04/08/2025
Truth bomb 🤩
This may be a hot take, but it feels important to say. So I'm going to say it before I lose courage.
Your horse owes you nothing. Not one damn thing.
Not safety, not their good behavior, and certainly not their body.
So often what gets us into trouble with our horses is our expectations and sense of entitlement. We believe because we paid a hefty price tag for them and continue to pay for their food, their board, their vet bills, their et cetera, we are therefore entitled to use their body and have the Perfect Barbie Dream Horse™.
But horses are not toys - they are sentient beings with their own agendas, thoughts, emotions, and bodies. They are having their own experiences alongside our own - their own sorrows & joys, their own contentments, their own aches & pains.
We have invited them into our human world, and they have graciously accepted. We ask them to squeeze into spaces that are made entirely for human comfort, and still they graciously accept. We have taken a prey animal, thrown some dead cow on their back, put metal on their feet and in their mouth, leap onto their backs, and still they graciously stay in our world. We kick them, we hit them, we get angry when they don't do what we say, and still they graciously accept our invitations to dance.
So yeah. The horses owe us nothing.
As a bodyworker and a healer, I see how much the horses are trying to just keep it together - and how much they ache for our connection. Some days it breaks my heart.
If you don't feel safe around your horse, what are you doing to be a safe partner? If you want to ride your horse, what are you doing to be a better riding partner? If you want your horse to be a responsible partner, what are you doing to be that same responsible partner?
We don't have to be perfect partners - and the horses would never request that of us, either. But ask yourself - what am I doing to be a better partner for my horse?
If I could teach people one thing, it would be the difference between stewardship and entitlement. Are you acting as steward of your relationship with your horse, or do you feel entitled to their best behavior and their body?
