Photo courtesy of Tim Hayes Collection.
The most important factor to remember when interacting with the horse is the radical difference in their evolutionary nature. The horse is a prey animal. He is a source of food for predator animals including the cat family (mountain lions, bobcats etc.), the dog family (wild dogs, wolves etc.) and the human family (you, me and everyone else).
The human is a predator animal. We kill prey animals, and eats them: cows, sheep, deer and yes, horse. Horse-meat although “officially” outlawed as a food source in the US. is readily eaten and served today in other countries including France and Australia. American horses unfortunately don’t know this. When a horse is afraid and acts “spooky” he’s not afraid of being hurt, he’s afraid of being eaten.
When it comes to predatory survival attributes e.g. speed, sharp teeth, claws and acute sense’ of smell and hearing, humans have always been fatally inferior predators. Humans have survived and become the top of the food chain by utilizing our superior intelligence - we created the gun. This has enabled us to kill all prey animals as well as all other predator animals including each other. Horses have survived by using their ability to out run all their enemies.
In addition to their speed, horses also have powerfully acute senses. They hear and smell potential enemies at great distances. They can see the flutter of a bird’s wing across a river 300ft. wide. They can also see 340 degrees while standing still and not moving their head. If cornered with no possible escape a horse can and will fight.
They possess the fastest reaction time of any animal - the time it takes between the horse deciding to kick to the instant his hoof makes contact. If a horse decides to kick you and you are within kicking range, it is physically impossible to avoid getting kicked.
And finally their cunning ability to out smart predators is demonstrated by their lightening fast evasive maneuvers whenever they don’t want to be caught. Have you ever tried to catch a horse that doesn’t want to be caught?
What seems to be a horse' unreasonable fear and over reaction to something it doesn't recognize is a classic human misunderstanding of the horses nature. Horses aren't “Spooky” because they're stupid. They know they can be eaten and unless they are 100 per cent certain there are no predators around, it's their genetically built-in survival nature to run first and ask questions later.
A horse would rather be wrong and alive about mistaking a blowing plastic bag for a mountain lion than curious and dead.
Once we recognize that our horse might be reacting to a situation motivated by self-preservation and not because he's “being difficult”, we have the opportunity to change our response to his behavior. This will help him build a more positive attitude about us and by so doing strengthen our relationship.
We can't change our horse's nature but if we know and understand that our human nature can be counterproductive, we can change the way we respond to him. We can think like a human but behave like a horse. We can help him work through his survival fears instead of reprimanding him, which usually turns into an unpleasant and often dangerous situation. We can acquire new knowledge and new tools that will help our horses become more confident and trusting in the human world we have asked them to live in.
Being good with horses actually requires the same qualities that it takes to be a good parent. In the same way we must understand how a child sees the world we must also see the world from the horses point of view. When a child tells us he doesn't want to go to bed because he's afraid of going into a dark room, it's not unlike a horse that's afraid to go into a horse trailer.
A good parent, like a good horse-person, knows that there are no monsters in the bedroom as he also knows there are no bears in the horse trailer, which to a horse looks like a metal cave on wheels. Instead of becoming annoyed, impatient, frustrated and showing the horse or the child that we think they're being stupid and silly, we must acknowledge their fears and know that for them the “danger” is quite real.
With the child we must then reassure him by picking him up, holding him, walking into the room together, turning on the lights and staying with him until he feels safe and let's us know it's okay if we leave. With our horse we must not force him to go into the trailer. We must give him all the time he needs to inspect, investigate, go on and off and become 100% confident that he will be safe if he gets into and stays in the trailer.
As a parent not only does this positively resolve the immediate issue of going to bed, but it is how we create a relationship that has our child look to us as a source of comfort, safety, understanding, trustworthiness and leadership. Are not these the qualities that we also want from our horses?
The most important needs for a horse, those that motivate all of his behavior, are the same today as they were millions of years ago - SAFETY (survival), FOOD (and water), COMFORT (emotional as well as physical) and LEADERSHIP. Horses always feel safer with a leader and are happy to follow one who is fair, trustworthy and has earned respect.
The important needs for most humans in today's modern world are PRAISE (you're a terrific rider, you made no mistakes), RECOGNITION (you won the blue ribbon for being in first place) and MATERIALISM (you also get $50,000 for being first).
When we look at the horse/human relationship, which has these radically different needs but lacks a common language to communicate these differences; is it any wonder that the single largest problem people have with horses is not the horse's physical ability but his mental and emotional attitude, which then impacts on his physical behavior. Without a language that the horse understands (English is not one) achieving leadership through force with the threat of pain (“getting after him”) will never create the type of partnership we all so desperately desire with our horses.
Natural Horsemanship teaches us how to communicate our wishes in a language our horse understands. It teaches us how to become our horse's leader with love, trust and respect. It teaches us how to control every muscle, thought and emotion of our horse and ourselves at every moment. It is then that we can ride and guide. It is the then that we achieve harmony. It is then that we understand and combine our unique natures so that becoming one together becomes something natural for both horse and human. Natural Horsemanship simply means knowing and honoring the nature of horses.
©Tim Hayes 2022
Tim Hayes is the author of RIDING HOME - The Power of Horses to Heal. It is this amazing power of horses to heal and teach us about ourselves that is accessible to everyone and found in the pages this book. To learn more about the book please visit: Ridinghome.com. Every book ordered will benefit children of families in need, veterans with PTSD and children with autism. For Natural Horsemanship Clinics, Private sessions and for more articles & blogs by Tim Hayes go to: Hayesisforhorses.com/naturalhorsemanship-clinics.