02/10/2025
“Can’t you tell that horse isn’t 100% comfortable?!”
Yes. I can.
I’m going to share from a post from last year…
“At this stage, I’m not looking for 100% relaxation and trust in me.
That’s not realistic, and I’m not going to get hung up on it.
This isn’t about me, me needing the horse to be 100% ok with me.
This is about me meeting and accepting the horse exactly where they’re at… which is NOT trusting me.
This horse needs to trust themselves to read my intention, first.
The more they practice that, the more scaffolding we have to build trust between us.
There is no shortcut. Trust-building is dynamic and accumulative.
There is no 100% trust each step of the way with some horses and some situations.”
This particular horse has a lot of trust in people, but she’s lacked confidence in herself to navigate situations without a herd around at times; which, I guess, comes down to trusting her handler to act as her ‘surrogate herd.’
There’s a lot more education about calming signals and covert signs of stress the last few years, which is fabulous.
But make no mistake, just because I appear to be ‘ignoring’ them, doesn’t mean I’m not seeing them.
That goes for a lot of horsemen.
Even if they don’t have a formal term or understanding, they can still be using all of the feedback from the horse to guide their decision-making, which may or may not involve slowing down or stopping the process.
Don’t assume that just because a trainer doesn’t slam on the brakes when they see calming signals or signs of stress, that they don’t see or understand them. Or that they don’t care.
They aren’t necessarily a stop sign. More often, they’re a caution or yield sign.
That being said, I’d be very wary of anyone whose only response is the gas pedal.
