How does Warwick Schiller approach a horse that is tense and resistant at the beginning of every ride and takes a long time to settle?

A horse that is consistently tense, resistant, and difficult to settle at the beginning of every ride — regardless of how well it went at the end of the previous session — is showing a chronic elevated baseline that Warwick Schiller addresses as a nervous system and relationship problem rather than simply a training problem. Schiller's explanation is that these horses are arriving at each session already activated — from stall stress, from herd dynamics, from anticipatory anxiety about work, or from a general baseline nervous system level that is higher than optimal. The training session does not begin from a neutral baseline for these horses; it begins from an already elevated state, which means the early part of every session is consumed with managing activation rather than with productive work. His approach to chronic session-start tension is to change what happens before the riding begins. Rather than immediately saddling and mounting, he invests time before each session in bringing the horse to a regulated baseline — sometimes this is quiet grooming, sometimes walking together at liberty, sometimes simply standing with the horse and waiting for processing signals before any equipment is introduced. The session does not begin until the horse has shown genuine relaxation rather than merely the absence of dramatic behavior. Schiller also investigates what produces the activation: is it the approach of the handler, suggesting the relationship needs work? Is it the sight of the saddle, suggesting a pain association? Is it the arena environment, suggesting environmental anxiety? Each source of session-start tension points to a different intervention. Clinton Anderson's approach to the slow-to-settle horse is more active: energetic groundwork at the beginning of the session to channel and direct the horse's excess energy before mounting. His position is that a horse that has too much energy at the beginning of a session can have some of that energy directed productively through longing and yielding before the rider gets on.