Many people are attracted to liberty training because they perceive it as gentle and indicating a special relationship between horse and human. But let’s be clear about this. All liberty training began as non-liberty training. To get a horse to a stage of education that it can be worked to a reasonable degree of performance (not just hooking on) requires initially using non-liberty techniques.

I have seen many videos of horses being worked at liberty. They are either being ridden bareback and with no headgear or working on the ground without ropes or halters. Sometimes the trainer uses whips, flags, and food treats to direct the horses, but sometimes not. Some people work in small-ish yards and others work in large open spaces. Sometimes multiple horses are worked together while other times it is just one horse. The variety of maneuvers performed is almost limitless from flying changes every stride to several horses galloping side-by-side on a beach.

Nearly every time I see these videos or watch demonstrations at horse expositions, the overwhelming consensus of the general horse-loving public is “Wow”! People are amazed at the bond they presume exists between a horse and a human for the horse to perform such stunts without equipment to control them.

But in my view, there are pluses and minuses to training and working at liberty.

To begin with, let me say that the biggest positive to working a horse at liberty is that it reveals all our flaws. When we screw up in our liberty training, it’s obvious to the entire world. This is especially true in the early stages of training. In the later training, it may not be so obvious because most horses have learned enough about their job to fill in for our mistakes. But when a horse is still figuring out what is being asked, it doesn’t take much screwing up on our part for everything to unravel very quickly.

The second aspect of liberty work that I like is that it is fun. It’s lots of fun for us. I don’t think it is necessarily more fun for horses than non-liberty work, but it is fun for us. I think that’s an important reason for training at liberty because after all, working with horses is meant to be fun.

The only other plus of liberty work that I can think of is there is less wear and tear and expense on gear. But for somebody like me who has never owned good or expensive equipment, that’s not a big advantage.

But there are downsides to liberty work too – big ones. In my experience, it is rare to see horses working well or contented when performing liberty work. It’s rare enough to see when the gear is used, and almost unseen when the gear is not used.

I believe this is because most training (of any kind) concerns itself with obedience. Gear is designed to provide clarity to a horse. So when the gear is missing two things can go wrong. The first is that when we are training a horse intending to perform at liberty we tend to drill obedience at the expense of okay-ness. By its nature, liberty work requires a high degree of obedience (because the gear is not available to impose obedience), which means we often focus on the movement more than the emotions that accompany the movement.

The second issue relates to what I described above as the biggest positive of liberty work. Having no gear available when a horse makes a mistake does show our flaws, but it also makes the job of correcting a horse’s mistakes more difficult and often a lot less subtle.

One of the statements I hear a lot from people impressed with liberty training is “But the horse could run away if he didn’t like it.” But this is naive. Most horses would never volunteer to load into a trailer or stand quietly for a dentist, yet many do despite their troubled feelings.

It is tempting to put that sort of thinking down to people thinking like humans and not like horses. But in truth, it is not people thinking like people, it is people not thinking at all.

The reason why we can ride horses is because our training makes their mind so malleable that we can convince them of most things. This includes believing that at liberty they are trapped in their performance just as much as if we were using the harshest bits, the biggest spurs, the strongest ropes, and the highest fences. For some horses, this is how liberty training can feel.

I’m not suggesting that all liberty training is abusive, just like not all non-liberty training is abusive. But I do believe there is nothing so special about liberty training that it should be looked at with blind awe. Bad training or bad riding should not get a pass just because it is done at liberty. There is no point in liberty work if it is not held to the highest standard we would use for judging non-liberty training.

I am far more impressed by a trainer who can ask a horse to offer a relaxed and balanced trot whether or not the horse is wearing gear than I am by a trainer who has taught a horse fancy movements that are incorrect and accompanied by worry but with no gear.

I want to be clear that training and working horses at liberty can be great and indicate good work. But it can also be the opposite. It is not automatically true that being able to work with a horse at liberty is a sign of good training or a special relationship.