The Key To Successful Horse Handling: Understanding Your Horse’s Psychology
The key to successful horse handling and horsemanship is not how much you know about training techniques, but whether you have trained YOURSELF in how to communicate with your horses. It’s up to the horseman to understand the horse’s behavior, and not vice versa. This is the one most important pre-requisites to handling a horse. Unless you understand your horse’s psychology, expertise and knowledge of riding and training techniques, however extensive, will produce very poor results – or none at all.
You can’t train animals (or humans) unless you are able to communicate with them. Since you can’t talk to a horse and you don’t share the same ‘body language,’ it’s up to you to take the time to learn to understand its psychology and its body language. Acquiring a reasonable understanding of horse psychology and adapting your behavior accordingly is the secret to solving many horse-handling problems. The points below highlight some of the distinctive features of horse psychology, but only time and patience will help you understand your horse’s behavior.
- Horses are prey animals with a highly developed ‘fight or flight’ response mechanism. They react swiftly and will instinctively out-run anyone or anything they perceive to be a threat. Although their first reaction, if frightened, is to take off, they will fight (bite, shy or kick out) if there’s no other way out. To the horse, you’re a predator – until you show it otherwise. It’s your responsibility to make the horse understand that you will not hurt it. To reduce the perceived threat, the horse needs to see you coming. Since its eyes focus from the side of its head, it’s imperative that you approach it from the side. Horses also have a highly-developed sensory system and can detect the slightest sounds, smells or movements. Let the horse hear you approaching it (clear your throat, hum, whatever). Avoid looking a horse straight in the eye as you approach as this may scare it too.
- Like all herd animals, a horse’s psychology is based on a kind of social hierarchy; there’s always one horse among the group that is in command. You must make your horse understand that your role is the same – you are the leader of the pack. For example, if your horse bucks, don’t move back too quickly. Stand back, but slowly. A fast reaction is a sign of fright and submission and the horse will know that it is able to control your movements by bucking.
- “Disciplining” a horse without having first made the effort to understand its psychology will always backfire. Establishing your authority does not mean dominating the horse by reverting to the use of force. Anger will only compound your horse handling problems. You must understand that horses learn by association. If you make a habit of punishing a horse every time you want to correct its behavior, it will associate you with danger, and the next time it hears or sees you, you will trigger its flight or fight response.
- When a horse isn’t doing what you are asking it to do, it’s likely because you’re not making yourself understood. The first thing to do when you are facing a problem handling your horse is to ask yourself how YOU might be causing it.
- It could even be that your horse thinks it’s doing what you asked of it. A horse is very sensitive to your attitude, the tone of your voice and your body language. If you are angry at something, or if you’re pressed for time, the horse will feel it and interpret it as a sign of danger and this will be reflected in his behavior.
- Horses learn best by trial and error, and learning to understand and communicate is the key to shaping their behavior, movement, or posture.
- Remember also that each horse is different. After you have acquired a basic understanding of horse psychology, devote additional time to observing each horse individually – and adjust your horse handling methods accordingly.
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