TRAINING TIP:

Most horses in training, especially during a difficult session, will "regress." That means that they'll suddenly start getting worse instead of better. This is perfectly normal and not something you should worry about.

For example, I was trying to teach a young horse to accept a plastic bag dangling from the end of my lunge whip. At first, he was very frightened of it when I was bouncing it up and down on the ground about 6 feet away from it. He ran in several circles around me (with me still following him with the bouncing bag) before he was finally able to stop and face it. I stopped to release the pressure, praised him then started again. Soon, he was able to handle the bag bouncing right beside him without fear.

We had the same problem when I moved the bag in front of him. He was afraid of it again. But I knew he would be, since now he was seeing it out of both eyes, so I just continued desensitizing him with it until he lost his fear of it.

Now that he could tolerate it on either side of him and in front of him, I started swinging it high over his head and smacking the ground with it first on his right side and then on his left. He got a bit wide-eyed but this didn't really bother him too much. I stopped, praised him then moved the bag back to his right side. Suddenly, it might as well have been a cougar coming to eat him! He acted terrified of it!

But, fortunately, I was expecting him to regress at some point. It had been an anxious training session for him and his brain had suddenly kicked out of "thinking" gear and back into "reacting" gear. He ran about 20 circles around me before he finally remembered, "Oh yeah! It's just that plastic bag thing!" As suddenly as he'd started, he stopped, looked down at the bag, and took a deep breath. From then on, I couldn't frighten him with the bag anywhere near him. (I wasn't trying to touch him with it yet.)

So, when your horse "regresses" suddenly, and he will at some point, just keep on working and don't get frustrated or angry. Remember that he'll start thinking again in a few minutes and everything will be fine. Just hang in there and keep training until that happens.