People who take on horses that have had a traumatic past often get caught up in putting their emotions on the horse. It never works and it leads to trouble, often making the horse frustrated and confused about what’s expected of him.
Human emotions have no place in training horses, whether you’re working with a rescued horse or a horse that has had good handling all his life. If you try to deal with a horse based on emotions, you won’t get the response you want because he won’t understand what you’re asking him to do. Horses don’t perceive or react to the world as we do because they’re prey animals and we’re predators.
That is one of the biggest mistakes people make in training horses—assuming that horses think the way a human does. As a prey animal, your horse has certain defining characteristics that set him apart from you, including four essential needs that must be met in order for him to be happy and healthy. Those four needs are safety, comfort, food and stimulation, and in that exact order. You will be more effective in communicating with your horse if you know what is important to him.
#1 Safety
Above everything else, horses want to feel safe. As prey animals, they believe strongly in the “safety in numbers” concept. That’s why horses often don’t want to leave the barn or their herd mates. If a horse doesn’t feel safe, his first response is to run away from what frightens him. If he can’t run, then he’ll fight.
#2 Comfort
Before a horse can feel comfortable and relax in any situation, he must feel safe and be certain that nothing’s out to harm him.
#3 Food
Like all living things, horses need food and water to survive. Once the horse feels safe from danger and comfortable in the environment he is in, then he worries about eating and drinking. A horse won’t eat if he doesn’t feel safe and comfortable. That’s why bribing a horse with food isn’t always effective when trying to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do. When a horse doesn’t want to get on a trailer, what do people do? They grab a bucket of grain and try to coax him on. They think that if the horse gets hungry enough, he’ll eventually get on the trailer. If a horse is truly frightened of the trailer, all the food in the world won’t change the situation. Food isn’t important to the horse until he feels safe and comfortable.
#4 Stimulation
When horses feel safe, comfortable and have enough food and water to sustain them, their next need is stimulation. Your horse needs to be stimulated both physically and mentally on a daily basis. As with many other things when working with horses, you need to balance the stimulation you provide your horse between the mental and the physical. You have to keep things interesting for your horse mentally and provide enough physical activity to keep him satisfied and engaged.
One of my mentors, Gordon McKinlay, once told me that in order to have a well-trained horse you need to have three things in equal doses—long rides, wet saddle pads and concentrated training. When those three elements are balanced, your horse benefits from mental and physical stimulation.
Looking for more training tips? Check out the No Worries Club. Have a training question? Send it to us at [email protected].
