I recently read an article titled “Recipe for a Riding Horse” in Dressage Today, written by Bob Orton with Louisa Zai.
“From a training perspective, I have found that there are three basic kinds of horses: 10 percent are volunteers, 70 percent are draftees and 20 percent are draft dodgers. ”
I would categorize volunteers as a horse that is compliant, always eager to please and willing to participate when new things are introduced. A draftee is a horse who is compliant, but maybe cautious and takes more encouragement to understand new concepts. A horse that is a draft dodger is one who is resistant to new things. He is head strong, opinionated and has his own agenda, which commonly doesn’t include training!
Every horse is unique with individual training needs. What category does your horse fit into?