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The type of riding I do is called eventing, in which there are three components; dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country jumping. Although you have to remember your course for each of them, dressage is the most rigid, in which you have a set 'test' to memorize and perform. Below is part of a novice level test, the letters pertain to the parts of the arena.

In the process of learning this test, I naturally go through stages of Gentile's 2D taxonomy. The taxonomy is a great tool for determining what activities might help someone improve a skill. When learning a dressage test for a show, I generally start by walking it with no horse. There is a transport component but no object manipulation, intertribal variability, or moving regulatory conditions, it's just me in an empty arena walking around. Once I have it mainly memorized, I ride it at a walking speed on my horse. This means there is now a transport and object manipulation component (my horse), but no intertribal variability or moving regulatory conditions as we are just walking.

Now that I am familiar with the test, I will complete parts of the whole thing, including walking, trotting, and cantering. This is where my horse will act up and be unpredictable at times. Therefore, I have added in inter-trial variability. We are still in the arena at home, so there are stationary regulatory conditions. This could change if another rider would enter the arena, in that case there would be moving regulatory conditions because we would have to work around each other and change our actions to compensate. Sometimes there are jumps set up in the arena that block the path I am supposed to take, this would be a stationary regulatory variable. At the show, there will also be stationary regulatory conditions. This appears in the form of the judges box, while this may not be in my way or affect my thinking, it changes how my horse moves. Most horses will try to shy away from the judges box, and therefore you have to consider it in planning your movements, meaning using one leg more to keep the horse moving in a straight line past the judges box.

Practicing the dressage test at home also relates to what I explained about practice variability. My coach always told me to never practice the full test over and over again. You should practice portions of it, such as 20 meter circles, then move to diagonal lines, then go back to circles, then maybe practice halting. This makes a lot of sense now because we learn better when we practice randomly rather than in blocks.

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Every now and then a new horse comes to the farm and some stall rearranging has to be done. Our barn is organized so that there is an upper and lower barn each with about ten stalls, so there are two entrances and a ramp connects them. Generally we try to avoid taking the horses up the ramp as they can slip. So when horses switch stalls, you have to continuously remind yourself not to bring horses to the spot they used to be or you'll make a longer trip for yourself. We added two donkey's to the farm family a few years back and they moved one of the other horses from the lower barn to the upper barn to accommodate. Almost every shift for a week I would walk that horse into the lower barn, open up their stall door and find two donkey's looking at me. I'd turn around and walk the horse back out and around to the upper barn telling myself I'd remember next time. This is a case of negative transfer, which is generally shortly lived. It is caused by learning one thing, and then having some aspect of it slightly switched. In this case, I learned where all the horses go, but then this was rearranged and I repeatedly made mistakes about where I was meant to be walking. Below is a picture of the donkeys, Wanda and Deb, because they're adorable and even though negative transfer occurred I'm positive they are the cutest.

Another time I experienced negative transfer was when a new barn door was put on, and for some reason they decided to make it push the opposite direction. So instead of pulling to go in and pushing to go out, it was a push to go in and a pull to go out. Because there was a door handle on both sides, there were no cues as to with direction you are meant to pull. This resulted in cognitive confusion for everyone at the farm. We were all making the correct movement, but in the wrong location. What was right before was now the correct movement for the other side of the door. Although negative transfer happens every now and then, it generally doesn't drastically hinder our motor abilities because it is short lived.

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My horseback riding trainer always used to say practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. It is very important that you aren't practicing the wrong way because when you're riding, you aren't only influencing your habits, but your horses as well. So if you are practicing with wrong form for example, you're affecting how your horse is learning. A vital part of practice is how you adapt your learning to increase your performance at a horse show. At home, you are always riding around the same horses, in the same arena (indoor vs outdoor, grass vs sand), and jumping the same jumps. The show grounds often have very different conditions, and if you know anything about horses, then you know they spook at any small change. This can greatly impact your performance at a show. Even though you and your horse may be jumping complex patterns and tall jumps at home, at a show there are different jumps that look scary to your horse, there are lots of noises and people and horses pick up on rider's nervousness.

Not only is the environment different, but you don't have a coach telling you to look up, or put your heels down in the stirrups. As mentioned, horses can easily sense when a rider is scared, and often take advantage of this. At my second horse show, I was bucked off in warm up which may have never happened at home, but I was overwhelmed by all the riders and the different environment and noises.

