What We Ask of Young Horses
If you sit down and think about it, we humans ask a lot of horses. We take so many things for granted, that is, right up until the moment you start a horse. You realize that what you are starting out with, and what you need to end up with, are miles away from each other. You are starting with a baby animal who may never have been out of the field it was born in, in some cases it may be sporadically or rarely handled, and yet, within mere days, the expectations mount. That, for all intents and purposes, feral horse has to learn to be approached and touched by a person. They need to accept a halter, they have to learn to lead, stop and turn and follow this person away from everything they know. We expect them to be easy to work with, unafraid, and unreactive. We are asking them to go against their instincts. Everything they know that has kept them alive thus far. And why? What incentive do these young horses have to do this? Why should they accept what we ask? Why should they trust us?
There is of course, the “do it or else” option. Is that incentive? Hell yes it is. Those horses do what is asked of them, because, at the most fundamental level, they are trying to keep themselves alive. The “do it or else” method produces results. It means that from a place of fear, fear of pain or fear of punishment, a horse will react the way it thinks it is supposed to as a purely defensive mechanism.
So that is one reason a horse has to do what we ask, but to trust us? What is their incentive to trust us? And why does trust matter? It’s a valid question. The first part must be because trust is not one sided. It is mentally exhausting to be on alert constantly. If you have a horse that does not trust you, even if it fears you, there is likely to come a day when that horse’s fear of something else will be greater than its fear of you. If you know that horse will take this first opportunity to leave you in the dust, can you really trust it? The odds are pretty good that at some point in time you and that horse will be in a situation that is not under control. I don’t care if you only ride in arenas, or if you never leave the property, but there will come a day where something goes amiss. Maybe another horse breaks loose and runs into your arena, maybe there is a gun shot in the distance, maybe a snake falls from the rafters (actually a true story), but whatever it is, something will happen. Then what? The horse doesn’t trust you to help it out of this situation, it doesn’t trust you when you try tell it everything will be okay, and its adrenaline will override whatever fear it has of you.
In the exact same situation a horse that trusts you will override its sense of fear, or it will at least try. It may react, but it may not leave you in the dust. It may be scared, but it will trust you to guide it, and help it out of this potentially dangerous situation. In the end, it is love, respect, and kindness that will hold out. I have seen it, lived it, been saved by it, time and time again. I have had horses follow me over and through things I could not chase them over with a whip. I have had horses run back to me after they break loose, and I have had horses willing to go down cliffs, through rushing water, and over mountains because I asked.