That’s why I’d like to ask you a question.
Why do you have horses and why do you want to spend time with them?

That we do not understand our horses each time they show resistance, I understand very well. But that we DO NOT WANT to understand why they resist us is something I do not understand. This only causes accidents.

That’s why my next question.
Do you prefer to spend money on a hospital or someone who can help you solve and especially understand the behavior of your horse?
We take classes and spend money every week to become better in a certain discipline like show jumping or dressage so WHY NOT to learn to understand and help your horse?
Is it less important?
Do you prefer to fight with your horse?
To humiliate him?
Devalue him?
Break him?
To finish where?
We use twitches, sedation, tape, side reins, ropes, whips, spurs, … why?

Afterwards, some people use the excuse that sometimes these things are necessary (for example in case of accidents), Of course there are exceptions, and of course we cannot change the horse’s past, but if we have to use one of those things for the “well-being” of the horse, there is ALREADY A PROBLEM in terms of trust and respect towards humans! Something is already crooked * in the horse (whether it is by our hand or by the ancient owner or other).

Now read the text again and act as if I were talking about a human who speaks a language other than ours instead of a horse.
Many say that we are superior beings. Why? Just because we have the ability to think? Does this make us superior to others? Does this justify our behavior towards horses? Or, are we, maybe, just different?

We humans want to live with horses, so I think we need to get to know them as they are and specially to listen to them, help them, give them confidence and the respect their lives need, as best as we can.

* At first, I wrote the word broken. But something that is broken can no longer be repaired while when something is crooked, it can (in most cases) be repaired without leaving a scar.

!!! ATTENTION, IMPORTANT: This article is not intended to criticize horse people, but only to ensure the safety of the rider and the horse!!!

Imagine the thing you are afraid of. You already know that you are afraid of it, but the fact of being afraid tells us, in our society, that you are weak, not brave, … This makes us even more afraid of the thing in question. Consequence: we try at best to avoid fear (the thing that scares us)!

The moment you land into a situation where you are forced to confront your fear, and not just confront it but overcome it, you’ll never have the tools to do it without having a “panic attack “. In addition, you feel pressure from others who “encourage you” but in a way that shows you that you have no choice (depending on your point of view at this time).

Two systems can be put in place in your body. The first one, you get angry a lot because you cannot overcome your fear (and it frustrates you so much that you become aggressive), or you completely shut down physically, like frozen. Escaping would also have been an option, but it will be an option of weakness and our brain (and especially our ego), will never accept such a defeat.

Now IMAGINE YOUR HORSE who is afraid of something and watch what his reactions are towards the thing he’s afraid of. Is this so different from what is said above?

Fear is an emotion that can cause aggression in the horse, flight, or freeze him. It is very important to understand the reactions that a horse can have. Especially when you FORCE him to go through a place that scares him. Moreover, when you FORCE a horse, the reactions written above can become more and more violent and dangerous! This can lead to serious accidents. Accidents in which the horse is blamed when it is not him we should blame. It is the owner who should have better listend to the horse! And try to guide him, reassure him … and if that does not work, leave him and go back another time because the horse is NOT YET READY MENTALLY. You will only gain RESPECT AND CONFIDENCE from your horse!!!! Try in each situation to see through your horses’ eyes and emotions (and not yours, because what you will see and experience is very different from what the horse is seeing and experiencing).

REMEMBER: A HORSE IS NOT DANGEROUS OF NATURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will explain it to you.
The horse is seriously injured at the age of one year. She stays more than a year in the box without going outside at all. Also, she finds herself without congener (especially during the summer when everyone is in the field).

Now that rehabilitation can begin, we have several factors to take into consideration:

– The horse has never learned social rules (in a herd or with humans).

– The horse is afraid of EVERYTHING.

– The horse is young, which means too much energy (especially when she can finally get out of the box).

– She is cured but her old injury must gain strength before she can really do anything a healthy horse can do.

The first three points make her a dangerous mare to work with (not because she is aggressive or mean but because she is unpredictable).

What are the priorities we give ourselves during her rehabilitation?

– Our security?

– The health of the horse?

– The mental state of the horse?

All three of course, but in this case how to proceed?
With what do we start?

– We can sedate. This has risks and advantages.

