A local horse person I love, who took up horses later in life, was frustrated by the results she was getting. Her 'horsing' experience wasn't turning into the dream she had imagined when she bought a farm and started a boarding stable. She didn't know what a species appropriate environment should look like or what horses needed to be happy, so she asked around. And got A LOT of opinions! Her horses became increasingly unhappy, and their coach kept upgrading bits ... and had them jumping bigger fences. By the time they started with me, they were SO CONFUSED! How could they know who to trust? They lost confidence, and had to start over, first with a change in environment for the horse, then with an understanding that allowed them to approach their horse differently. In a very short period, she was riding loosely and softly, bareback, and in a nice snaffle with a loose noseband - at peace. MAGIC!

Still, I thought ... it was a longer process than necessary, and hard to convey in the traditional weekly 1 hour riding lesson format most places follow. And she wasn't alone - this sort of thing was happening more and more frequently since Horsecraft wasn't passed down the way it used to be. I kept thinking, "If only they knew THIS!" ... or "If only they knew THAT!" they would have avoided so much trouble!

They would have understood that their horse's messages weren't 'behaviours' ... or 'resistance' ... or 'disobedience' ... to be solved, controlled, or trained out of them. They would have avoided SO many problems! They would have known how to set up their stables for happy horses, they would have reacted appropriately when their horse was nervous, and they would have had appropriate expectations and asked appropriate questions from their horse, returning home from the barn with a feeling of satisfaction. Instead, they showed up at the barn to do the thing they loved and came home progressively deflated.