Forget the metal bit, leather harness, whip and heavy saddle: natural horsemanship is about relationship, trust and fun between horse and rider.
Laura Becker, a homeschool senior, discovered this approach to riding two years ago and has never looked back. She and her horse, Cricket, 13, now spend hours together playing games and having fun while training and riding. Becker will coax Cricket to walk a plank, play with large balls, bow, jump and stand on a platform, all games geared to teach basic skills and make the horse comfortable with the equipment.
Before discovering
natural horsemanship, Becker had taken riding lessons for a couple of years but something kept nagging at her about the standard approach.
"I didn't like punishing them because it didn't work," she recalled of her earlier days on horseback. "When I had a more difficult horse, I didn't like the way I was taught to deal with it, we'd punish her."
"I also didn't like that horses were so unpredictable and that I didn't know how to read them," she added.
Becker connected with Judi Shapton, owner of Wind Walker Farm in Thompsonville as she was looking for a horse to lease and try out natural horsemanship principles. Shapton, who has been involved with horses for 46 years, only shifted her philosophy to this more gentle approach six years ago. She was willing to work with Becker and teach her what she knew, while also appreciating how much Becker had already taught herself.
Horses, being herd animals as well as prey for predators, have an ingrained set of reactions, fears and methods of communication. Natural horsemanship teaches riders to learn, honor and use these tendencies while still being the leader that the horse craves.
"You establish leadership but you do it through their language, not through force," said Shapton, who breeds, raises and shows Tennessee Walkers, of natural horsemanship. "I'm still unlearning what I did for years, but you do have more happy and interested horses. When I go to get one they all meet me at the gate."
The games accustom the horse to the equipment and moves, while also building the trust and communication that are the foundation of natural horsemanship. Even on horseback — either bareback or in a softer, lighter saddle — the methods of guidance and control are gentle. No kicking of the sides or sawing on the bridle and leg squeezing is rare, usually to prompt a horse to walk if they have stopped.
"You ride by the seat," said Shapton, who took a fourth place ribbon in a national competition last year riding bareback and without a bridle. "With the traditional style, legs on them all the time, it makes them fearful."
Becker boards her horse at Shapton's 23-acre farm, covering her costs by working in the stable and helping to train two of Shapton's two-year-old mares. The 18-year-old makes the approximately 45-mile round trip three or four days a week, year round, to ride and work with Cricket a few hours and do her other chores at the stable.
She has also had to unlearn some training from her earlier riding days, such as a tendency to pull on the rein.
"I think we were both learning together and I think he would have learned more quickly if I knew what I was doing," said Becker. "He seems to have got more personality, when I first got him he was really neutral and he got nervous and I didn't know how to calm him down."
Becker, who hopes for a career related to horses, is saving her money to attend a six-week clinic at the renowned Parelli Natural Horsemanship facility in Colorado in the fall of 2007. Shapton plans to attend and they will trailer their horses out together for the lengthy training session.
"There are other horsemanship philosophies, but this one is top of the line," said Shapton.