Beyond the Tack: Building Communication Through Liberty Training

https://youtu.be/kgPJxzXo-6M

There is something undeniably special about riding a horse with absolutely nothing on them. No saddle. No bridle. No halter. No reins. Just a horse, a rider, and a conversation. And the funny thing about the video that inspired this post? None of it was planned.

It was just a random day at the barn. I was in my chore clothes and muck boots, certainly not dressed to film some polished training demonstration. I hopped on Kaiju—Kai—completely tackless and started playing around with the things we've spent so much time building. Walk. Trot. Canter. Stops. Changes of direction. Shoulder yields. Hip yields. No special preparation. No carefully planned filming day. No fancy outfit or tack. Just another day working with a horse. And somehow, something a little magical was produced.

Watching the video back, I realized that might actually be the perfect representation of what liberty training means to me. Because the magic wasn't created in that moment. It was built in the hundreds and thousands of little moments that came before it.

I'm Not a Liberty Performer—I'm a Horse Trainer

I think this is an important distinction to make. I'm not a professional liberty performer. I'm not training horses with the primary goal of creating elaborate routines or putting on a show. I'm a horse trainer who has a deep appreciation for the raw communication and connection that liberty can uncover.

And I think there is an incredible amount of that communication sitting just beneath the surface in many horse-and-human relationships. It's simply being left on the table. Most riders spend years learning how to use their reins, legs, seat, and equipment more effectively. We learn how to steer, stop, bend, collect, move shoulders, move hips, and influence our horses' bodies. Those are important skills. But sometimes we become so accustomed to communicating through our equipment that we never stop to find out how much of that conversation could exist without it.

What happens when the rope comes off?

What happens when you can't use the reins?

Can you still move the horse's feet?

Can you still influence their body?

Can you send them away and bring them back?

Can you regulate their energy?

Will they choose to remain part of the conversation when they have the freedom to leave it?

There is an entire layer of horsemanship there that many owners simply haven't had the opportunity to explore.

Not because they aren't capable of it.

Because nobody ever taught them that they CAN do it.

Liberty Is More Than Tricks

When people think of liberty, they often picture the flashy stuff—a horse running alongside their trainer without a lead rope, performing tricks, laying down, rearing, or riding around without a bridle.

Those things can certainly be part of liberty work, but they aren't where liberty begins.

In my training program, liberty is about developing communication that becomes progressively less dependent on equipment.

Can I move the horse's shoulders?

Can I move the hindquarters?

Can I influence the ribcage?

Can I send the horse away and draw them back?

Can I control direction and speed?

Can I transition between gaits?

Can I communicate all of those things with increasingly smaller cues?

Those are the building blocks that eventually allow us to take the equipment away without taking the communication away with it.

Tackless Riding Doesn't Start Tackless

One of the questions I get about liberty and tackless riding is how you even begin teaching a horse to do something like this. The answer isn't particularly flashy: You build an incredibly solid foundation.

Before I expect a horse to perform an exercise at liberty, I want them to understand what I'm asking with more traditional communication tools available. We establish individual control of the shoulders, hips, and ribcage. We teach the horse to understand pressure and release. We work on forward movement, transitions, stopping, backing, lateral movement, and changes of direction.

Then we begin refining. The cues get lighter. The handler's body position becomes more important.

The horse learns to recognize changes in energy and intention. Under saddle, the horse learns to respond more independently to the rider's seat, weight, and legs instead of relying entirely on the reins. Eventually, we can start removing pieces of equipment.

Tackless riding shouldn't be about having less control. It should be about needing less equipment to communicate. And that's something that can be systematically taught.

Teaching the Horse AND the Human

This is one of the parts of liberty training that I especially enjoy. I'm not interested in simply teaching a horse a collection of liberty behaviors and handing the finished product back to their owner. I want to teach the person on the other end of the conversation, too. Because liberty requires us to become incredibly aware of what we're communicating.

Where are your shoulders?

Where are your feet?

Where is your energy directed?

Are you drawing the horse toward you or accidentally pushing them away?

Did you release when the horse gave you the correct answer?

Are you asking clearly, or are you unknowingly giving several different cues at the same time?

Horses are constantly reading us, whether we realize it or not. Liberty training teaches us how to become much more intentional about what we're saying. That's why teaching liberty to owners can be just as rewarding as teaching it to horses. The goal isn't for your horse to perform liberty beautifully for me.

