Relaxation installation. I think one of the easiest trends to fall into with horse training is falling into the philosophy of the relaxation 'button', or relaxation specific training.
The concept of relaxation in horse training is varied. The horse training community teaches principles of ‘training relaxation’, ‘teaching the horse to relax’, ‘relaxed tension’, teaching the horse how to ‘self sooth’, teaching the horse to ‘manage it’s emotions’, showing the horse ‘how to relax’ etc all of which some from a perception of misunderstanding, or the basis of a poorly developed skill set.
Ultimately, with horses being flight animals - flight is the key survival response. However, to exist as a flight animal which in themselves is usually a character of an animal with a low cognitive fuel requirement.
This is linked to limited baseline cognitive states (therefore putting them at the bottom end of the food chain) the concept of a limited grasp of relaxation, or neutral cognitive states that are low energy use is a bit of a contradiction.
The more the brain works in states that are the opposite of relaxation (aka basic functioning) on complex planning, and prolonged memory recall (longer than 2-3 seconds) the more fuel it needs - high caloric food. Grass just ain’t that…It is highly likely that the grazing niche and nutritional impoverishment of that niche could not sustain the energy required for recall memory.
Humans use approx. 20% of nutrition for brain activities, compared to 10% for other primates. Cat’s, Dogs & Rats utilise approx. 5% where as horses and Cattle only use approx. 2%. (Armstrong, 1990).
Usually of course, this high nutritive need from the diet amongst some animals (humans inclusive) is paired with a larger, more developed dorsolateral pre frontal cortex of the brain (DLPFC) which allows for more prolonged & persistent states of cognitive arousal , something which the horse simply doesn’t have.
So ultimately, the horse is not ‘wired’ for persistent arousal - it is developed for short term, survival based reactive arousal states. Short term, infrequent, survival necessary states of 'stress'. Read: short term & infrequent.
The persistent state of the horse is a neutral, relaxed, low cognitive load state - one which can be described as relaxation.
"Horses are made to be horses." A wise man called Franz Maringer once said.
So ultimately, relaxation is not a thing we can install, or even update in a horse - but rather a consequence of having enabled the right ‘programming’ in the first place. A consequence of having enabled a situation that is of such ease for the horse to exist successfully in, that it is in itself is not requiring of any greater cognitive cost than the bare minimum.
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