John Chatterton’s Method of Horse Training
Bonding With Horses
Rather than the trainer dominating the horse for incorrect behaviour, John firmly believes the handler needs to become the horse's comfort zone.
John constantly hears the words, 'you have to be higher in the pecking order', 'be a dominant leader' or 'you have to be the boss'. Instead, he believes you should become your horses' best mate.
If you try to be higher in the pecking order your horse will try to challenge you. If you become someone the horse respects and seeks to be comfortable with, a partnership based on mutual respect will develop.
John Chatterton Ten Steps Method
Step One - Facing Up
Step One of John Chatterton’s Ten Step Method is about teaching your horse to face up to you and also to accept frightening objects through a bonding process using John’s unique Affiliative Horsemanship method.
Facing Up is possibly the most important of all the Steps and the step everyone needs to return to when having difficulty with any other.
From studying and working with the Gaucho’s of South America and from many other excellent horsemen over the past 40 years, John has developed his own unique method of training horses which he calls Affiliative Leadership.
The John Chatterton Ten Step Program demonstrates how a tense, frightened or reactive horse can be taught to be safe in all situations and a pleasure to handle and ride for the majority of horse owners.
Step Two – Standing Still
One of the greatest problems horse owners face is learning how to teach their horses to stand still.
Horses which are constantly moving about are usually anxious about their situation, in control of the owner and confused about their role in the horse-human relationship.
When an owner is able to take charge of the relationship in a fair manner, using John’s clear signals, the horse is able to relax, improving the relationship between them through respect.
Using John’s pull and release method, horse owners are able to learn how to make standing still the horse’s decision.
If the horse learns that standing still and relaxing is much more comfortable than moving about in an agitated manner, they will choose standing still themselves.
As trust develops the horse will look to follow the owners lead in other circumstances as well.
The Standing Still Step leads on to Step Three which is teaching the horse how to stand still under pressure.
For example, standing politely while his feet are being handled. Many horses will lean on the handler or farrier, snatch their feet away or kick when their feet or legs are being handled. A horse which has been taught Step Two of the John Chatterton Ten Steps Program will learn to stand quietly for the farrier, the vet, or the dentist.
Step Three - Touching All Over
Through pull and release cues and learning that standing still while being handled is a more comfortable and less stressful option, horses which have been taught Step Three will happily allow their feet and legs to be handled.
The same cues are used to teach a horse to stand still for saddling and mounting, and any situation where the owner expects it.
Your horse will learn to resist their strong flight and fight reaction when fearful or anxious.
Step Four - Backing Up
Teaching a horse to back up correctly can solve many problem such as barging over the top of you when leading.
Backing up is a great asset when lunging and long-reining, especially for downward transitions and it helps your horse to led in position and stand correctly in the show ring.
Step Four will help to stop horses pulling on the bit under saddle, to come off the forehand and build up their back muscles before breaking in.
Most importantly the horse will gain confidence in you as a teacher and leader.
A lot of horses try to establish a pecking order by pushing their owners around. Backing up politely when cued will teach your horse to have respect for you and will stop any pecking order vices.
I like to combine body and voice cues for a very clear understanding. When I point and give a command, I want my horse to respond happily and obediently.
If he has been taught well, he will obey without question. This kind of training produces a very calm, relaxed horse who is confident in his position in the pecking order.
The backing up cue can be used for many situations:
- Backing out of the float
- Downward transitions on the lunge or when leading
- Teaching young horses to engage their hindquarters
- Teaching stallions to not rush at a mare
- Respect for you
- Leading in the show ring
Step Five - Flexing
Flexion is an important key to a well-trained horse and it should be taught on the ground first so that flexion under saddle is a natural extension of what the horse has already learned. Your horse needs to be able to flex for you to achieve total control in problem situations.
Learning to flex will improve your horses response to leg aids, bending through their neck and back and relaxing their back muscles. Your horse will become more supple for work under saddle.
Flexing also encourages your horse to reach out to smell you and communicate. By nature, a horse will turn away from a situation they are uncomfortable with. We want to change that mind-set and encourage them to flex towards us. Learning flexion gives us control not only of the horse’s body, but also his mind.
I teach five separate flexion exercises, which you are all clearly explained in my book and displayed in my video. If you are a person who learns best by seeing rather than reading, I really recommend my videos to teach you any of my ten steps.
The five flexion lessons are:
- Flexing the whole side
- Flexing toward you
- Flexing away
- Flexing from behind
- Flexing from the lead-rope
Step Six – Yielding to Pressure
Step Six is about teaching your horse to yield to pressure up, forward and down off the lead rope, in preparation for tying.
Incorrect tying up training is the basis of so many problems with horses. I see horses on a daily basis as I work that have problems associated with poor tying up training. If they are taught correctly to yield to pressure and do not develop a fear of restraint, they are much safer to be around and will have less fear based issues.
Such fears will create a horse which may be difficult to lead, being anxious, pushy and disrespectful. Such horses may be difficult to load on the float or will want to rush out backwards. Their fear comes from a fear of restraint. They have developed a resisting mind-set.
I don’t know about you, but I would far rather have a horse whose mind-set is yielding and willing.
