Transcript for this weeks message:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Horsemanship Journey Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I appreciate you taking your time to be here with me today.

This episode is brought to you in part by Cowboy Cuffs. Elevate your style, elevate your life. This particular shirt is called Blue Merle. Cowboys like working dogs, and this shirt is named after the color of an Australian Shepherd, a working cowdog or working dog. The name got my cool Cowboy Cuffs with my custom cuff link there that has my brand on it. The name Blue Merle for this shirt was inspired by some friends of mine, Dane and Teresa Johnson, who raise Australian Shepherds in Utah. So anyway, yeah, Cowboy Cuffs. I love this shirt. It might be my new favorite.

Today I want to talk a little bit about horses and people, just like always, but I want to talk about the first ride on a horse. As you may know, based on my Cool Cowboy cuff shirt and my awesome J.W. Brooks hat, I’m a horseman, and I ride horses. I have done so for a long time, and I’ve started a lot of horses. I’ve had a lot of first rides. I’ve put a lot of first rides on horses.

And so that’s what I want to talk about today—the first ride on a horse—and then relate that to parenting and relationships. So, I just want to break that down.

Let’s just take a look. If you can picture, if you will, the first ride on a horse. Usually, it’s after a lot of preparation. Okay, so that’s important to note because we’ll also relate this to people: the preparation that goes into the first ride.

At this point, by the time it’s time to step on, usually, we’ve got the horse accustomed and trained to be caught, to be haltered, they’ve learned to lead, and you can tie them up. A lot of times, you can handle their feet. They’re used to and feel comfortable with the saddle blanket and the saddle and how that feels moving around on them.

A lot of times, you’ve tried to organize their mind by moving them around inside a round pen. Usually, the first ride takes place inside a round pen or around corral, which is just what it sounds like—it’s a corral made into the shape of a circle. This way, the first ride is contained, and the horse can’t get away from you. If you have no control, you’re only going to be contained within this circle, usually about 40 to 100 feet in diameter.

That’s kind of what it looks like when it comes time. Okay, so we do everything we can, everything we know, to prepare the horse for something they’ve never experienced before.

But even with all that we do, even with all the hours and hours of prep and everything that goes into organizing the horse, conditioning them, desensitizing them, and most importantly, organizing their mind and preparing them for new experiences—things they’ve never done before—it’s still the first ride. And they’ll still be experiencing their first ride.

There’s nothing like that. We have devices that simulate people, placed on horses and so on, but there’s really nothing like a human being. When the horse can feel the rider and the rider can feel the horse, they can feel your heartbeat. They can feel your breathing. They can feel your pulse through your legs and your seat.

When you take hold of the reins, you can feel all that. They can feel it too, through their mouth, all the way to your hands. And so, that’s the first time. A lot of times, it can be pretty scary for a horse that’s never experienced that, even with all the preparation.

So, what I want to do is lay out how this happens. If you can visualize a young horse, I’m going to lay out two scenarios, okay? Both of these, by the way, I’ve experienced, so they’re not hypothetical. These are things that happen a lot when the first ride takes place. I’m going to put what the horse is thinking and what the rider’s thinking into perspective. Now, I don’t know exactly what the horse is thinking, but I’ve ridden enough to have a pretty good idea. So I’m just going to tell you how this all goes down.

If you can picture it, the horse is saddled, and they’re inside the round pen. All the preparation is done. Finally, it’s time. We’ve done everything we know and can. It’s time to step on for the first ride, see if we can move forward, stop, and get off—calling it our first ride.

I'm going to go into the horse's mind and break down his thoughts, his feelings, his actions, and his results—and what happens to the rider. I'll go back and forth. So our first scenario is this: The rider, even after all the preparation—stepping into the stirrup, wiggling the saddle, putting weight in it, standing up on the outside—has never actually swung their leg over and sat down in the saddle.

The first time it happens, the rider steps into the stirrup, swings their leg over, puts their other foot in the stirrup, and sits down in the saddle. Okay, first ride. Here's likely what the horse is thinking: The horse thinks, "Hey, something's new, something's different. This is wrong." That thought sparks a feeling of fear. When the horse feels fear, he reacts. Usually, a horse in fear goes to fight or flight. He may try to run away or try to get the rider off his back—bucking, zigging, zagging, doing whatever he can to escape.

So, what happens when the horse feels fear? He starts to run. The result of this is something else new for the horse: not only is there someone on his back, but now he’s running with a rider on him. That’s even more terrifying than just standing still. The horse either experiences the added fear of running with the rider or bucks the rider off. If the rider falls, the horse solves his problem and learns a way to escape his fear: get rid of the rider.

