A response to the comment, “I am sorry but I cannot smile when I see people on horses.”:

I used to think it was not good to ride horses and that they suffer. I went over a year without riding my horses. I no longer agree.

As horses have been domesticated, I suspect it has become part of their nature to seek that union in the same way it has become part of ours. My Mustang, Ilo, I adopted wild off the BLM and she helped me figure out what I thought was right. I worked with her only at liberty for a long time and did not ride for 3 years. Both I feel were to her detriment. She often seemed worried and was not outwardly very happy. Now that she is being ridden, she is more confident and looks longer distances into the horizon rather than shorter. She is stronger and proud of her agility. She holds her ground against the other horses at the gate. She moves more boldly and more freely with more enjoyment on her face. She jumps beautifully rather than stumbling over things in her path.

As humans, we have the tendency to think that leisure is preferable to work. I like to work. I like to work more than I like to eat. I once knew a Boarder Collie that worked on a cattle ranch. When she got done herding cows, all she wanted to do was play fetch. Her owner remarked, “All she thinks about is that darn ball,” though she was clearly an effective cattle dog and clearly enjoyed herding. The dog was a herding dog bred as finely as anything. It was in her nature to herd, and she liked to herd, but she loved fetch. Just because something is not natural, doesn’t mean it is not innate. Toot loved fetch more than she loved herding. It’s natural for me to eat. It’s innate for me to work, and I love work. It is possible that while it is not natural for horses to be ridden it is inherent in the essential character of some horses.

Today many people understand the innate characteristics of dog breeds enough to know that you shouldn’t keep a Boarder Collie in an apartment. However, few people understand the innate characteristics of horse breeds. Most people only work with the breeds suitable for what they want to do. I work with all breeds because I don’t want to do anything – I want to do everything. As my husband says, “If there is a horse in it, we’re interested,” and we’re finding out what is interesting to the horse as an animal, as a species, as a breed, and as an individual.

If you at least ask the question, “Is it inherent in the essential character of some horses to be ridden?”, what’s left is to determine is if we should ride them. How do we know if it is good for them or not? It may be in someone’s inherent character to be an addict, but that would be something to discourage. If riding is bad for the horse, it would be better to discourage it, but I don’t think that it is.

Unlike Nevzorov does with his horses, I kept Ilo in a paddock with other horses and did not remove her from her home when working with her. Her paddock included a weanling she bonded with, treating like her own baby. Nevertheless, Ilo nickered to me when she saw me coming, trotted by my side, and was responsive to cues at liberty (and I was not using clicker training either). However, she looked as if she was missing something. She was curious and engaged and willing, but not fulfilled.

When I added the rope, just a cordeo/neck rein at first, our bond grew deeper. She liked the touch and sought it. It was like linking elbows with someone for the first time. I used the neck rope to take her all around the farm and on trails. We moved to a different facility where she could eat her fill of grass and lived with several other ponies of various ages and genders. I could play with her and another horse at the same time and have her hooves trimmed in the cordeo, but she still was not happy. Her eyes were dull and when she made eye contact she was always asking a question rather than sharing.

Then I started working in the halter. There was again a step up in her confidence. She felt and returned more whole, sincere communication and was more sure of what to do. It was like taking someone’s hand for the first time. I worked at liberty for 6 months. In the cordeo for a year. In the halter/liberty/cordeo for 1.5 years. Then I finally decided to ride her. We rode bareback and treeless for a year, and just started some treed riding. Treeless is her preference over bareback or treed. Today she is social with not just me, but everyone who comes to see her in the pasture. That is very, very important. Do not underestimate the importance of your horse’s conviction of the goodness of people and her excitement in sharing her soul with the people that she meets.

