Law 10 of 10 – All Horses are the Same on the Inside WARNING: Horses can be dangerous to humans and can cause serious injury. All problems in the horse are caused by the human. This ARC Natural Horsemanship article is one in a series meant to help the human become safer by understanding both himself and the horse. The rule of thumb for human safety is ‘don’t trust any horse 100% of the time’. The rule of thumb for the horse is “do not trust any human 100% of the time”. I am speaking here of the raw nature of the horse and its natural response to its environment….and that includes training. I have had many interesting conversations with folks who believe that some breeds are better than others, and some easier to train; Arabians are different from Appaloosas, and Mules are different from Morgans…..and so on. I first heard this many years ago and believed it at face value, but as I began to study the horse and became involved in their training my observations convinced me that this was a myth propagated by humans out of ignorance, or for other reasons. I found that all horses respond the same way to patience, love, trust, respect, clear communication, and consistency, and in challenging this rule in thousands of hours of training and hundreds of horses, I have yet to find one exception. Horses react differently, from one to another, to similar stimuli but these reactions are usually caused by past experiences with humans. While there are genetically related traits affecting performance, I have found no genetically related traits for better or worse learning ability. My personal experience with horses convinces me that there is as much variability within a breed as there is between breeds. All things being equal and more than anything else, learning on the part of the horse is really dependent on the knowledge and teaching skills of the trainer. The horse’s performance in different tasks is linked more to ‘heart’ than anything, and we have some great examples in horse movies that prove it. So don’t assume for a minute that just because you own a mutt or a grade horse, that he can’t learn as well or as much, as a high dollar purebred. The problem with most people is that they don’t understand this principle and want to go out and buy a better broke horse, when in fact they probably have the horse of their dreams standing right at the end of the lead rope just waiting for a good horseman to show up.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:13:50 +0000
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