Now, let's explore the rider's mind. The rider steps onto the horse. The horse feels fear and takes off running. In a split second, the rider thinks, "I’m going to get hurt." That thought creates fear in the rider. When the rider feels fear, they panic, tense up, grab the reins or the saddle, and react quickly. The horse feels this tension. The rider’s heart races, and they act out of fear. The result? The rider often gets hurt.

Back to the horse. The rider’s panic confirms to the horse that something is wrong. The horse now thinks, "There is definitely something wrong." That thought feeds more fear in the horse. When the horse feels more fear, he runs faster, harder, and tries even more aggressively to get the rider off. The result? Either the horse is running at a higher speed, making the situation worse, or the rider falls off, confirming to the horse that bucking or running works to remove the threat.

As the horse runs faster, the rider is still holding on and thinks, "This horse is tough to ride. He’s strong-willed. This horse is going to be hard to ride." That thought creates more fear and anxiety in the rider because they doubt their ability to stay on.

When the rider feels fear and anxiety, they either stop riding, fall off, or become more aggressive. If the rider becomes aggressive, the horse doesn’t get calmer or more cooperative. Instead, the cycle of fear, aggression, and resistance continues.

The result is a negative feedback loop. The horse remains difficult to ride, the rider becomes more anxious and reactive, and the relationship spirals downward. This cycle, where neither the horse nor the rider is happy, continues because it all began with a single impulse of thought.

Every reaction—the horse's and the rider's—was driven by small, impulsive thoughts. And the rider knows it. Okay. So he either thinks that the rider is confirming that there's something wrong or that the horse did something wrong. And so what happens here? The rider has more, or excuse me, the horse has more fear. Okay. And so what is the result or the action when he feels more fear? He runs harder and he runs faster. He tries to get the rider off more. Okay. He tries harder, and the result is that when he's trying that hard to get the rider off, he has a rider on at a higher rate of speed, which is even more scary for him, or the rider falls off.

Okay. So now the horse is running faster, and the rider is still on. The rider is thinking inside of his head, this horse is tough to ride; he's hard to ride. This horse is tough. He's strong-willed. This horse is going to be hard to ride. And so what does he do? He feels more fear and has anxiety because he doesn't know if he's going to be able to stay on. Okay. So what does he do? He either doesn't ride, falls off, or gets more aggressive.

The result of him getting more aggressive with his actions is that the horse doesn't get good to ride. He doesn't ever get broke, or the cycle continues. The horse is hard to ride, the horse gets more aggressive, and the rider gets more aggressive. He has more anxiety and worries about it. This cycle of results, which neither the horse nor the rider is really happy about, continues to happen.

And why? Okay. Remember, this all began with one little impulse of thought in the beginning and the reactions to little impulses of thought. We're going to take a look at scenario two.

Scenario two actually happened. This is almost step by step or play by play, if you will, of what happened about a week ago right here in my round pen in Las Vegas, Nevada. I have a two-year-old buckskin mare named Purdy. A friend of mine, Rick, was here helping me start horses, and he stepped on Purdy for her first ride.

So, this is scenario two. Here's what happens. Again, all the prep is done. The horse is as ready as she can be for her first ride. Rick steps up into the stirrup, puts his weight, swings his leg over, and sits down in the saddle. At that point, nothing's happening. He cues her to move forward, and the horse thinks to herself something's wrong. Something's new. Something's different. This is wrong. She feels fear. And so she starts to run away.

Okay. So her result is the same thing. Something new is happening again. Another new thing is happening, and now she's flying around this round pen as fast as she can, running with someone on her back. So the rider is either going to experience another new thing, or the rider is going to fall off.

What happens in this scenario is that as she bolts away with Rick on her back, his thought is, I'm prepared. I got this. Okay. So what do you think hefeels when he thinks that in a split second? He feels confident, right? Hefeels confident. So what do you think he does when he feels confident? He actscalmly and with intention.

Okay. He acts calmly and on purpose. And what is the result of him doing that? The ride slows down. Okay. The ride slows down, and the horse walks, then stops. What he did by acting calmly with purposeful intent was, since he was riding her in a halter, he lifts the halter rope, pulls on her nose, redirects her mind, and she slows down to a trot and then a walk. She walks a small circle, then a smaller circle, and then he asks her to whoa. She stops. She gives to the pressure he's applying, and he lets the rope drop. She straightens out and stands still.

