Before beginning to train a horse it may help to reflect on what differentiates the real trainer and hack. Of course an experienced trainer will have more techniques to draw upon but I do not think this is the real difference.

I think we all can agree on these statements and make them axioms (self evident truths):

1. Horses will attempt actions that bring about positive events and avoid actions that bring about negative events.
2. Every learning experience is a mixture of positive and negative events.
3. Every horse is different in his sensitivity to these two forces.

Certainly the primary reason horses resist training is they do not know what is being asked of them. To make matters worse many requirements of a well trained horse means they must unlearn natural reflexive behavior. I think some folks may argue that horses sometimes display willful disobedience. I do not know how to prove or disprove this supposition but fortunately we do not have to agree on this: the best training techniques throw out punishment as a training tool, which suggests to me willful disobedience may not be in a horses emotional repertoire. Note well that punishment is vastly different than negative reinforcement. Using these two axioms and some common observations about horses, we can distill out the traits that are needed to become a sucessful trainer and something about sucessful training techniques.

Positive and negative rewards get easily confused. Look at the case of offering a treat to the horse that turns his butt towards you when you enter the stall. Are you rewarding the bad behavior? After all the undesired behavior, turning his butt, has produced a reward. You could also consider that he only gets the treat when he turns around, this is a positive reward for turning around? Hmmm... could it be that different horses might look upon this situation different and learn different lessons? Even giving a horse a treat has negative aspects when the treats stop coming. We know this because then the horses will them try a selection of behaviors to get them started again. Reward the wrong behavior and you will get more of the wrong behavior. Too little or poorly applied positive reward and the horse does not understand what you want. Too much or poorly applied negative reinforcement results in a horse that becomes fearful or resistive.

I put forth these two corollaries, horses are trained easiest when:

1. Positive behavior is rewarded as early as possible in the good behavior
2. A minimum amount of negative reinforcement is applied for the horse to understand: I should be doing something different.

The good trainer is the person who can read the individual correctly and then apply these two ideas. I believe it is possible to look at a horse and have a good idea of what he is thinking. It is in his eyes, his ears, his bearing, his actions. Two horses may both be doing essentially the same thing but with two opposite thoughts in his mind. If you apply the positive reward while he is thinking about doing the right thing this is a powerful force to "do right". If you apply a negative reinforcement while he is thinking about doing right, but not doing it yet, this is a powerful force to "do wrong", after all you told him his thoughts are incorrect.