Humans are so quick to categorize and label others. We put people and animals into pigeonholes based purely on our experience of them. But most of the time our experience is limited and we only get to know a small part of an individual.
The jokester, “handy with horses” fellow that people at clinics know me to be is not the same shy, hermit-like person that is my natural propensity to be and certainly not the tall, dark, sexy man my wife knows me to be . All those shades of me are real and true, but none of them give the whole picture of what type of person I am. None of them alone tell you who I am.
We label a horse as a bully in a herd. We see how it chases off the weaker horses and lays claim to the shady spot under the tree. But if we put that bully in a different herd, we might re-think our labelling when we see it is the one that is chased away.
We label a horse as pushy because it is always crowding us and expecting us to get out of its way. When we don’t move out of its way the horse might get cranky or try to nip at us as a warning. But then we see how quiet, careful, and soft that same horse can be when a child clumsily runs up to pat it with a slap on the face.
We label the entire genus Equus as prey animals, in that they are preyed upon by predator species. Yet I’ve seen a horse run for its life from kangaroos (another prey animal). And that same horse chase a dog (a predator) out of its paddock that dared to enter its domain.
I use to label my horse, Chops as a Ferrari on legs. She was quick, smart, and incredibly sensitive to the tiniest signal or thought. Several years ago I encouraged a few clinic goers to sit on her for the experience. One person could not get Chops to move and another could not get her to stop. To those riders, she was not a Ferrari on legs. They had different labels to pin on her.
Horses are not one thing. They don’t fit into one box. Horses are different things in different contexts. The most fearful horse can be the bravest horse in some circumstances. The Quarter Horse built like a ski slope could be an outstanding dressage horse if given the chance. The craziest ex-racehorse could be the world’s greatest kid's pony if it found the right home.
We see horses through our eyes and our closeted perspective. We label horses based on how we get along with them and how they fit into our world. But that’s too narrow a viewpoint. That’s not the horse you really have in your life. Horses are so much more than we see.
Chops is on the job