Q. What makes a horse scared, nervous, or reactive?
A. Conflict. The conflict between what it is made to do and what it is thinking or wanting to do.
A horse notices a kangaroo grazing 20m away and bolts. Why? Because it believes 20m is not enough distance in order to feel safe. It wants a bigger bubble. Conflict.
A horse runs up and down the fence line when its buddy is taken away. Why? Because it wants to be with its buddy for safety and the fence is keeping them apart. Conflict.
A horse kicks out when a rider gets strong with their legs/whip to try to make it walk through a puddle. Why? Because the horse’s thought is to avoid the puddle and the rider is trying to strong-arm the horse across the puddle. Conflict.
A horse slows down when it goes past the arena gate and speeds up when it is heading towards the gate. Why? Because the horse’s idea is to leave the arena through the gate and the rider just keeps moving the feet. Conflict.
Every problem we face with our horses is based on a conflict between their idea to do something and our attempt to make them do something else. Every hiccup in our relationship stems from a conflict of ideas between our horse and us.
To be honest with you, I am tired of hearing the mantra that training is all about controlling the horse’s feet. I never want to see another YouTube clip where a trainer is describing how to make a horse yield its shoulders, its hindquarters, or the lateral bend without describing how to help a horse have the idea to do of those things first. I’m tired of it.
It’s easy to make horses do stuff. They are almost all wimps and easily succumb to any amount of bullying we impose in our efforts to make the feet do what we say. But getting a horse to do stuff that is not their idea is not good horsemanship. That’s slavery. No matter how compliant a horse maybe, it’s still slavery.
Conflict is created when we make a horse do stuff that is not its idea to do. Conflict is avoided when the stuff we want our horse do is the same as the stuff they want to do.
But this does not mean we starting becoming the horse’s slave and go along with every idea it has. It means we learn how to change what a horse is wanting to do to something closer to what we want it to do. Good horsemanship is about directing a horse’s thoughts, not its feet. When we change the horse’s idea to be the same as our idea, let it happen and peace and harmony will reign. There will be no conflict.
I know many of you will be questioning how do we change a horse’s thought. It is simple, but it is not easy.
Firstly, help it question the wisdom of the thought it has so that you stimulate a search for a new idea. If a horse believes its idea is not such a good idea it will search for a better one. For a horse to think about plan B it must always let go of plan A first.
Secondly, when it hits upon an idea that is closer to the one we want it to have, make sure the horse is convinced it is a great idea. Plan B must always work out well for the horse. Plan B should always lead to a horse feeling better and safer than plan A.
Both parts are essential. One without the other won’t work.
I am trying my best to spread the message that training is about directing a horse’s thoughts to influence its feet. I pound on about this at every clinic. But the teachers who teach this are a small minority. There is not enough of us. We need an army. If you agree with this message, we need your help to spread the word. Let’s do what we can to eradicate conflict in all horses.
A conflicted horse