Do Equestrians Know How Their Horses Learn?

accompanied by frequent tail swishing and facial expressions indicating pain. Other horses may simply surrender to the pain and eventually enter a state of learned helplessness where they have learned that any attempt to escape pain or a stressful situation is not successful. Horses that have entered a state of learned helplessness simply give up trying and may become depressed which can sometimes be observed in horses termed bomb proof or in some school horses.  
Some riders may constantly apply leg pressure even if the horse already moves forward or maintains the desired speed or rhythm. No leg pressure release when the horse responds with forward is incorrect understanding of negative reinforcement. In this example horses can become habituated to the constant leg pressure and the rider may need to apply even stronger leg pressure to ask for an increase in speed or length of strides in the future. Horses that have habituated to leg pressure are often falsely termed lazy and their riders may choose to use spurs or whips punishing the horse for the riders incorrect understanding of learning theory. 
What is learning? 
Learning means behaviour modification and our behaviour can be influenced by interactions with the environment including other humans and animals. When training horses to perform for us as riding driving or working partners we can modify their behaviour by applying the principles of learning theory. Through habituation and desensitisation as well as operant and classical conditioning also known as Pavlovian conditioning horses can be trained to become reliable and safe companions. Operant conditioning also known as instrumental conditioning is linked to cue stimulus response right or wrong behaviour consequence reward or punishment relationships. 
We can reward reinforce wanteddesired horse behaviours by giving horses adding something pleasant or desirable such as food scratches turnout. These reinforcers are termed primary positive reinforcers and the process is called positive reinforcement. Primary means that the reinforcers are natural to the horse in contrast to secondary learned positive reinforcers such as pats on the neck or the sound of a clicker which a horse needs to associate or link to a primary positive reinforcer first in order for the secondary positive reinforcer to become meaningful and positive. We can also reward horses by removing subtracting a stimulus that they perceive unpleasant namely leg or rein pressure once they have shown a correct or desired response such as immediately removing the