Priority to Positive 5 Core Principles

Via Nova’s Priority to Positive approach brings Positive Reinforcement to the traditional horse world in a practical and effective way.

Priority to Positive 5-step graphic

When using Positive Reinforcement, you’ll view training your horse from a whole new angle. Use these 5 Core Principles as your mental map to R+ training. Each principle is a guidepost that points you toward the important concepts and tools on this new path.

When R+ training feels stuck or confusing, use these principles to find your way. They’ll help you think like a Positive Reinforcement trainer!

Explore our Principles

1. Understand Motivation
Desire vs Avoidance

Is your horse seeking something or avoiding something? Understanding this important distinction changes everything about how you train..

a dark bay horse at liberty jumps a white wooden cavaletti. A young woman in helmet and blue shirt cues the horse forward with a pointing gesture. Blue traffic cones and plastic striped cone bars in the foreground, large arena in background under clear blue sky

2. Look for Your “YES”
Flip Your Negative Mindset

When you have a way to say YES, instead focusing on what you don’t want your horse to do, you can train what you do want.

horse's face as its muzzle makes contact with a white, egg-shaped object mounted on a thin wooden dowel. The dowel is set into a white base. In the blurred background, a silver horse trailer with an open ramp and a metal pipe fence are visible under a bright sky.

3. Create Opportunity
Use the Training Tools Your Horse Wants to Learn

Your horse will be eager for training when you utilize the many tools and skills of R+ that create opportunity for them to earn rewards.

A chestnut horse trots at liberty. A young woman in yellow shirt cues the horse with a blue and white bouy target from inside a reverse round pen built from white traffic cones and striped cone poles.Background of deep green pinon and juniper trees on a hillside

4. Shape Toward What You Want
Thin Slices & Building Blocks

Break the behavior into manageable pieces so the horse can succeed. Small steps create big progress. Clarity helps your horse learn faster.

In an outdoor riding arena, a person wearing a helmet and a teal long-sleeved shirt walks alongside a bay horse as it steps onto a low, wooden plank bridge. The person has a white treat pouch attached to their waist and walks with a loose arm position near the horse's shoulder. The horse is without a halter or bridle. In the background, a wooden and wire fence separates the arena from a hillside with green bushes and trees under a clear blue sky.

5. Set Up for Success
It’s Not Cheating to Make It Easy

Remove roadblocks and frustration wherever and whenever you can. Making it easy builds confidence, and confidence builds reliability.

Why These Principles Matter

At Via Nova, we know every equestrian can benefit from understanding how behavior and learning actually work. When you apply these principles, you can improve any horse, in any discipline, at any level.

Our facility at the Terra Nova Equestrian Training Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, serves as a working laboratory for this approach. Here, we refine and test our methods with horses in varied situations, from young-horse education to upper-level goals.

This commitment to continual research and application aims to establish a new benchmark for training excellence within the equestrian community, emphasizing the well-being and success of both horse and rider.