09/03/2025
Credit to Dr Shelley Appleton Calm Willing Confident Horses for writing this piece:
I agree. A whip/crop is an effective and useful tool in the right hands with many uses.
As an extension of our arms as us humans are vertical and horses are horizontal it benefits to help extend our arms to help communicate the direction we are asking.
There is a way to go about it to create an understanding between you and your horse that the whip is not a threat and is just a further way of communicating what we are asking.
WHIPS (PART 1) – TRAINING TOOL TO ESTABLISH COMMUNICATION OR WEAPON OF PAIN, FEAR & DOMINANCE? 😱
I’m starting a discussion about whips. It's long (sorry)but needed and I hope you manage the attention to get through these words I have written. This is Part 1, focusing on their use and role in training. In the next part, I’ll dive into the conversations surrounding them—because there’s some seriously manipulative stuff happening in influencer land on social media. It is unfair to shame and guilt people for using a tool that is effective at establishing communication and meaning with horses in the early stages of training.
Standing up against such tactics and misinformation is worth the inevitable backlash I know I am going to be subjected to😎.
I use whips. In fact, I also sell them—because I struggled to find one with the right weight and length, so I had some made.
A whip can be used in many ways to shape that communication. Whilst it can touch (to varying degrees of aversiveness), it is also a tool that can be used to help block or direct a horse’s thought or draw attention to a body part to help establish meaning. In a nutshell, whips can help create a physical experience for the horse’s sensory system to identify and adapt to. All with the aim of creating meaning and understanding—what can be labelled “clarity.”
Seeing it as a device that works by causing pain and fear is an incredibly limited idea of how a whip is used. However, I am not going to judge anyone for thinking that way because that is exactly how I used to see them until I was exposed to being taught to use them with finesse and skill and was able to experience how horse after horse responded.
I have also seen whips described as tools used with the intent to dominate a horse. This is also an extremely limited insight into what a whip helps you achieve. I do not even consider the concept of domination when I work with a horse; I am simply training them to understand what I mean and how to recognise that. I don’t want a horse that is fearful, submissive, and scared of me. I want a horse that does not feel threatened, that understands, and is confident with what I am asking them to do… and I am very successful at achieving this by using a whip with finesse within a training framework.
However, the whip is indeed a tool that requires great respect.
Poor use of the whip can cause a range of issues with a horse, from fear and frustration to confusion, and can even result in the horse completely disregarding you as anything to pay attention to. It is a tool that requires the development of great skill to use for its purpose of conveying meaning. It requires practice to use it well. Still to this day, I practise my whip skills regularly. I practise my timing and coordination and make sure I keep my body ambidextrous in its use.
Therefore, having people see the whip as a weapon of pain, fear, and dominance is not surprising! It was my experience of trying to use a training stick without good guidance and instruction that led me to my initial thoughts. I will never forget it. I went off to a horsemanship clinic, and my horse at the time freaked out at the training stick in my hand. One of the trainers came over and offered to help—my horse continued to freak out. The trainer then gave up. So I had very good evidence! However, in hindsight, that was because I was not getting good instruction, and the trainer that helped me wasn’t that skilled. It is the equivalent of someone attempting to train using clicker training with positive reinforcement, doing it badly, and ending up with a stressed, food-obsessed horse and concluding that positive reinforcement training has a terrible effect on horses!
I have people come to me saying their horse does not like whips or training sticks, yet I haven’t had a horse I couldn’t help work out that the whip is no threat to them. These horses have been exposed to a whip used poorly or have been reacting to doing something they physically struggle with due to a soundness issue. The emotional response of the horse to the activity has then been falsely attributed to fear of the whip, when in reality, the horse has been overwhelmed by the activity, and the whip is magnifying that. Hence, the misguided correlation to the whip being the cause of the overwhelm displayed by the horse. Not only can I get these horses good with whips, but I can also get in there and train the response and adapt the horse’s behaviour, therefore eliminating the need to use a whip.
My goal with a horse is to establish a way of communicating with them that is very soft and gentle. Primarily, this is through the gentle pick-up of reins, the application of leg and seat signals. On the ground, I want to be able to guide them around softly too. I want a way of handling the horse that is devoid of conflict, resistance, and brace—where the horse doesn’t feel threatened and works out that I don’t cause them any trouble. That they can navigate what I ask, what we do, and where we go. I want my communication to be quiet and gentle, not just for their comfort in working with me, but because getting a horse to pay attention to small sensations or feelings on their bodies, sounds, or small gestures I make is how I get a horse “with me” and not distracted by the world. I capture their attention through their sensory system… not just through fear. Some people get so hung up on the role of fear in learning. They miss the important detail about how associations and conditioning change with time, experience, and an animal being able to identify a stimulus or situation as safe.
Therefore, I use the whip to eliminate it from the horse’s life and from my communication with them. If I am still using the whip, I haven’t managed to achieve true clarity with a horse. I haven’t been able to get them to a point where they identify their interactions with me as safe. My need to keep using the whip is a red flag that there is a potential interference in the horse’s ability to learn. The interference may be something else they have learnt in their past, an association they have that I need to address first, or commonly, it is coming from a soundness issue. It is hard to teach a horse to perform something if moving and performing the task makes them feel uncomfortable.
I welcome your thoughts. I allow you to have your own beliefs as long as you respect mine and my experience. I have not come to my own conclusions lightly. They have been cultivated by extensive research, study, and, importantly, by working with hundreds of different horses. My number one priority and consideration is the welfare of the horse. I acknowledge my previous beliefs about whips and flags and how they were formed and changed. My skills and ability to work with horses mean that I can help a wide variety of horses and the situations they may be in.
My hope with this article is to open people's minds to the fact that there is much more to whips than pain, fear, and dominance. Just because some equestrian influencer is telling you to throw away your evil whip because loving horse owners don’t use whips - does not mean they have any credibility about how to help you or your horse. This is a manipulative, narrow and flawed view of the role and use of a whip within the training framework.
📸IMAGE: Learning to hold and coordinate the whip comes before learning how to use it. Many people struggle to hold and coordinate the whip and then trying to create communication and meaning between themselves and the horse because a struggle.
PS. Respect to all my fellow horse trainers, coaches and instructors who understand the years of dedication and learning to not only train horses but help and encourage people to develop the skills they need. ❤
fans
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