneven and jerky as I asked her to come forward again. But, as she got more confident, the cadence of her steps became even and smooth and she started relaxing.

Next I worked on teaching her to put her head into the collar. I would hold the collar low and would ask her with the lead rope to lower her head towards it. If she tried to pull away, I would keep the lead rope pressure on until she got her head a little closer, then I would move the collar away. I kept repeating this until I could get her to stick her own head through the collar (with the top unbuckled so her head would fit without rubbing on her eyes). Then I would slide it down her neck. I used a similar approach taking it off. I would slide it down her neck towards her ears and, if she lowered her head, then I would slide it back up towards her withers (to reward her). When I finally slid it over the top of her head, she lifted her head in the air so I held the collar up so her nose stayed in it until she lowered her head and then I took the collar away to reward her finding some relaxation. Now during busier times of the year, when she is well practiced, I can just hold the collar and she will put her head right through it.

Avoiding “Barn Sweet” Horses

At times all of my horses have gotten sweet on the barn and when we were out in the field working they thought about going back to the unhitching spot by the tack room. They walked faster on the rows going toward the barn and slower on the rows headed away from the barn. I got the idea to start unhitching them from the farm implement right out in the field instead of only unhitching at the barn. Sometimes I would even unharness them or let them graze out there a while before walking them back to the barn in hand. This got them sweet on whatever spot I stopped them.

Training For Safety

It’s a good idea to consistently teach every driving horse certain safety patterns. For example every time you stop your horse make sure it stands still until you ask it to go again. At first if this is hard put it back to the same spot when it moves and then make sure you ask it to go before it decides to move again. Then build up how long it can stop and stand. Standing still becomes a pattern that you and your horse can rely on if things start to go wrong. Another safety pattern example is having an expectation that your horse stops as soon as you say “whoa” (or whatever your signal). Not several feet farther on and not after saying “whoa” many times. Reinforce the word by adding pressure to the lines and the bit until the horse stops. If the equipment the horse is hitched to allows, then back the horse up to the place you asked them to stop. If you are pulling a heavy load on wheels and don’t want it to push hard on the horse if it stops suddenly, then you can teach the horse to slow the load when you say “easy” and then stop when you say “whoa.”

Balancing A Horse’s Disposition

Whichever disposition a horse has, it is good to continually develop them and train them to be more balanced between the positive and negative aspects of their disposition. For example you should constantly teach a confident horse to be more responsive and willing and to yield happily without dominance (the positive traits of an anxious horse). This is done by getting it interested in the lesson or work. Teach the anxious horse to bypass their prey instincts and move quickly into a thoughtful and analytical frame of mind (the positive traits of a confident horse). This is done by focusing your sessions on releasing the pressure of your request when they are calm and relaxed. They can learn to respond logically instead of reacting out of fear. Train the fast extroverted horse to have more “whoa” and the slow introverted horse to have more “go.” The more balanced a horse is, the more it can work happily with other horses of various dispositions and the more variation of tasks it can perform happily.

To train a horse to be more balanced you can stop your request when they start thinking about the task while in the desired frame of mind. For example, if you are trying to help an anxious horse be more confident with an object, keep the object near them where they are a little unsure (but not so close it freaks them out) until they stop being scared and start to be curious. Then take it away. Curiosity is a thinking and analytical frame of mind. For a horse that is unresponsive make sure you don’t release the request when they are resisting by pushing into the pressure. For example, if you are trying to turn the horse, make sure you don’t release the rein until the horse has softened in the bit. Even if it has physically stepped over in the turn, if it is still pulling against you, then it hasn’t become responsive and willing yet and it is not time to release. The horse needs to yield mentally and emotionally as well as physically.

Although it is a good goal to get every horse balanced in their disposition traits and able to do any job, it is generally best to start out giving the horse a job that they are already suited too. Certain jobs such as mowing and raking are benefited by a fast-walking team (as long as they are calm and not going fast out of fear). Other jobs such as cultivating and plowing are benefited by a slow-paced team. Use your horse’s strengths to the advantage of the task.

