It has been awhile since I wrote a post about horses and after a long day on the ranch today, I thought a lot as to why I gravitate to horses so much.
Like our relationships with people, we have the capability of being able to communicate to animals like horses because we have been reliant on them for so long.
Even today, there are still jobs to be done that require horses, mainly in the cattle business, but it is an evolitionary bond we have from solely being reliant on them.
Horses are a lot like people in more ways than one.
Horses have personalities like we do.
Horses have different levels of athleticism like we do.
Horses also have different levels of intelligence just like us.
So the question then becomes, what makes a great horse?
While the answers may vary based off of different equine disciplines, I think the most important thing to look at is a horse that is willing to work for you.
Levels of train-ability will vary based off of many things such as their bloodline, their conformation, their athleticism, and how strong their minds are.
But when looking at horses in general and what separates great horseman from some not so great horseman, is training the horse to be willing to work with you, not for you.
These are skills that are developed through a certain baseline of communication and these are also skills that I am still working on developing myself.
While I understand enough about the psychology of horses to start young horses and train them to be handled, there are levels to the game based off of one's knowledge and experience.
As I just stated, there is a language in which horses speak that we as people need to learn and understand to better understand them because they are biologically programmed to think the complete opposite of how humans do.
Being as that they are prey animals, understanding that horses rely on their feet and other horses in their herd for survival makes training them that much easier.
Easier in the sense that now we can develop a system that allows the horse to know that they can rely on us for safety as if we are part of their "herd", but also teaching them how to use the other thing that they rely on for safety and that is their feet.
What i have learned is that there are levels to horse training.
I have personally seen and even ridden some horses that had me question how the fuck someone trained a horse to do something like this.
Galloping at full speed and have a horse just bury its hind end into the ground and slide to a complete stop is a completely different experience than getting on a colt and teaching them how to stop, steer, change gait, change leads, etc.
What I have realized that there is a whole lot that I don't know and a lot that I am eager to learn about.
But one thing that has always fascinated me about horses is training a horse so that they are willing to do the thing you are asking them to do.
Just about anyone can force a horse to do something, even I am guilty of it at times, but this is all the more reason as to why there is so much more for me to learn and why I want to learn.
Being able to pick up on a horse that is fully soft and reacts more to your thoughts than the pressure you are putting on them is what I want to learn.
I have seen glimpses of it in some of the horses that I have trained where I will be fully locked in to where I don't really have to do much of anything while they do all of the work.
This is why I believe we as humans share such a deep connection to these animals.
One thing about horses is if you are one that is bitten by the horse bug, it is never going to go away, whereas if you don't get bitten by it, you are never going to.
It is just one of those things that you either love or you don't.
But I can honestly say with a full heart is that these animals are my purpose in life and they have helped me clearly envision what my life is to look like for the rest of it.
The more you are around horses, the more you realize just how much alike and not alike they are from people.
One thing that is different about horses than people is that horses never lie and will always tell you in real time how they feel.
If they are anxious, you better buckle up because you might be having a day at the rodeo.
If they are calm and relaxed, then you can expect to get through whatever work you need to get done with them with relative ease.
What is even more interesting is how a horses attitude will feed off of the rider under saddle.
Oftentimes if the rider is feeling anxious, the horse is going to give them something to feel anxious about.
Sometimes when riding, especially with training a young horse or a problem horse, it is easy to get frustrated when they are not getting what you're asking right away and this is why patience is such a key trait that anyone who wants to work with these animals needs to have.
When you get frustrated, the horse gets more anxious, less confident, and begins to anticipate when you are going to blow up on him.
When a horse is preparing on how to deal with you blowing up on him, he is never going to fully want to work with you.
I am guilty of it just like most people are and feel like you really have to get after a horse who isn't getting what you're asking right away.
But I also know that horses do not learn from pressure, they learn from the release of it.
What the best horse trainers I have seen do is almost set the horse up to guess the right answer to the question you are asking.
This is what is so fascinating about horses and people is our innate ability to learn how to communicate with them and set them up to where they do as we ask with the least amount of pressure as possible.
The topic of this post is different than what we normally discuss here on this platform, but like anything, there is a lesson to be learned.
The takeaway from this post is the clear communication you need to have with a horse for it to respect you and be willing to work for you.
This is also something that I believe applies to humans relationships with each other.
If you genuinely communicate with the people around you and your intentions are pure, people are going to want to be around you and work with you because they respect you.
Humans are easy to understand, just like horses.
You just need to figure out how you can set up the questions so that people can give you the right answers.