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I remember the first and only time I saw Tom Dorrance give a horsemanship clinic. One of the things that surprised me was how quickly he would tell folks to move on to some other task. Although he said nothing about the why of it, I though the why was pretty clear. Enough is enough. If you get a good try or some limited success, move on. I have since been to several barrel horse training clinics where the instructor has been the same. He asks us why we want to do the same thing over and over when the horse made a good effort or even got it done correctly the first time. So, why is that the order of the day? Well, according to some recent research done in Switzerland: 1. The average maximum continuous attention span of the horses in the study was 11.8 seconds. Breed, sex and family links had no impact on attention span. 2. Young horses (3 to 7 years), intermediate horses (8 to 14 years) and old horses (15 to 23 years) showed significant differences when asked to repeat the test during the second stage of the experiment. 3. None of the young horses improved their performance. More than half of them did not perform as well. 4. Most of the old horses showed no difference, although some individuals improved. 5. The intermediate group varied with either improved or stayed the same. The conclusion is just what the experts have told us all along. It is better to spend a short time (minutes) working on something new followed by a short break or by a visit to an already learned task (which allows the horse to be successful and builds the horse's confidence). In other words, practice makes worser (i.e. No Drilling). A hard lesson to learn?
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