John Chatterton teaches all horses to:
- Lower their head when pulling up on the lead
- Come forward
- Yield downwards when pulling down on the lead
- Yield to pressure over the poll
- Lower their head on a verbal signal
When a horse has learned all these things he is less likely to panic if he gets his head under his lead rope when tied up, if he gets a foot caught in a fence or over a lead rope when tied.A horse which yields instead of panicking is a much safer horse for humans to be around.
Step Seven – Yielding the body
Teaching a young horse to move their shoulders and hindquarters has many advantages, for example not pushing his shoulder into you when leading, or walking a horse in a clockwise circle away from you.
A horse which has been taught to yield its body with the minimum of pressure from the ground, will find more advanced training under saddle much easier. It’s mind as well as it body will be more flexible.
Horses which have a problem moving forward are sometimes referred to as ‘blocked through the shoulder’ and this is more of a mental inflexibility than a physical inability. Horses which are prone to rearing have the same problem but to a greater degree. If such horses had been properly educated on the ground, with understanding and respect, their blockages would never have occurred.
If you have control of your horses shoulder and hindquarters, you have control of his feet and also to some degree, his mind. He will learn to respect you as a leader and the bond between you will grow.
I teach people how to cue their horses to move either the front or the back end of their horse, or both together laterally, using verbal and hand cues. The combination of both means there is less confusion for the horse.
Step Seven is a very important step and naturally flows on from the previous Steps. It also prepares the horse for the subsequent Steps Eight, Nine and Ten.
Step Eight – Accepting Spooky Objects
Teaching your horse to accept spooky objects helps them to control their innate flight response. A shying or bolting horse is a safety risk to both themselves and their owner/handler.
The object of Step Eight, is not to get the horse used to scary objects, but to teach them that when they get a fright, they should stand still, look at the object and eventually to go to it and sniff at it.
It is very important that you have worked through all the previous Steps before attempting Step Eight. It is also very important that you have control of the spooky object/s that you are going to use. You need to know how to place yourself in safe positions when teaching your horse this Step.
One of the most important things to understand when teaching Step Eight, is that its OK for your horse to try and run away if he is frightened. He needs to make that mistake. Then you use Pull and Release to bring him back to you where he needs to learn it is comfortable to be. Soon he will stand while you move the spooky object around him, to look at it and want to inspect it.
If Step Eight is taught properly from the ground, using good timing – rewarding the 1% Rule – and, effective use of Pull & Release, your horse will be much safer under saddle as well. Horses that are prone to shying will especially benefit.
Step Nine – Leading In Position
A horse and owner who have worked through the previous eight steps is ready in Step Nine to put everything together.
There are only 2 steps not used in Step Nine, and they are Steps Three and of course Step Ten.
Step Ten – Lunging
In Step Ten you will be teaching your horse to go forward on a circle while learning to listen for your cues from a distance.
If the previous Steps have not been taught properly, your horse may not listen to you while he is moving at a distance from you.
If this is the case, go back through the steps calmly and patiently and ensure your body energy is low.
The Pull and Release Cue
The way that the discomfort is applied is important; most beliefs are based on you being higher in the pecking order or to be a dominant leader. For example; moving your horse out of your space by swinging a rope…. in the horse’s eyes, you are the bad guy.
Most horses are controlled via lunging in a round yard, some people called this training method pressing away or driving out, but John calls this chasing.
Your horse cannot choose the flight instinct when trapped in a round yard. When you are lunging your horse in a round yard your horse feels that you are a predator, chasing him with a whip or swinging a rope.
To learn, your horse needs to practise the flight instinct. We have video clips available to see the before and after “Spooky Horse” we used for the video.
The JC Method is totally the opposite. I encourage my horse to be in my space and if he is rude or pushy, I step out of his space using a long lead and my JC Halter and proceed the “pull and release” method.
I then bring the horse back to the same position and reward my horse with a rub on the side that I was working on.
I will often ask my horse after I have done the “pull and release” “what happened over there?” Standing quietly next to me is much more comfortable. It doesn’t take them long to work it out.
People are amazed at how quickly the horse relaxes and stands quietly next to me. There is no pressure next to John!
You will be amazed how quickly your horse will respond when you have mastered the “pull and release”.
Being Safe with Horses
John’s technique is based on what he calls affiliative behaviour and encourages a deep bonding relationship between horse and handler. An important result of this relationship is increased safety for both, resulting from a confident and trusting partnership.
The horse becomes less fearful of external influences and looks to his owner to be safe with; he becomes more relaxed and more respectful. The owner develops confidence from knowing what to do, becoming less tentative and more secure within the relationship.
John Chatterton’s Ten Step training method uses horse language, and is a training method John learned in South America which was in use long before ‘natural horsemanship’ became fashionable.
Most horse training methods have some things in common. They work on the horses’ innate need for submission in a hierarchical order.
Such training seeks to remove the horses’ flight response using negative reinforcement and domination or intimidation. Mostly the flight response is prevented before it happens.
John Chatterton believes this method will only be successful with some horses some of the time and much will depend on the horses early learned experiences and handling.
Over the years there has been a lot of different ways of describing John’s methods. To put this into a nutshell, it is a very simple method based on a ‘comfort zone’, meaning the horse feels safe when he is with you, a similar feeling that your horse would experience when he was a foal and felt safe with his mother.
There are other methods out in the horse world that use comfort and discomfort as a combination of a training method.
