One of the things that I am developing a reputation for is my skepticism about the growing trend to label a training method or a principle as being “scientifically proven”.
WHO UNDERSTANDS HORSES?
Confirmational Bias
It’s hard to ignore that some trainers are leaning on science to explain and justify their training principles and methods. However, none of the trainers I am familiar with have a background in science and research. None that I know read the peer-reviewed literature. None of them appear to have the depth of knowledge to gauge the merit of the science they are relaying. They depend on a third party to explain it to them in a way they can slot into their training and teaching.
Science-Based Training
The bottom line is that I believe using the “science” tag is nothing more than a marketing strategy. As a person trained in the rigorous sciences, it bothers me to see something as beautiful as good science exploited in this way. Despite the nice idea of using methods backed by scientific data, in reality, nothing changes for the horse or the trainer or the owner. Good trainers will still be good and bad trainers will still be bad irrespective of the science behind their methods
The Value Of Studying Wild Horse Behaviour
Let me first say that there are very few true wild species of horses in the world. I guess you could call the Tarpan and the Przewalski and the Zebra true wild species of the genus Equus. But what most people call wild horses are just feral horses. That is, they are domesticated breeds who escaped captivity sometime in the past.