03/09/2025
"Our horses don’t need our stories." YES. This is something that's maybe a bit of a tangent from the original post, but it's been on my mind for a long time. I absolutely LOVE stories and they have their place, but they can also distance us from our responsibilities as well as from reality itself as it relates to the horse's actual experience.
For example, people claim they work with their horses using only "relationship" as opposed to those who use reinforcement in one way or another, which sounds lovely, but it's missing the reality that however you act in the presence of a horse is at least half of what that relationship consists of. There is no escaping the relationship - it's inherent in the interaction. Facing the reality that all living beings work within the framework of reinforcement and punishment, as well as other ways of learning, means you have layers and layers of depth and nuance you can't access when you use language that obfuscates or even downright denies reality.
To take ownership of something means that you embody and internalize all that it is, like taking ownership of mistakes or even accomplishments. As the OP states, ownership in this case means taking responsibility for the power dynamic as well as the stewardship aspects of being in control of a horse's life. We need to have the compassion to do both.
It's always one thing AND the other.
There’s a growing trend in the horse world right now where heart-centered equestrians don’t want to call ourselves “horse owners” anymore. We prefer to use labels like “stewards" or "custodians".
On the surface, this shift in language sounds noble because it points toward greater humility, reverence, and a desire to honor horses as fellow beings, rather than objects.
In the beginning, I must admit that I started to get on board with this shift in language because it felt like a step in the right direction. And because I believe words matter.
But I'm not on board with this trend anymore.
Because it simply isn't true. We DO own horses. Legally, financially, even culturally. Horses are our property. And no amount of linguistic sugarcoating changes that fact.
Ownership isn’t just a word or a label. It's a relational reality. It’s an imbalance of power that can't be changed simply because we speak (or even think) about it differently. Even if we choose to behave differently, ownership still gives humans immense, unilateral power over horses.
Every day, as owners, we decide where horses live, what they eat, who they live with, how much freedom they have, whether they are bred, ridden, medicated, sold, or euthanized. We can give horses as much voice as we want in any given moment, but legally speaking, they still don’t get a vote. When push comes to shove, they don’t get veto power. Every decision about their lives runs through our human filters: our finances, our schedules, our emotional maturity (or lack of it), our ambitions, our insecurities, our convenience, our social status. And so on.
That’s ownership. And it’s total.
Here’s the hard piece that horse lovers who prefer to think of ourselves as stewards or custodians don’t like to acknowledge: in a capitalist world, ownership is the most powerful tool we will ever have to protect the horses we love. Legal ownership means that—within the boundaries of welfare laws—no one else can dictate what we should or shouldn’t do with our horses. No one else can challenge the decisions we make or force us to do things differently. Ownership is what gives us the legal authority to intervene on behalf of our horses when others might try to harm or exploit them without our consent. It's the very thing that gives us authority to shield our horses, to prioritize their well-being, and to ensure they don’t end up passed from hand to hand like disposable commodities.
This is the upside of ownership. And few of us would ever be willing to give up that power voluntarily. Which is why I feel it's dishonest to cherry-pick words just because doing so makes us feel better about holding the complexity of ownership. To lean into the “stewardship” storyline when it feels good, but clutch the privileges of ownership when our horses need protection is incongruent. We can’t have it both ways.
This is where, in my opinion, the stewardship storyline turns dangerous. Not because the heart behind it is wrong, but because it’s too easy for “stewardship” to become just another comforting story we tell ourselves so we don't have to face the reality of what it means to hold unilateral power over another.
Our horses don’t need our stories. They need us to acknowledge and "own" the truth of what we've created for ourselves, and them.
If we want to be true stewards, we have to start by owning our human love affair with ownership. By facing the raw, uncomfortable truth of the power we all enjoy being able to hold (when it's convenient for us). By acknowledging that the same legal structure that allows us to sell, breed, castrate, use and mis-use horses also gives us the authority to stand between them and harm.
Real stewardship isn’t a rebrand. It’s a deep personal practice. A choice, every day, to wield our power-over (including ownership) with as much humility, clarity, honesty and integrity as we can muster.
