Incremental Progress

By Elisha Bradburn

Have you ever heard the Johnny Cash song, “One Piece At A Time?” Here is the chorus in case you haven’t heard this classic hit: I'd get it one piece at a time and it wouldn't cost me a dime You'll know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild 'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round

You may be thinking, what does this have to do with horsemanship? The idea here that I would like to borrow from Johnny’s song is incremental progress. Just like Johnny builds a car by carrying piece by piece home in his lunchbox, you need to think of building a solid Cadillac of a mount one piece at a time as well. We need to work on getting one piece at a time, and getting each piece going really good, before we can ride around in style by putting all the pieces together.

I am sure you have heard this term, incremental progress, many times, and it is likely something I am thinking about because one, or even a few of the great horsemen I have learned from, talked about it. There is nothing new under the sun, as the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible reminds us, and this concept of incremental progress in horsemanship is no exception. However, I felt it worth writing about, to remind myself, and hopefully help you too, to remember to think from the horse’s point of view. Horses learn best building incrementally, like stepping up the rungs on a ladder. And days when things aren’t going so well, it is helpful to go back to the last thing you were able to do well together. Horses are creatures of habit, they like routine. They like when we feed them at a certain time, they memorize our habits, anticipate our next moves, so naturally incremental progress works well with their nature.

One piece at a time, or incremental progress, is a frame of mind and a paradigm shift to a way of thinking and doing things that makes sense to the horse and works well with his natural tendencies. It is the frame of mind that is helpful to successfully training a horse, in a sustainable way. By sustainable I mean that the horse still likes you at the end of it, and you leave the horse physically and mentally in good shape. You might hit some rough spots along the way, but you can work through them within the session where the horse still feels good about it at the end, and is better (more knowledgeable, and emotionally, mentally and physically fitter) than when he started the session. To get incremental progress we need to break things down into the pieces they are comprised of. We start by teaching our horse each piece of the whole. Then, eventually we start stringing the pieces together until they start to resemble the end product we are after, whether that be loading into a trailer with ease, a flying lead change, a spin or pirouette, a hard sliding stop or just a safe maneuverable trail ride.

We start with the very basics, these are the pieces: do we have communication to all four feet to move in the direction we want, do we have forwards, backwards, and stop? Can we move the front end independently of the hind end, and the hind end independently of the front end, do we have sideways, do we have lateral and vertical flexion? Next, can we do each of these things at varying speeds and in varying environments. These foundation fundamentals as I like to

call them are the primary pieces of anything grander we do with horses. And we need them all, but we need to achieve one piece at a time, and then build from there.

We can build all sorts of exciting maneuvers with our horses by working incrementally and getting each of these pieces smooth, and then combining them. These are the ingredients! On their own something like being able to move the horse forward around the right hind foot might not sound very exciting, but if you were on the side of a mountain on a very narrow trail and you need your horse to pivot his front end around his hind end, to the right, you need to be sure you have this kind of accurate communication in order for you and your horse to stay safe. Something as simple as trailer loading or crossing a bridge is much easier if we have the pieces in place, this primary language, these building blocks of communication, so we can start on a solid foundation. When we build these pieces properly, so that we maintain trust and respect in the process, it really simplifies bigger asks of a horse, such as trailer loading, as you already have a relationship, rapport, and a language in place to start a communication with.

All of this may sound rather elementary, basic and simple. The kind of information that would be most helpful for the novice rider or green colt. However, it is amazing how much we can do with horses, without actually having good communication on these very basic foundation fundamentals I am describing.

Me with Boone, Soda Pop & Hefner. They teach me so much!

When I teach clinics I am humbled by people’s willingness to learn and their desire to never stop improving for their horses. This lovely lady is very knowledgeable and accomplished, but she was willing to work on basics and see what she and her horse could glean.

I used to jump some decent sized jumps, evented a bit, and I have to tell you if someone asked me to get my horse to step his right front foot just one step to the right, I couldn’t have done it. I could jump a course of jumps with speed, do a dressage test, cross a water jump on a cross country course, but I must say, accurate, consistent, timely, communication with feel, I did not have. Even as I got to working on more finite maneuvers, I quickly realized, it wasn’t just my academic knowledge of what exactly I would need to do to ask for something specific I would need, I would need something far more elusive, I would need to develop my feel and timing.

It was precisely when I started to humble myself, and look for something more with horses than just getting them to do what I wanted, that everything changed. And it is still changing and blowing my mind in a beautiful way. Considering the horse is what separates just being a great rider from being a truly great horseman. I aspire every day to be a better person, and I never stop smiling when I think of the parallels of being a good horseman and being a good person. I think this is part of why I love horses so much, they challenge me to be all of what God truly made me to be. It isn’t an easy road trying to become a great horseman, but it is richly rewarding on the deepest level.

So I encourage you, remember the importance of the seemingly elementary pieces, getting them good, and then putting them together to build better things! Incremental progress is key, be happy with just small learnings and improvements every session. One piece at a time friends, and one day, we’ll be riding around in style, just like Johnny.

Wishing you and your furry friends a Merry Christmas and a joyous and wonder filled 2023.

Elisha Bradburn and her husband, Clay, own Faithful Farm, an equestrian centre in the Fraser Valley. Elisha’s passion with horses lies in psychology based horsemanship, with a strong consideration for the horse’s point of view. Elisha is available for clinics, expos, demonstrations and speaking engagements and can be followed on her Legacy Horsemanship pages on Facebook and Instagram or e-mailed at legacyhorsemanship@shaw.ca

(See her listing in our Business Services section under TRAINERS)