Even though the environment changes when you go to a horse show, there are ways to practice at home so that you can prepare and make adaptations for showtime. This includes desensitization, which often takes form by using a large tarp and a lot of patience. The goal is to have the horse walk calmly over the tarp, this desensitizes the horse to different footing and loud nosies. Not only do you prepare yourself to deal with difficult situations but your horse learns to deal with them too. This can be done in many other ways to prepare your horse as well. I found the best way to ready both yourself and your horse for a show was going on trail rides. You encounter many new things and can deal with them without an audience and judge. So while some riders focus on the actual performance they will be judged on, others take time to go off the farm and get their horse used to new things. They may not be practicing specific jumps or routines, but these horses tend to do better at the horse shows. So although a person may look great in practice, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll look great at a show.

Practice variability is also related to adaptability. People who ride with more variation in their practice do better than those who practice the same thing repeatedly. This is especially true with horses because not only do you get bored with repeated practice, but so does your horse. By putting yourself in many different situations, you learn to deal with each one and make several strategies. This allows your brain to compare and contrast the skills and ultimately leads to more learning and memory. So if you've only practiced one line of jumps over and over, you may have that mastered, but it is very unlikely that the show will have those same jumps in that same order. You should practice many different combinations to prepare yourself.

Below are two pictures, one at a horse show and one at home practicing in different weather conditions.

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Choice reaction time is crucial to working with animals. When I first started working at the farm, I hadn't had much experience with the "herd" mentality that horses have. At feeding time, they can get very pushy at the gate, especially the females. A few months into working there, I was taking out a horse when she pulled me and I lost a grip on the gate. This is a classic choice reaction time task, in which I made the wrong choice.

Choice one: you let the horse you are holding loose and grab the gate instead to keep the other fifteen horses in.
Outcome: one horse loose, fifteen not (quick and correct choice reaction time).

Choice two: panic and try to keep the one horse you already have in control while letting the gate open.
Outcome: fifteen horses loose plus the one you had control of because she was not going to let the herd leave without her (slow and incorrect choice reaction time).

You can imagine which choice I made. If I had a better choice reaction time ability, I could have quickly reacted to the correct stimuli and closed the gate before the horses got out. As I spent more time at the farm, my choice reaction time ability became better, and I was able to make correct and quick decisions around the animals. There are many situations on the farm when choice reaction time is important, and most of them involve catching horses and safely getting them out of the paddock. With many horses fighting over who gets to be brought in for feeding first, it can be challenging to get a rope around a horse and out of the paddock without another horse kicking or running at the fence. When I work, I am able to decide if I have time to get horse A out before horse B runs at the gate. Younger workers are more likely to have a slower choice reaction time, and let a horse loose. With experience, you can rapidly chose to get the horse out, or let go of the horse and close the gate.

There are also individual differences in choice reaction time, such as age. The owner of the farm often tries to avoid situations where choice reaction time is important as she gets older. Choice reaction time declines with old age, especially in women. If someone older is put in a position where they have to make an important choice between multiple stimuli quickly, it can often be dangerous. Additionally, as mentioned the younger workers and riders are still making gains in reaction time, and by age 18 this should be fully developed. Below is one of the instances when the herd broke free. This time it wasn't my fault, but I believe one of the younger girls was in a similar position as I was and made the same choice. The buckets you see are filled with food and work great for getting the riled up horses back in the paddock.

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If you want to be woken up at 6 am and then attacked, a rooster is the pet for you. Roosters have been known to be one of the most evil barnyard animals, they instigate fights, surprise attack, and can move surprisingly quick. This is why every chicken owner needs good eyesight. The eye acts as a sensor and effector, which is very important to avoid a nasty scratch from sharp talons.

Picture this scenario for example... If you're job is only to enter the chicken coop and stand there, you're eyes would just have to act as a sensor. You would be able to keep your eye on the rooster at all times by just moving your body and taking in what you see. If the rooster runs at you, you have a built in system to react at the critical point of Tau. The rooster gets larger on your retina as it approaches, and you can determine when you need to run away. Easy peasy. But how often do you walk into a chicken coop and just stand there, or maybe the question for you is how often do you go in a chicken coop? Normally there is a job to do, fill water, feed food, pick up eggs. An overly protective rooster can make these tasks very difficult. This is why it is important for your eyes to work not only as a sensor, but also an effector.

The goal is to keep your eye on the rooster at all times so you can react appropriately when the rooster attacks. So you bend down to fill up the water up, you're eyes are able to vertically rotate using your superior and inferior rectus to keep looking up. Maybe you turn sideways to collect eggs, your eyes can horizontally rotate using the lateral and medial rectus. Finally, the rooster runs at you while you're squatting on the ground topping off the food, your eyes use the superior and inferior obliques for torsion, as the rooster comes closer, your eyes turn in a little. All of these are important to allow you to keep track of important things in your environment. They work together to allow for saccades as you check out the environment, smooth pursuit, as you follow the roosters movement, and vergence, converging your eyes as the rooster approaches.
The picture below shows some cute newborn chicks, however, at least one of these is bound to turn into a rooster and test your visual abilities... and reaction time.