The Fire Horse – Training
The best way to win the heart of a Fire horse is to frequently tell him how much you love him and how special he is. Keep his activities stimulating and fun. The Fire horse loves to learn and enjoys pleasing people, but he is not emotionally tough and his feelings can be easily hurt if his efforts are not appreciated.
If a Fire horse has been pushed past his abilities or punished when he is trying his best, he can become anxious and unable to focus or learn. This is the horse that shows great promise but then “burns out” before the performance. Additional work in an effort to settle this horse down will only make matters worse. If the Fire horse gets confused, it is best to break down the lesson and work on one small piece at a time.
The Fire horse is able to take skills learned in one area and apply them to other types of work. If one exercise is not getting the results you want, try a completely different exercise that teaches the same skill. For instance, if your Fire horse is having trouble bending through his body to do a correct rollback, break the move down by asking him to take a backward step with his head bent around gently. Once he masters this maneuver then ask him to shift onto his hindquarters, bring his head around, and let his front end follow.
Because the Fire horse so desires to please, he can often make mistakes; but once shown how to do things correctly he seems to appreciate the direction, which also increases his trust in his rider. He will then take his newly-learned skills and apply them to other exercises that were challenging before. Taking extra time to allow the Fire horse to learn without stress pays off down the line.