What the hell is Draw in Horses? - Rick Gore Horsemanship

I get the weirdest looks when I tell people you need to draw your horse in, you need to create a draw and you need to use the horse’s natural draw.  So what am I talking about when I say Draw?  Understanding this seems easy to me, but hard to explain.  It is like a mind game with your horse, I have to act submissive and non-threatening, I have to make the horse think and want to follow me, I need to get small and non-predatory, I want him to get curious and investigative of what I am doing and why I am doing it.  I have to have my timing down to give release at just the right time.  Horse's are curious creatures anyway, they just get that beat out of them or corrected out of them or “RESPECT MY SPACE” out of them. 

I discuss this more on my website: www.thinklikeahorse.org/

People are so busy trying to control their horse that they forget what their horses are just horses and this is all they know how to be.  I get so tired of seeing people who yank, pull, push, correct, backup, yell and blame their horse for “Just being a horse”.  If you spend all your time keeping your horse away from you, how in the world are you going to get your horse to want to be with you? Think about it.  If every time your horse rubs you, touches you or gets close to you, all you do is push him and yell “Respect my space”, is it any wonder your horse won’t come to you when called or wants to run from you when it gets loose?  It seems pretty simple to me. 

Draw is playing cat and mouse with your horse, looking at him and then backing away, in a way that makes him interested and curious.  I can get most any horse to follow me by just walking away, but it is the way I walk away, it is my body language, my facial expression, my posture, the position of my head, where my eyes look, how I hang my arms and probably some other things that I don’t even know I am doing, but I assure you the horse knows! 

A natural draw is where a horse wants to be or wants to go on his own.  Good natural draws are a grain bucket, a gate to leave the arena, the barn or other horses.  If a horse wants to go to these places use this to get your horse to learn.  Like crossing water, if I am going away from the bran and I try to get my horse to cross a stream, for the first time, it will be harder than if I am on my way back to the barn and try the same stream.  One way I am working against the horse natural draw and facing away from the barn or home, the other way I working with the horse and facing the barn.  Know the difference.  A good horseman knows how to draw a horse, because he understands a horse and “thinks like a horse”.  This is why you should not work on stopping on the way back to the barn.  You should work on stopping going away from the barn.  That way the horse wants to stop and thinks you may trun go back to the barn.  If you try and work on stops going back to the barn, then you horse gets nervous and anxious thinking you may not go to the barn. When leaving a draw you create more or stronger draw.

 When teaching a horse to come to you, let’s say in a round pen, most horses want to leave the round pen.  They know in the pen, they work.  So if I stand at the gate and call a horse, he comes easy, thinking we are going to leave.  If I stand across (opposite) from the gate and call a horse, a horse has a natural draw to the gate and will want to stand at the gate and will not be as willing to come.  I see this all the time, people working against a draw and then blaming the horse for being stubborn.  It is not and never the horse's fault.  Learn your horse's natural draws and use them to help teach him what you want.  This way you help your horse succeed and set him up for success.  You have to try less to get what you want from your horse and you don't have to fight or force things which hamper your relationship with horses.  Remember with horses "less is more" and "the slow way is the fast way".  Some people just like to fight and "show the horse who is boss" rather than work smarter and help the horse without force or fear.  The old saying, "You can't fix stupid" applies to these people.  It is just too bad the horse has to endure man's stupidity and then the horse gets blamed for being a horse.

I have over 200 free videos on youtube where I discuss horses, herd behavior and understanding horses.

www.youtube.com/user/horseawareness

Happy Trials,

Rick