An incredibly important aspect of horsemanship that I find often doesn’t receive the consideration it deserves is what I call “intention.” Your intention fuels and shapes your every action. When I work with my students, I encourage them to develop an awareness of their own intention, as this is the first step toward becoming the kind of clear and centered leader that horses respond to most positively.
When I first ask my students what their intention is at a given moment with their horse, they most often reply by telling me what they want the horse to do. For example, they might say, “I’m using pressure toward the hindquarters because my intention is to get the horse to yield his hind end.” There is nothing at all wrong with that answer, but as I approach horses from a relational perspective, there are several different layers of intention I want people to consider, as all of these layers factor into our communication with our horses.
The first layer, what we might call the superficial layer, is the action you want your horse to take, or what you want him to do for you. It includes any type of physical change such as flexing at the poll, doing a leg yield or picking up the canter. Calling this layer of intention superficial does not mean it is not important, as we obviously must be able to effect changes in the horse’s actions and carriage. However, we need to look deeper than that if we are going to encourage the kind of connection and understanding we aim for in Relational Horsemanship.