This is my first blog on this site so I felt it appropriate to do it on what, in my view, is probably the most important lesson we could ever learn about horsemanship – release (reward). The word is bantered around, almost as much as the term “contact” and both actions are often misunderstood or at least misrepresented to the horse.
I will write a separate blog on contact, because that is an important topic too, so what exactly does release mean and when and how it should be applied. Buck Brannaman descries release as “a complete absence of pressure” and I can think of no better description. In other words, just letting a little slack into the reins is not enough of a reward signal. When developing communication with our horses we really need to be as clear as possible.
The release needs to be absolutely clear to the horse and when it happens and it must be sustained for the horse to process what just happened. If we release and pick up again too quickly the horse may not notice the release took place. Horses don’t think in the same way people do they tend to be more black and white, they don’t try to hard to guess what we mean. Exaggerating the release helps us to develop softer hands and a better feel and makes our intentions clearer to our horse.
We must leave some time between the release and our next request to repeat the action. For example if we were asking our horse to back up we should release on every single step and pause, or dwell, before asking for the next. It will take longer to develop a back up than it might by using a painful pulling action but the results will be far more rewarding for both horse and rider. Gradually we will find that we only need to make a few light intermittent bumps to keep our horse moving backwards – the horse will understand what we are asking for and we will require very little effort.