When I’m working w/ a horse for the 1st time I touch & rub them a lot plus talk to them. Horses love to be scratched & you’ve probably seen horses in the pasture scratching each other. Most of the time they’re helping each other by scratching areas they can’t reach, but they’re also buddies & very familiar w/ each other. When I’m curry combing a horse sometimes I’ve seen him wiggling his nose because it feels good. Grooming your horse & in a kind way is the 1st part to let your horse know you’re good.
When a horse is rideable I use the reward of touch & voice when they’re doing something right. You need to respond fast so they understand what they just did is good. Wait too long & they won’t associate what action was good & what you wanted, so praise them w/ touch maybe by rubbing the neck & also talking to them. They learn fast by your repeated actions.
We had a big black Saddlebred Horse that I constantly talked to when I was working him by saying walk when I wanted him to do that, trot when that’s what he needed to do, & the same w/ canter. When cantering him I would gently pull on the rein toward the rail & say “canter”, & he’d canter w/ the correct lead. Our son was 10 & started showing him in Country Pleasure Classes & did a wonderful job because the horse was trained to voice commands. The horse was great on association & even while cross-tied I would always start grooming him the same way. I would get a hoof pick & immediately he would have his leg up ready for me. I’d go to his back left, & his leg was up ready for me & same thing on the rest of his legs. He knew I was heading there & he associated what to do next w/ my actions.
I’ve also used praise when teaching a horse to rack. This is a gait that isn’t natural for a horse. I have my horse shoer put heavy shoes on his back feet & leave him barefoot on the front. When a horse trots his diagonal feet come up @ the same time & this is bouncy so the rider usually needs to post. If a horse is pacing both side feet come up @ the same time. A rack is very close to a pace, but his side feet come up not quite @ the same time. If you’d work your horse outside on firm ground, when he’s trotting you can hear a 2 beat of the his feet hitting the ground. Most of the time the rider will need to post in his saddle. A pace is smooth, will have a slight swing motion & is smooth for the rider. This will have a 2 beat too. The rack is also a smooth ride, but the beat will be different. You will hear a 1,2, 3, 4 beat if the horse is doing it right. When I’m 1st starting a horse to rack & I know they’re doing the correct beat, I will stop them & praise w/ voice & rubbing their neck or back. Then we start again. They understand they had done something correctly & usually continue further each time. It isn’t long before we’re traveling quite a few feet racking.
All animals enjoy being rewarded , especially horses & remember to praise them a lot when they’re being good. A mean rider hitting his horse when he thinks it isn’t doing something right will make a mean horse. He will not learn very fast plus you’ll both be miserable.