Another one of my horses I bought and did not ride for nearly 2 years. He had competed extensively under saddle and his back was severely damaged. I bought him without doing more than leading him to the trailer. He was very bashful when we first began working together, kind, sweet, and goofily shy. I rode him a handful of times diagnostically and decided it was not right for him at that time. I thought his back was permanently damaged. With QuickDraw, I used clicker training (which I did not use with Ilo until nearly 2 years together) and I continued to work primarily at liberty. To rehabilitate QuickDraw, I needed to change how he thought about his place in the world. In order to do this, I rode him out to a bridge just across the street from our farm in a treeless saddle. He had only been arena-ridden and was nervous. I clicked him for prancing and dancing underneath me. When we got to the bridge, he reeled and reared. I clicked him and his whole body changed instantly. The tightness dropped out of his back and he felt like a totally different horse. He reared again and again, and I clicked him. Convinced that he now understood, I got off, led him back to the barn, and did not ride him again for a year, except for getting on maybe 3 times bareback and cuing him to rear, to remind him of his freedom, and getting off. All winter, I played clicker games with QuickDraw. I spent Christmas Eve with him reinforcing him for smiling goofily after he ate a licorice treat for the first time. We played with a barrel and huge ball. QuickDraw and my dog took turns getting clicks for playing with it. QuickDraw was very happy, but still in pain, though I did stretches and massage with him endlessly. I had been told he liked to jump, so when I put out a jump for him at liberty, he jumped it in the most awful form you’ve ever seen, and showed no more interest in jumping after that. Given the opportunity to choose, he did not like jumping, but has started to show some interest in it just recently.

Nearly 2 years into this process, a student fell in love with QuickDraw. She worked with him hour upon hour, slowly reintroducing cues that would seem like work. Her patience and unconditional love caused QuickDraw to decide that he actually did want to revisit the things that had once pained him and get answers. No doubt he was asking the same things I ask – “Is this whole situation bad, or just how it is done normally?” Over time, QuickDraw showed Katelynn that he wanted to be ridden by lining up to the mounting block. At first Katelynn would get on and QuickDraw, staying right next to the mounting block, would buck and rear a couple times to make sure that he would not be punished. Katelynn sat patiently – a very bold thing for a 13 year old who had never ridden before to do – but probably only possible because of her innocence. (Of course the bucks and rears were also very small since QuickDraw was not strong). Over time, QuickDraw returned to his former glory without the shackles. He is now the kindest, most honest and generous lesson horse you could find, teaching kids who have had bad falls on other horses and are terrified to ride, but still compelled to ride, not just play with horses on the ground.

One the of the questions I asked in my book, EQxpressionism: Individuals Modeling Horsemanship as an Artistic Practice is, “Why do you ride? Not just play with horses but ride specifically.” Almost all of the individuals said for the union, for the closeness. My husband did not ride his Mustang at all for a year and only rode her a handful of times until she had been with him for 2.5 years. We would never have known how light and amazing this mare is had he not ridden her. On the ground she is light and fun, but not incredible. In the saddle, she is incredible. You see a part of her soul that you otherwise never see.

My refined bay pony, Sam, is another pony we did not ride for nearly 2 years. He was also a rescue that was practically dropped at my door. Six years old and didn’t have a name. Like QuickDraw, his body was a wreck. He used to stand like a tripod with his forelegs narrow and his hind legs camped and spread apart. He was incredibly spooky. For a month, I did over an hour of stretching and massage daily. It made a lot of difference but wasn’t the solution. Teeth floating and balanced hooves helped. Getting his confidence up through clicker training helped. Teaching him to rear nearly fixed him. But it was when he started being ridden by little children that he started looking for people coming to the pasture. He got to play clicker games for 2 years prior and have all the fun he wanted, but he never really looked for people. Today he does, not all the time, but most of the time, and the only difference is that he is now teaching the same children who played with him on the ground how to ride. As spooky as he is on the ground, he is the gentlest pony with someone on his back. He takes a great deal of responsibility in his job. His ability to do it fluctuates with his hoof trims and his connection with the rider, but when things are right, he is brilliant to watch. And this particular pony prefers a treed saddle to bareback or treeless. I think he would prefer bitted, if we would give him that option, but I am delayed getting there in my own mind.

If we have successfully established that riding may be good for the soul of some horses, the next question is, “Does it hurt their bodies?” As a person, I have a high tolerance for pain and a lot of ambition, and I tend to find horses with similar attributes. Skiing, wakeboarding, and even to a certain extent, horseback riding, are sports that could be considered painful. While doing these activities, I do not notice my physical discomfort but rather enjoy the physicality of it and the adrenaline game. When I wake up the next day, I’m sore, but I feel accomplished, and over time my body learns to recruit fewer muscles and I get the enjoyment without the soreness. So the question is, what is more painful to the horse – idleness or physical discomfort? In humans, the lymph system needs to be pumped manually or the body becomes stagnant. Stagnation makes one feel muddy and cranky. The more athletic the person, the more help the lymph needs from exercise. No doubt there are horses that through domestication have become athletic enough to require additional pumping of the lymph system, lest they feel sick. Maybe not true of all horses, but as humans, we ought to be able to be able to trust the person who knows the horse best to judge.

