Lessons Learned: Don’t Ruin Good in the Pursuit of Perfection

For the past 20 years, Clinton Anderson from Downunder Horsemanship has devoted his life to creating the best training tools and videos to help bring his method to you. Join him on his weekly endeavors of tackling some of the most challenging situations with problem horses and problem owners. This week, we hear a valuable lesson learned from Clinton—never ruin good in the pursuit of perfection.

Today, we want to talk about a quote that really hits home with one of Clinton’s horsemen. She begins by reiterating how it resonates with her and reminds her quite often of her own personality. Essentially, this horseman needs to be reminded that you should never ruin something good in the pursuit of perfection. So, how does that apply to training your horse?

Well, when you’re training a horse, you’re looking for something between good, excellent, and perfection. You want them to perform a skill or exercise “good” at the minimum, but everyone strives for perfection. But you can’t jump from one extreme to the other. So, it’s obvious that when you’re first teaching your horse something, they’re probably not even going to be good at it. That’s okay. Every horse starts somewhere. Over time, the goal is to get them better and better. 

However, many horsemen run into problems and make a lot of mistakes when they strive for perfection too soon during the training. This is especially true when a young horse is learning. He’s obviously going to make more mistakes; he’s young and doesn’t know any better yet. Still, when you strive for perfection too soon, all you do is ruin their confidence or scare them. You can easily make your horse resent you and essentially give up on all the previous progress made. 

So, keep in mind that you may not like where your horse is at, but as long as it’s between good and excellent and he gets better every day or every time you work with him, then you’re on the right track. 

Now, if this is something you do regularly, don’t panic. It’s normal, and a lot of horsemen are guilty of this. The key is recognizing it, so you don’t continue to screw it up as you get older and more mature. That kind of comes with time. You realize that you relax a little bit and that you don’t have to get everything done as quickly as possible or in one day. Clinton will constantly drill in his horseman’s head about how there are two full years to train the horses. So, instead of trying to rush the process and cause issues, chill out, relax, and take your time. As long as what your horse is doing today or what exercise he’s doing is better than the day before, you’ve got something to celebrate. Put it in the bank, be happy with it, and then keep building on it tomorrow.

Don’t ruin something your horse is doing very well. Don’t ruin very good, or even just plain good. Don’t ruin that momentum you built striving to get him perfect. Your horse may never be perfect. He may not have the talent or the ability or the desire to want to be. But he’s a good horse. He’s quiet, he’s lazy, he’s gentle, he’s respectful, and he wants to be a trail horse. So, let him be a trail horse. Stop ruining a good thing while striving for perfection.

Clinton Anderson has devoted the past 20 years to creating the best training tools and videos available to horsemen worldwide. The Downunder Horsemanship app offers over 86 hours of free in-depth training content. No Worries Club members will have access to Clinton’s ever-growing training library and many members-only features and information. The best part is that you can view and interact with each lesson on your mobile device or computer, giving you ultimate access to the method anytime and anywhere.

To learn more about the Clinton Anderson training method, become a member of the No Worries Club, or get information on any of the products seen on our show, head over to our homepage and download the Downunder Horsemanship app today!