02/09/2025
✨Why Work Is Not Abuse: Rethinking Our Relationship With Horses 🐎
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A horse that thinks, takes charge, and moves with purpose, this is what the working-horse mindset can give us.
I’m writing about the difference between a sport horse, a hobby horse, and a working horse. In Europe today, most of the horses we ride fall into the first two categories, because the tradition and understanding of the true working horse has largely disappeared. It still survives in parts of the world where ranching and cowboy culture continue, and in Europe only in small regions such as the Camargue in France, the Maremma in Italy, and some areas of Spain and Portugal.
For most Europeans, the chance to see working horses in their natural environment—and riders who use them in real-life situations—is rare. Even fewer get to live that kind of lifestyle. Instead, nearly all contact with horses begins in riding centers. So when people later buy a horse of their own, they carry that same perspective: the horse kept in a secure and confined environment, exercised a few hours a week, and perhaps taken to competitions on weekends.
And God forbid you handle your horse in any way that doesn’t fit the “accepted” approach—you risk being labeled an animal abuser. But work is not abuse. What truly risks becoming abuse is putting a horse into situations without the necessary knowledge, experience, or background. The same is true for dogs: a four-year-old Border Collie working cattle all day on a ranch is not being abused. But if you take a backyard Border Collie with no preparation and expect the same performance, that is abuse.
This is where Forsmanship brings something new, while also reviving something old: the idea of the horse as a true partner in work and life. By learning from the traditions of the working horse, we can go beyond the limited view of the horse as only a sports athlete or a hobby, and rediscover a more authentic, practical relationship.
Training a horse with the working-horse mindset will also benefit sport and hobby horses. It makes them more supple, more aware of their own body, and more attentive to their surroundings. You will stop micromanaging, and in return your horse will become more relaxed and less antagonistic. He or she will take charge, become proactive, and no longer just an “arena zombie.”
-by Stefan Forsman, Horseman Forsman -
