26/07/2021
We dont have walking dead trekking horses they all have very distinct personalities!! Hence we are catering for experienced riders now..
I’ve been thinking a lot about horsemanship and horse welfare lately, because like any industry, there is parts of it that can be a little subpar. For me, my biggest goal is for my horses to be happy, well cared for, stimulated and be able to express themselves in an authentic way with the right to behave like a horse, not like a robot.
So often when I have clients contact me looking for a horse, they state that they want something with no buck, rear, bolt, kick or bite and something genuine and straight-forward. I’m always a little baffled by this request, because I don’t know any horse that won’t, at some stage in their life, step out of line and exhibit these behaviors, because if you watch a horse in the wild or out in the paddock with other horses, these behaviors are very natural.
As humans, we tend to try to dumb down our horses so that we can use them for our recreational wants and needs. And by all means, I don’t want a horse that I am going to be unsafe riding, it’s a risky enough sport as it is. But what I hate seeing is horses who have no personality left at all, because people have stripped it down and taken away what makes that horse unique; usually because they are too inexperienced and scared to handle a horse with that much power and strength or because they don’t understand horse behavior and how they communicate.
In my experience, horses have different personalities just like humans. I own 25 horses, and not one is the same. Of these 25 horses, most of them are run of the mill, easy natured horses but I have some that are definitely a little ‘special.’ I have two horses that display high ADHD behaviors, they continually try to bite me and the horses they are with, (even though they get reprimanded for doing so), they cannot stand still and they struggle to concentrate for long periods of time. I have one horse who, if he was a human, would very much be on the spectrum for autism. He gets highly anxious when the routine changes and is on edge all the time, even in the paddock, though with time he is getting better and better, so much so that I think he will go on to have a normal life, as long as he is in a home who understands him.
Today I took some of my showjumpers for a hack over the farm, and it was like they’d been replaced by kites. They were all squealing and leaping about, most likely from the storm about to roll in and also the youngsters in the paddocks beside us were honing around and making a scene. Not to mention the amount of lush, green grass they are all on at the moment. I kindly warned them to rein it in, and we managed to get back in one piece, but I could so easily have gotten into them and told them their behavior was totally out of line. But the truth is that their behavior is no different to a five-year-old kid souped up on fizzy drinks going on a group adventure.
My personality is pretty bubbly and I get bored very easily, so I can sympathize with a horse who is so bored out of their brain that they have either shut down and accepted their fate, or one who is ‘acting’ out because they are not feeling 100% or because they desperately need stimulation and a rider who can foster their big personality, rather than a rider who is scared and wants to squash it down. And because so much groundwork and horsemanship are lacking nowadays, simply because we can often get away with shortcuts, we are so quick to blame the horse for its behavioral problems. And so, we send the horse away for schooling, or we put a bigger bit in its mouth, or we tell it off, but actually the issue is, 99% of the time, the rider and owner’s fault. Its either a groundwork issue, a pain issue, a boredom issue, a lack of respect issue (because the rider has let them get away with things) or a totally mismatched horse to rider ratio. None of these are the horse’s fault.
I wish as riders we had to pass a horsemanship lesson at Pony Club before we were allowed on their backs, because I think without it, we do such a big disservice to the horse. If we lack the understanding of horse behavior and why they may be acting out a certain way, then the result is often that the horse is punished for trying to communicate, the only way it knows how, to tell you something is wrong. After studying trauma for so many years, I have learnt that bad behavior nearly always stems from some underlying, unresolved issue.
Understanding horse behavior and how they communicate is so important to having a good, solid relationship with your horse, but I think there needs to be even more than that. We have taken an animal that usually roams free on millions of acres with a large family band, put them in a tiny paddock and then we ride them in circles with their heads pulled in and make them jump colored poles, every day, over and over again. If I was a horse living this sort of life, I would go mad.
That is why I do lots of hacking, ba****ck riding and adventures. Why I let them have playful bucks and squeal and leap about (so long at it is done in a safe way) because I never want to shut my horse down for expressing itself.
I think that too much focus is on how we can make our horse better for us, but since most issues are the riders problem, we need to be asking ourselves what we can do better for our horse.
