Wake Up Call

OK, enough with the metaphors and touchy-feely recitations... it's time to wake-up and smell the coffee.
Let's leave the Magic Unicorn Dreams to the little children where they belong, and take a realistic, adult look at horses.

As I previously said, Horses don't want to be Magic Unicorns.
They want owners, riders, trainers, and barn managers who understand them and use COMMON SENSE in their handling.

Most horses have just one basic question when it comes to their relationship with humans, and that is:
"What's in it for ME?"

What they WANT from their relationships with people is simple.
Food, care, and handling based upon common sense are the top three... with everything else falling farther down the ladder of priorities.

They respond best to consistant, uniform handling wherein they understand the parameters of the relationship with their people, and have clearly defined rules and terms of engagement.
They hate being kept guessing... playing mind games is not on their list of favorite things.

Basically, most horses prefer to live in a rut of mundane routine where nothing much changes, and they know exactly what to expect from their humans without surprises... in fact, they thrive on it.

They like their people to provide the confidence they lack by nature due to their prey status; and to combine that cool, calm, and collected handling with compassion and patience.

When their handlers are all of the above, horses respond in kind; automatically eliminating many of the problems nervous, inconsistant handling tends to produce... including neurotic behaviors, stable vices, undersaddle misbehaviors... etc.

Horses dislike inconsistancy probably above all else... if they never know what to expect from you, it keeps them in an agitative state, as it disrupts the sense of peace that "living in a rut" brings to their lives... and some of the more sensitive horses actually develop physical issues (such as ulcers) when their lives are in a constant state of disruption.

If you lack confidence, become nervous under pressure, or lose your temper trying to deal with your horse, he will become a mirror to that behavior from you and become the same over time.
Horses (unlike most people) are great readers of body language, and will pick-up on a nervous handler/rider immediately.

Example: (and we all know someone like this)...
The rider who is always looking ahead on the trail for "scary stuff", and through her own fear of a "spook", relentlessly reassures her horse by nervously petting and attempting to "keep him calm" by speaking to him in a frightened, shaky voice when he sees nothing at all to be afraid of in the first place...  she will, in time, teach her horse to be a spooky, timid mount through her own timidity.

Now take the very same horse and place a confident rider on his back for a ride through the woods.
Without the quivering hand on the reins, the "reassurance" coming from a source that's obviously frightened, and the micro-management every time he turns his head to look at a bunny, the horse becomes calm and stops looking for danger where there is none.
Happy and self-assured by his calm rider, he delivers a fabulous ride to her and actually enjoys himself too... making going out for a ride a good thing in his mind, rather than something to dread.   

When I was training Trail Horses, people often asked just exactly HOW "despooking" on the trail was done.
The answer is simple.

I merely trail rode the horse, doing my best to insure that every ride was a GOOD RIDE...  hundreds of miles of exposure with a cool, calm, and collected rider who was never flustered or nervous regardless of how the horse reacted to stimuli.
No *corrections* for honest spooking... just uniformity and reassurance from a CALM rider.
The results were amazing.

Of course all that chatter above is just one example of how a handler or rider affects a horse's psyche either for good or bad through our daily interactions with them... and how a horse's mental state bears on his performance over any other factor.

The challenge lies not within the horse, but with the handler/rider.
If you can bring realism and common sense into your relationship with your horse, you can overcome his fears, and in turn he will help you overcome your own.

If you're nervous around your horse, you're probably asking just HOW to accomplish this... and well, we'll get to that later... but for now, start by promising your horse to make a sincere attempt to understand him, and to make changes in yourself as needed to provide him with the consistancy and common sense handling he needs to understand and trust YOU.

It's the root and basis for all good horse/owner partnerships... and everything that follows is built on that foundation.

It's time to put your magic unicorn in his stable and move forward with building a better relationship with your real-life HORSE... I guarantee you that ultimately, you'll both be much happier when you really understand each other.

Next time... How to get started towards that goal.