So that was the beginning of her first ride. Now let's go back into the horse's mind while this was happening. Again, Rick steps on, she bolts and starts to run. They only make it about halfway around the 50-foot round pen. Here’s what happens to the horse: because Rick responded with confidence and acted calmly with intention, the horse’s thinking at this point is, first, she reacts with fear. He reacts with intention and calmness. She thinks, "Hey, maybe there isn’t something wrong," and the rider is confirming that nothing's wrong.

So, what does she feel? Because of the way the rider is responding, the horse responds with curiosity. The horse is like, "Hmm, maybe nothing’s wrong." She feels curious. What do you think she does when she's curious? Her ears start moving a little bit like this, and she starts listening for cues from her rider.

Okay. And so, what is the result? She shows willingness. She shows willingness. I told you then the first part of the ride ended when she stopped, and everything was fine. So, what do you think the rider thinks when the horse is showing willingness? Rick starts to think, "Hey, this horse wants to get along. This is a good horse. I did a good job of preparation."

What do you think he feels when he thinks that? He feels more confident—even more confident. Okay. So when he feels more confident, he clearly communicates his cues, and the result is that the horse develops into a great partner. Both of them have a good, positive result. The horse feels comfortable and at ease in doing its job, and the horse develops into a great partner, and the rider is happy.

Okay. So those are two scenarios of how things can go. And let me just tell you something: I’ve been through both of them. Okay. I’ve been on plenty of horses that I couldn’t control, with bad endings that I had to go back and fix. It took a long time in some cases to fix the things that I created in the beginning. So the thing of it is, hey, we can’t control.

Neither Rick in scenario two nor the rider in the first one will call it me in the first one that ended up falling off or creating a bad result and had a bunch of chaos. It took a lot of time and there was just a bunch of turmoil and trauma going on. The horse is scared to death, the rider is scared to death, and things are just not going well. It feeds on itself and it gets worse regardless of that.

A lot of times our tendency is to look at the horse and say, "Well, this horse did good, and this horse didn’t," and put everything on the horse. But we, as the rider, need to realize the horse is picking up on what we are putting down. We have a tremendous influence that we don’t always realize. If we don’t know this, we can’t think about it and we can’t be intentional, which makes it harder to get the result we want.

Now, let’s take a quick look and compare this to us as parents. You can compare it to a lot of things. Anytime you have a tendency to react in anger or fear, it’s natural to respond that way. But in this case, I want to focus on when parents find out what their kids did.

Think about it for a minute. How do you feel when you find out what they did? When you get that phone call or when they finally tell you or when you catch them, how do you feel? You may think, "I can’t believe they would do that," or "Don’t they know better than that?" or "What’s wrong with them?"

You might be angry, scared, or feeling guilt and disappointment. You might have fear for their life, for their future, for their lack of experience, for their exposure to the world, or for how their life is going to turn out. Maybe you’re just angry because they didn’t listen or because you thought they knew better. What you’re feeling in those moments is important because your reaction influences their thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.

So here’s the question: What do you want them to think? Do you want them to think that what they did is okay? Do you want them to think it’s not okay?Do you want them to think that they made a mistake, that you’re disappointed, or that they’re a disappointment to you?

Do you want them to think that they’re going to suffer for what they did? Do you want them to think that they can’t think for themselves and that you want to control them? Do you want them to think that you want what’s best for them? Or do you want them to think that you love them, that you understand them, that you are the leader they can respect and turn to in times of turbulence?

In those moments, your awareness and response are key. How you respond will have a tremendous influence on how they feel, what they do, and what their future looks like. Here’s the big question: How do you want to show up? Do you want to show up as the calm, confident leader, or do you want to react with fear, anger, or frustration?

Just like with the horse, those moments will have an impact. They’ll affect whether your kids come to you with the truth next time, what they do in the future, and how they view you as a parent. Do you want them to know that, when things go wrong, they can come to you as a safe place, someone who will handle things with confidence and respect, who believes in them and loves them?That’s what we’re going for in these moments.

Let me tell you something: I’ve been through both situations. I’ve had plenty of experiences where I couldn’t control the situation, where it ended badly, and I had to go back and fix things. It took a long time in some cases to fix the things I created in the beginning.

But the key here is: It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. What matters is what you’re going to do from here on out. Start with knowing that your response has a tremendous influence on your kid’s behavior. Decide in advance how you want to show up and how you want to respond. That’s the first step.

Thanks for taking your time to be here with me today. And remember, you cannot fail if you Don’t Ever Stop Chasing It.