Every time you work with your horse, you should act like a detective, trying to figure out where your horse has any holes in his foundation. One question you should ask yourself during each training session is: Is there a crack in the foundation?
Invariably, as you progress your horse’s training, you’ll happen upon an area that requires you to go back and get your foundation better. Admittedly, this will happen more often at the beginning of your horsemanship journey as you’re working on building your experience. The more horses you work with and the more you add to your knowledge, the better you can get this learning curve down. However, this happens to even experienced horsemen. You’ll think you have something done well, but when you ask the horse for a more advanced maneuver, he’ll let you know you’ve got a hole in your foundation and he needs more help.
There’s no shame in realizing there’s a hole in your foundation and going back and fixing it. The only problem is when your foundation isn’t strong and you ignore it and continue pushing the horse. That isn’t fair to him and is just setting him up for failure. When you get into trouble, always go backwards, not forwards.