– We can start educating her. This too has risks and benefits.

– Combining the two top options will be best than? But even when you do that there are risks and benefits.

Conclusion: Whatever we do, there are risks, advantages, pros and cons. All ideas, opinions, knowledge will be different from one perspective to another. So, if everything is good or everything is bad (from the point of view of one or the other), why not do what we think we should do for the HORSE but also for us?
As long as we consider doing everything in the best interests of the horse and ourselves.

!!! Take account of the opinions of professional(s) !!!

When she started the training, everything went well in the beginning but when the work advanced and she started the work under the saddle, the horse showed more and more reluctance to cooperate and even refused more and more to go forward in trot. Unnecessary to say that the training became more and more tiresome and even frustrating, although the horse perfectly understood what she asked him to do. The problem had to be somewhere else and she asked me (as energetic specialist/advisor) to accompany her on one of her sessions with him.
Before she started to work with him, she granted me a moment alone with him and his whole history passed my mind. I asked him to show me why he was so reluctant to do the work she asked of him. Was it a mental problem, or psychical or may be a combination of both?
And suddenly the whole picture became clear to me: this stallion still had his energy very low. During the first weeks of his life on earth he desperately clung to this energy that he needed to survive. Everyone who knows a little bit of chakra’s (and people do more and more these days) is acquainted with the knowledge that low energy provides us of the most basic and essential ingredients to feel us safe and secure. And this stallion has not yet left this lower region. He has never encountered a situation where he could experience that life can also be fun, that it can be joyful to do something with someone else, with another human being. He fought and survived and the only confidence he knows is the confidence in himself.
The only things they ask him to do now, is to work for a certain goal, the presentation, instead of doing something for the only reason that it is fun to do.

I advised the owner to put diversity in the things he does with this beautiful creature. Without always having a reason to do what you do together. To let the horse experience that being together with a human being can be filled with pleasure and love.
Sometimes the solution is to be found in a deeper layer. It is up to us to be willing to look that little bit further in order to assure that our horse-friends also can life a happy life. We owe them that!

(And the owner took him for a swim together in the river nearby).

Esmeralda Aarts, energetic/psychologic advisor

During the training session that followed this conclusion, the horse was much more cooperative. A huge change! Just knowing where the problem comes from, understanding him, listening to him and trying to do everything to make him feel better, even if we have no idea how to do it, helps a lot to make a horse progress. And the only thing we did was talk about the problem.

You are wondering why? Apart from the fact that it gives me a new customer.
No, I do not say it for myself but for you.
And the reason why is a matter of time, energy and money.

Time because as your horse’s behavior worsens, more time will be needed to solve the problem. A problem, which often at first, is not at all complicated and can probably be solved in less than an hour.

Energy, for the same reason written above. As owner you will have to regain confidence but also the horse must regain confidence in you. It takes more energy when your relationship has already taken a huge slap. It will be necessary to prove to the horse that you can reassure him and this is only possible when you put even more energy in your relation.

Money because the problem will probably not be resolved in a one-hour session, it will take a lot more hours of training.

Unfortunately, we always try to find a solution on our own. Or we ask a friend, our family, (or someone else) … for help. As a result, to find a horse even more dangerous or even more lively in his reactions or in the worst case, the horse has hurt someone.

Not having an answer to a question and asking for help is not a sign of weakness, on the contrary it shows that you know where your strengths and weaknesses are. That you want to do even better for your horse in the future and make sure to make your weakness a new strength. To evolve. To progress. And is it not great to be able to evolve and progress with a partner who wants those things too.

So how much time, energy, and money are you willing to spend?

I promised to come back to the horse I mentioned in my blog about regressions. He is a horse formed by circumstances. I will not go into the details of his past.
Two years old, the age he had when coming to his new stable. He came out of the van very stressed and then put in a paddock. The people working there could not catch him anymore. Hunting him in a box seemed at that moment the best solution to be able to catch him again. In the box he also behaved in a dangerous way. Entering the box to give the horse food was not possible either. He would try to kick you.
The question that everyone will have to ask themselves will be: is he a dangerous horse or is it the circumstances in which he found himself and / or he find himself in that makes him act this way?
Depending on the character of the horse, they all react differently in moments that are stressful. One horse may become violent, the other may become apathetic. Another will put up with it until he will become a bomb that explodes and yet by another you will already see that the tension is rising slowly in his body.

