02/29/2024
Exactly this!!
“Its just normal young horse behaviour” 🐴
I hear this phrase used so much to excuse a horse struggling or stop any further thinking into their behaviour. As long as you just keep plugging away the horse will turn 7 years old and suddenly be relaxed and balanced in their work and it is purely just a young horse “trying it on” because that’s what young horses do, right? Nope. We need to change the narrative that battling through is just something you have to do with a young horse.
I have recently started working with someone who has been really struggling with their young horse, they sought help from a highly recommended professional and have been doing the best they could with the advice they’ve been given. This horse is constantly snatching, tail swishing, hu***ng their back and grinding to a halt going into canter, stopping at tiny fences and doesn’t look sound behind. What is the advice being given? “You just need to keep her head up and ride forward, she’s taking the mick out of you, she knows how to get out of work, you’re ruining her by letting her get away with it.” This horse couldn’t shout any louder, their lovely owner has been trying to listen and that is the professional advice being given to someone seeking help.
What’s even sadder is none of the experienced people around this horse recognised any discomfort, it has been insinuated that the horse just needs a “better/stronger” rider and its somehow the rider’s fault, or they just need to hang in there and ride through this rough patch. If this is what has been normalised how can people learn to be better? I would’ve thought the same in the past, thought the rider was brave for kicking on and the horse just needed to learn. But once you learn the science behind conflict behaviour you can’t unsee it.
When we’re asking horses to do things they’re physically not strong enough to do in a healthy way, its going to cause soreness, possible injury and stress. Imagine you were working out and you have been pushed to your limit, you’re really sore and fatigued but someone forced you to keep going and called you lazy and stubborn. Then they make you do it again the next day when you’re still so sore that you physically can’t keep good form. People are doing this to horses every day. Horses cannot speak but they can communicate, we need to learn to listen.
There is such a lack of education regarding healthy movement and posture that it is common for horses to have a terrible start. Horses out jumping courses when they can’t even reliably walk in a straight line? I used to think that as long as the horse lets a rider on their back then they’re strong enough to carry one. I see things through a very different lense now. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
If your horse is spending most of your session going around hollow, tense and crooked, then you are strengthening those movement patterns and training them to be hollow, tense and crooked. Adding more pressure and battling on through until the horse gives in is not the education you’re being told it is. We need to stay within what the horse is capable of doing and quit when they’re fatigued.
This topic hits very close to home for me. When my own horse Lenny was 6 (he’s now 20), he was explosive and would deck me seemingly without cause almost every time I rode him. I got a vet out who watched him trot up once and used the phrase “I think he’s just a normal bolshy 6yo who knows he can get away with it because you’re too soft”, 2 weeks later I got a different vet and he was actually bi-laterally lame in front and behind, had issues with his spine and had stomach ulcers. Unfortunately in the equine industry many professionals seem to have no knowledge or education on equine behaviour at all. It baffles me. This is so damaging as well-meaning owners are being misled.
If we take the time to learn about behaviour and what healthy movement looks like, we can advocate for our own horses and enable ourselves to choose better professionals to help us. If we have patience, learn to regulate our own emotions and stop listening to people who think our horses are deliberately working against us we’ll all be better off and our horses will be too. 🐴
Here’s a photo of me trying to “work Lenny through it” on the vet’s advice, note the tail swishing, braced neck, falling in and strengthening nothing but his compensatory movement patterns and negative associations with training. ☹️
www.lshorsemanship.co.uk