The next question is one of the tools we use. Are the tools we choose helpful or bad for the horse? I believe this is a question of frustration. What feels more painful – frustration or physical discomfort? Assuming the horse likes to work with humans, do the tools help the horse to work with us or make it more painful or more frustrating? My Mustang, Ilo, was ridden in a cordeo for her second through fourth ride. Les’ Mustang, Koa, was ridden in a cordeo for her first few rides. The cordeo is gentle, but it is not helpful to the horse. It’s not painful physically, but painful in that it causes frustration. Whips and spurs can hurt, but not necessarily more than unclear communication. Unclear communication causes loss of trust and can lead to many repetitions of confusing exercises. It not only a question of which tools you use, but a question of how you apply them. The simplest method for the horse to understand is usually the best.

I know the statistics about pressure sensing with weight and the facts about bits, but I also know about the decline effect – which is the tendency of many exciting scientific results to fade over time, to the point that the phenomena we found originally does not exist at all. For that reason, I believe an empirical approach is best. Even if one does not feel comfortable basing ones decisions on what other people say they observe, one has no other choice but to base one’s decisions on what one observes, or make no decision at all. We should give our horses the right to choose, unless we don’t trust ourself to honor their answers or don’t trust ourselves to know what they say. A person who loves horses should be able to do both. Knowledge is power for horse and human.

It’s such a shame that so many people condemn our time without really knowing it. I try to really know something before I judge it. How mistrustful are we of our fellow man that we assume that no one has asked these questions before in 6,000 years of equine domestication, and we just kept going blindly along towards more and more evil. How faithless are we that we assume that the tools that were passed down from the people before us were all worthless and cruel to the horse and someone forgot to tell us. Do we have so little respect for our ancestors that we think they would not have even thought to wonder if what they were doing was wrong? People love their animals like they love their children. Not everyone has a great childhood, but most parents try. Not everyone is a good parent, but most of us have some inkling of what a good parent is. A good parent doesn’t make sure their child’s life is free from any discomfort. A good parent makes sure that the child understands life and gives them the tools that that child needs to be secure, even if sometimes it hurts the parent to do so. It is ok for our horses to go through childhood and have experiences that are difficult. The only reason a person would not let their horses have these experiences is because the person is too weak in themselves to watch it happen and support the horse through the challenges. It takes a lot of guts to be a parent and it takes a lot of guts to raise a horse. Not teaching your horse to be a horse is like not teaching your child how to swim. One day he’s going to run into some water and all that work you did to protect him writes him his death sentence. Raising a horse takes courage and the conviction that even if you get it wrong sometimes, the intention of your heart will make up for it.

Even the best horse people don’t train horses using markedly less pressure than anyone else, but that is because pressure takes many forms. There is mental and emotional pressure and physical pressure. Say you train a horse bitless, you’re going to have to make up the difference in taxing the horse more through use of your legs, through more repetition of exercises, or through expecting more of him mentally. That’s still pressure, just a different kind. Say you train a horse with a double bridle. He’s going to be so light he will rarely be confused and there will rarely be conflict between you, but there will be pressure in his mouth and under his chin. It often comes out a wash. The best thing, the most responsible and kindest thing, is to treat your horse as an individual and try to give him the best deal for who HE is, because different horses value different things.

As a horse person, I test EVERYTHING. I’m serious. EVERYTHING. Breed, age, location, time of day, events, disciplines, girths, halters, lead ropes, pads, saddles, hoof trims, footing, feed, living environments, herd mixes… While many horse owners pick a way of doing things and decide it is the best, just because it SOUNDS like it is the best, I am a good person to talk to because I experiment with doing things a multitude of ways. I’m always asking BIG questions about horses. I can only tell you what I have found to be true, but I do not over-generalize and there is not a minute of any day that goes by when I am not thinking about it and trying to find the best possible way. I look for the answers purposefully and methodically, and without assumptions about what is right, yet the belief that I know a better way when I see it. And I would quit horses tomorrow with not an ounce of heartache if I felt my involvement in horses was a mistake.

What I do think is a mistake is to think that we are free and that our lives are so much better than our horses’. It’s also a mistake to think horses are so much better than we are. We don’t know what humans would be like under similar circumstances. How sad it would be to be disgruntled about what you are, especially when we cannot say we really know it. A human does not get the opportunity to be a human.

Tags: Nevzorov, riding, why