The horse we are talking about was in this stable only one day not knowing what was going to happen to him. Let him get used to his new environment is a first thing to do but given the aggressiveness that already led him to winning several times against the humans will not help anyone in the future. Nor himself. Moreover, in the stables one must be able to do the work and with such a horse it is not possible.

What we found after the training was a horse very close to humans but hypersensitive to change. A very expressive horse with a lot of strength.
In the days that followed, no one had any problems with him.

This shows that most of the time, the circumstances in which a horse is forms his way of acting. In this case, is it really the horse’s fault to behave in a certain way?

This line shows only progress. The horse, during this training, only progresses. Is this a realistic scenario?
Even if we don’t know how a horse learns we can look at how we learn. Do we know a lesson the first time? Do we need repetition? During learning, do we make mistakes when we do not fully master the subject?

For a horse it isn’t so different from us. They need to regress to learn. I will even tell you that it is necessary to regress to be able to learn something, otherwise they will never learn. As a behaviorist I am always happy to come pass a regression in the work because in this way I have an indication of where the horse is in the training. If he starts to learn and / or if he still needs to learn something. So, don’t be disappointed when your horse does the exercise less and less well. Rather, remember that this is the way they learn and that you are on your way to achieve your goal.

Your curve will look more like this:

As mentioned above, many owners expect their horses to walk directly in a van. And when this is not the case, violence, strength and especially frustration appears.
Why? Because we must also learn to ride a horse, to lunge a horse, how to make a shoulder in, haunches in, a half-pass, to jump, …
Once the method acquired for both, the horse and the owner, there is no problem anymore. The owner knows how to help his horse and the horse knows what he has to do to make his owner happy (or try anyway).

A little more respect is the title of the blog. I mean, from us towards the horses. Despite the fact that they are scared, angry, traumatized, they continue trying for us.
Many horses (of course, they are all different) walk into a van after an hour of training, while they have never seen one before in their whole life. Without using force.
You just have to be patient and listen to what your horse has to say. It’s better to take a little more time to teach him right from the first time than to lose an hour (or more) each time you want to get him into a van.

It is often said that we, adults, have to find the purity of a child once more if we want to be or become happy again. Live in the present moment without premeditation thinking. Like horses (or other animals).

I was with a client, we had to catch a horse to get him out of the field. It wasn’t the horse I had to train but we needed his help. Unfortunately, this horse didn’t want to be caught. The owner said that he had this problem often, but I didn’t come for this horse, so we decided to take another one. At the same time, the client’s seven-year-old son says, “She loves me, I can catch her for you.” And he went in the (large) field.
I remember me thinking, “I hope he will succeed otherwise his confidence will be hurt a little” (because he was really sure of himself).
He approaches the horse slowly, this one being a little suspicious but she looks at him with attention and comes closer. The boy catches her gently by the halter and the miracle has happened.

Something, an adult would not be able to do in less than 15 to 30 minutes, or maybe more, in all serenity, the boy did in two seconds.
So, tell me, what do we need to learn from this?

How do you recognize the difference between a horse in pain and a memory of pain?
During a training session it is possible to see if the horse still suffers from any pain or if it is just a memory.
If you see that there is an improvement in his behavior during the training you are on the right track.
If, on the contrary, there is no improvement, you can almost be certain that the horse still suffers from something physical (assuming that the trainer is very good at his job).

In addition, if the horse’s behavior deteriorates in the days after the session and you (the owner), have followed exactly the advice of the trainer, or after each session with the behaviorist, he begins to behave as before, he is probably still in pain.

Before coming, the person you asked for help has to warn you when he thinks the behavior of the horse is linked with any kind of pain. Otherwise you will spend a lot of money to someone who is not able to help you because the behavior of the horse is only a consequence of the pain he suffers.
Everything depends on the past of the horse, whether or not he had a wound, a saddle that bothered him, a sharp bit, problems with his teeth, a trauma, etc. You know your horse the best. Trust yourself. Trust your instinct. Trust your horse.

If you have any questions on this subject, do not hesitate to contact me.