If you have two horses that are of different or opposite dispositions, it can be helpful to do a lot of single-horse work with them so that you use specific strategies for each to get them more balanced before you hook them together. When I work with Hidalga (calm and slow) single, we work on being responsive and walking faster before she gets a break. And I try to end the session on a good note when she is being especially willing. I make the emphasis of the session on speeding up being rewarded. With Oriana (anxious and fast) I allow her to move her feet in a fast walk but not taking off out of control. If I feel like she might take off out of control, then that tells me I am asking for too much and need to retreat into something easier. Allowing her to walk fast, I keep her in a repetitive pattern such as a circle until she sees that everything is okay and being bothered isn’t getting her anywhere and she starts to calm down. I keep working with her until she is wanting to stop and then I reward that by allowing her to stop. I don’t try to force her to stop for long periods of time if she is desperate to move her feet. But I make it my idea to go before she starts off on her own. I make the emphasis of the session on slowing down being rewarded. If she is really having trouble calming down and just keeps wanting to march ahead, then I can interrupt her mental pattern with lots of changes of direction (such as making figure 8s). I keep giving her new requests which makes her need to think about what she is doing and to tune into me. I keep her in the same general location with the repetitive pattern.

Thresholds

Another important thing to keep in mind for horses of all dispositions is to pay attention to your horse’s thresholds. Your horse has thresholds as it exceeds the comfort zones for each particular object or task you ask it to do. I like to think of each threshold as the horse’s reaction to stimuli in a circular bubble of personal space around the horse (like the layers of an onion) and, whenever an object comes into the bubble, the horse will be influenced by it in different ways depending on the distance. Although there are many subtle thresholds being passed as an object gets closer to the horse (which are important to become aware of to fine tune communication with the horse), there are 4 major ones that are important to notice while training: (1) when the horse pays attention to the object, (2) when the horse is starting to become anxious of the object, (3) when the horse is close enough they feel a need to get away from the object (flee instinct), (4) and when the horse strikes or kicks the object (fight instinct). For example, one year I bought a couple pigs to raise for meat. The horses hadn’t seen pigs before and were very nervous of them for quite some time. One day the horses were loose grazing in our big field and I was moving the electric fence of the pig pen to make a new rotational grazing pen for the pigs. I regularly let the pigs out of the pen when I moved it (and got them back in later with feed). The pigs started wandering around the field and while they were still several hundred feet away, the horses looked up and stared at them (threshold 1). As the pigs got closer, the horses snorted and lifted their tails like flags (threshold 2). Then, as the pigs continued closer, the horses ran away from them (threshold 3, with threshold 4 avoided) and stopped a ways off to look again (threshold 1 re-established). A different day when the pigs and horses were loose at the same time, one of the pigs startled a horse when the pig popped out from behind a vehicle. The horse jumped and kicked out at the pig (threshold 4) which was just far enough away to not be hit.

Horses have different sizes of comfort zones depending on the stimulus. The radius of the horses’s discomfort zone regarding the pigs was initially quite large; the zone shrank as the horses became more comfortable. If a horse is comfortable with an object, it can even touch the horse without passing through the horse’s threshold of anxiety. Horses have these thresholds for objects they move towards as well as objects that move towards them, for example, the scary stump beside the trail in the woods or the barking dog that runs up to the fence line along the road.

In order to teach a horse something new, it needs to leave its comfort zone and pass through one or more of its thresholds. This pushes it to learn and develop but you don’t want to pass through too many thresholds at once or else you can overwhelm the horse and get it into a situation that is too challenging which can result in a bad experience and set back. It is generally a good rule of thumb to go through the initial thresholds where the horse pays attention or starts to become anxious but doesn’t cross into a threshold where they feel like they need to flee or fight. Work with them around those early thresholds until they start to become curious and then take the object away (or take the horse away from the object). Then bring the object back (or the horse back) and work in that threshold zone until they get comfortable and then relax. That will cause the circular bubble of their thresholds to shrink in size and then the scary object can get closer to them before they start to become anxious.

When training horses, it is generally better to go slow with lots of successful sessions than to go too fast and have a bad experience that you will have to try to overcome therafter.

In general, having horses hooked to farm equipment is not the place to correct unwanted or bad behaviors. Do your best to ensure the horses are settled and calm and willing when they are hooked up. Ground work and ground driving as well as a simple drag such as a tire, log, or stoneboat or a simple wheeled vehicle like a cart or carriage are useful to practice and train a horse and prep it for more difficult tasks.

Conclusion

I have found value in learning about horse dispositions and learning to read what horses are thinking about based on their body language. My horses and I progressed a lot when I started learning to use a well-suited strategy to help get each horse more balanced in their disposition traits. Working with horses is an art and as the human leader there is always more to learn. If the idea of horse dispositions is a new concept then I would recommend just starting to pay attention to your horse and see if you can tell which disposition trait it is displaying (it can change throughout a session) and which disposition traits are its core way of being. See if you can start thinking of strategies for little changes here and there to help your horse improve and get more balanced. I personally have a tendency to be too much of a perfectionist and want too big of a change too fast. A little positive change each day builds up over time while helping maintain a happy relationship with your horse.