Report on the Connie Colfox Zoom evening
The flyer advertising the zoom meeting clearly stated ‘don’t try this at home’…. which prompted me to have a look at Connie’s website. The first thing that came up was Connie riding a lovely bay horse up and down a barn with no bridle, or headcollar, nothing!!! She appeared to be just indicating to the horse which way to go with her hand, and possibly her weight aid. OK, I thought, this is interesting…
At the beginning of the zoom, Connie shared a bit of her background. She lives in Dorset and spent years experimenting with horses. She failed her B test and that led to the decision not to sit another exam; instead she went down the route of natural horsemanship and problem horses. Riders and owners were sending her horses to work with, but Connie was feeling the strain of working, motherhood, life etc and decided she needed to give up the horses; however, owners kept on sending her horses, so with some positive reinforcement and the help of Dr Helen Spence, who has a doctorate in ‘The Influence of Owner Personality and Attitudes on the Behaviour and Temperament of the Domestic Horse’ (Another Zoom session maybe????) Connie kept going.
Connie has 10 steps. We didn’t get to find out what those 10 steps are, we would need to enrol onto one of her courses for that information. However, she always has pockets full of food, and rewards the horses when they show desirable/ relaxed behaviour. Why the horses weren’t constantly mugging her, I don’t know, mine would be!! Most of the horses she takes in, start their training out in the field loose. Connie uses a ‘marking’ sound for good behaviour, accompanied/followed by food. Some people use a clicker, it doesn’t really matter what the sound is, as long as it is consistent.
My impression of Connie was that she is very down-to-earth, incredibly patient, uses common sense (horse sense) and deeply understands horses, something I feel is very lacking these days.
We looked at 4 horses Connie had worked on and there was a video diary for each case with Connie commentating, which meant that we got to see the progression of each horse.
The first example we saw was a 2-year-old, who kept attacking those who went near him. He had been sedated to travel to Connie’s yard and was initially put in a pen in the barn. The back story was, he had always been aggressive, the owners had tried to get to him with a bucket of food, however he would attack them so they would drop the bucket and get out of his way. This was clearly reinforcing his aggressive behaviour because attacking a person rewarded him with food. The first training Connie did was to get him interested in her long bamboo stick; she stood behand the gate of the pen for protection as she held the stick. The young horse became uncomfortable because despite his threatening behaviour she didn’t move away. Connie then had 2 Heston straw bales put into a large pen with a gap between them. She could stand on one of the bales for protection and allow the horse to come towards her, between the 2 bales, for food. As she did this, she would gently touch him with the bamboo, but allowed him to move away when he wasn’t comfortable. Eventually he was happy to come to her between the 2 bales for food and allow her to move the bamboo around his body. His progression led to being turned out in the school with another horse for company, any positive behaviour was reinforced with food from Connie’s pocket. He started trusting her to the extent that she could move her hand over him, pick his feet up, and he actually started following her looking for affection, a bit like a puppy dog. The whole process from start to finish took just under 3 weeks with up to 10 sessions of varying length per day.
The second case study was a 10-year-old event horse who was unhappy in his work, behind the leg and bucking when asked for canter. He’d had a full vet’s investigation (I didn’t think to ask what level of investigation, if it included x-rays/scans, MRI’s etc but I suspect just a basic check-up). Connie took all the tack away and rode him in just a saddle pad and neck strap. He became a lot more relaxed and generally happier, however he still didn’t feel right, and the big red flag was that he wouldn’t stand by the mounting block to be mounted, he kept moving off. He was referred back to a vet and eventually rested for a year.
The 3rd case study was an ex-dressage horse who had been acquired by his owners from a rehab yard and was displaying stress behaviours. He was lovely to handle, good natured, well-mannered to mount and ride, he showed no signs of stress until the owner turned up to collect him in a red lorry. When he saw the lorry, he became stressed, wouldn’t eat, couldn’t be caught and displayed other signs of stress including licking and chewing, when he got near the lorry he reared and boxed with his front legs. The lorry was obviously the trigger.
As with all the horses Connie works with, food was used as a reward. She parked her trailer in the arena and stood by the unloading ramp with pockets of food. The horse was loose in the arena so he could get away if he needed to and didn’t feel trapped. His first reaction to the trailer was very similar to when he saw the red lorry, however with time and patience he started to come to her for his treats. Connie positioned herself on the exit ramp of the trailer rather than the loading ramp, so if he came into the trailer and panicked, he had lots of room to get out rather than a small ramp which he could potentially fall off and scare himself. Eventually he started to investigate the trailer, and positive behaviour was rewarded with food, until he walked into the trailer of his own will. As predicted, he panicked slightly and rushed out the other end, but he kept coming back until he was happy and comfortable walking into, standing in, and walking out of the trailer.
The last horse we looked at was a 6-year-old intermediate event mare, produced and ridden by a professional rider. The problem with this mare was that she had started spooking coming into a fence, then bolting after the fence (classic signs of a loss of confidence). Connie started by using her bamboo stick, to establish what level of pressure the horse found acceptable… she found the horse was totally switched off. As with all the horses who come to her, tack was stripped off and she rode in minimum equipment, with rewards of food given for positive behaviour. This mare was ridden in a head collar with reins, and as she progressed, she started jumping tiny cross poles, and was asked to rein back after the jump. The mare became much hmore comfortable and eventually Connie rode her over small cross poles with no bridle.
My conclusion is that Connie ‘resets’ these horses who have had (unintentional) bad experiences from people. The 2-year-old showed aggressive behaviour,; we don’t know his history of weaning etc, but his behaviour was being reinforced by his owner’s actions. The 10-year-old was in pain. The ex-dressage horse was a sweet horse who had obviously had a traumatic experience involving transport and the 6-year-old intermediate event horse had been over-faced.
Riding the horses with no bridle just shows the mutual trust between the horses and Connie. All the horses’ behaviour, expressions , relaxation and body movements visibly changed throughout the sessions.
Clearly excellent work is happening here – and it was interesting that several of us found ourselves recalling our childhood experiences messing around with our ponies, that we treasured for the bond we experienced. It was inspiring to see this quality of relationship being quietly recreated with these troubled horses before our eyes, using kindness and patience, clear rules of behaviour, and a positive reward system.
But I still want to know why she isn’t constantly mugged with all that food in her pockets!!