The goal is to help you learn how to have that conversation with your own horse.

Liberty Will Show You the Holes

One of my favorite things about liberty is how honest it is. A lead rope can sometimes hide a hole in your groundwork. A rein can compensate for an unclear cue. Physical pressure can create a response even when the horse doesn't completely understand what you're asking. Take those things away and suddenly you get a much clearer picture. If I ask a horse to move their shoulder at liberty and nothing happens, I can't simply pick up a rein and put the shoulder where I wanted it. I have to look at the communication.

Does the horse actually understand the cue?

Is my body positioned correctly?

Did I accidentally block the direction I wanted them to travel?

Did I release at the right moment?

Have I actually taught this exercise, or have I been relying on the equipment to create it?

That's incredibly valuable information. Liberty doesn't just test the horse.

It tests the rider, too.

From Groundwork to Tackless Riding

Liberty isn't a separate little category of training that I pull out when I want to do something impressive. It's intertwined with everything else I do. Good groundwork improves liberty. Liberty exposes holes in groundwork. Groundwork transfers into ridden work. Ridden work can then become lighter and more refined until the horse is increasingly responsive to the rider's body rather than the equipment. That's what you're seeing in this ride with Kai. The walk, trot, and canter are fun, but simply moving through three gaits without tack isn't the most important part. I'm much more interested in whether I can still influence his body.

Can I move the shoulders independently?

Can I yield the hip?

Can I change direction?

Can I regulate speed?

Can I bring the energy up into a canter and then bring everything back down into a stop?

When those conversations are still available after the equipment comes off, that's where things get really exciting. And on this particular day, there wasn't some big moment where I decided, Today we're going to demonstrate tackless riding. I was doing chores. I was wearing muck boots. I hopped on. And we started talking. That's what makes this video so special to me.

Liberty Isn't Just for "Special" Horses

Sometimes people watch liberty work and assume the horse must simply be unusually talented, unusually calm, or have some magical connection with the trainer. Some horses certainly have a natural aptitude for it. But liberty is trainable.

You don't need to start with a horse who already follows you everywhere. You don't need a perfectly quiet horse. You don't need a horse who already knows a dozen tricks. And you certainly don't need some mysterious natural gift that allows you to communicate with horses differently than everyone else.

You need a foundation, good timing, clear communication, consistency, and a willingness to break complicated behaviors into small, understandable pieces.

Those are skills that can be learned.

You Don't Have to Ride Tackless to Benefit From Liberty

Not everyone who trains liberty is working toward riding their horse around completely naked.

And they don't need to be. Liberty can improve so many aspects of your everyday horsemanship.

It can help develop a horse who is more attentive to your body language. It can improve your timing and feel. It can expose gaps in your groundwork before those gaps become bigger problems under saddle.

It can also make training FUN.

Liberty gives us opportunities to play, experiment, problem-solve, and communicate with our horses in ways that aren't always centered around riding. For some horse-and-handler teams, the ultimate goal might be advanced liberty work or tackless riding. For another, success might simply be having a horse who willingly stays connected while working loose.

Both are worthwhile.

Want to Learn Liberty With Your Horse?

This is a part of horse training that I absolutely love to be a part of. Whether you're starting with the very basics of groundwork, wanting to transition established groundwork into liberty, interested in developing more advanced liberty maneuvers, or dreaming about eventually riding your horse tackless, there is a progression to get you there.

You don't have to know where to start. That's my job.

We can identify what your horse already understands, find the holes in the foundation, and build a training progression that makes sense for both of you. Because the ultimate goal isn't to teach you how to take the halter or bridle off. It's to build communication good enough that taking it off becomes possible.

That's the part of training that I love.

And that's the part I love teaching.

Looking back at this video, I think the fact that it wasn't planned makes me love it even more.

There was no carefully staged demonstration. No coordinated outfit. No clean boots. No big production.

Just me in chore clothes and muck boots, hopping on a Mustang on an otherwise ordinary day. And then something magical happened. Not because of what we took away, but because of everything we'd already put in. The hours of groundwork. The repetitions. The mistakes. The tiny improvements. The conversations. All of those ordinary training days eventually created a moment where I could hop on a naked horse in my muck boots and simply ask. And he understood.

And if you've ever watched something like this and thought, I wish I could do that with my horse, I'd love to help you learn how. Because moments like this may look like magic.

But the really exciting part is that the magic can be taught!