"Your horse is testing you": and other myths and misconceptions from the world of horses and riders

By Daniela Vögele

Your horse is testing you", "You can't let the horse win", "You have to be the lead animal for your horse," and many similar phrases are still on everyone's lips and minds, believed, taken to heart when dealing with horses, and passed on to others.
But are they really true?
What exactly is your horse testing? And what does it want to win? This book sheds light on these and other questions and encourages you to take a closer look.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9783384042200

Daniela Vögele

Ever since I was a child, I have loved horses. I love everything about them: their gentleness, their noble character, their authenticity and their wisdom, their smell and their beauty. I love how they show show us our own limits, how they try to make us understand and how much we can learn from them. About them, about us and about life.

Book preview

1

You have to be the boss with your horse.

I have not met a single horse person, who has never heard, or who has not learnt, that you have to be the alpha animal for your horse, the leader, the boss.

As will be shown in the course of this book, this misconception is the basis and the reason for many more misunderstandings between horse and human and for much frustration on both sides too.

The boss, leader or alpha animal theory takes the supposedly natural behaviour of horses as its basis.

It was thought that observations of horses had shown that in a herd, there is an alpha or leader animal that tells the other horses what to do.

In other words, a horse that has the voice that all other horses follow and that they always give way to.

This theory was disproved quite a while ago and it has been found that the behaviour on which this theory is based has only been observed in horses in captivity and when resources are scarce. That is, when there is too little space/too many horses in too small a space, not enough food or feeding places, no permanently stable herd community and other disturbing factors that can lead to aggression within a group of horses.

You could perhaps compare it to living in a big city, where there are too many people, where the atmosphere is charged and the stress level is increased.

This means, that for decades, we have used unnatural horse behaviour as a model, behaviour which horses only show in managed lifestyles that are unfavourable for them. We were told that communication would work if we behaved like a dominant leader.

By communication we understood that the horse should understand what we ask, that it receives, understands and carries out our commands and not what communication should actually be: the exchange between two beings; between sender and receiver, whereby both sender and receiver are and should always be both within a communication.

Horses are by nature very peace-loving and social beings and they like to connect. Preferably to one or several other horses but also to the human, as long as the human is trustworthy and reliable and they like to be with them.

Every horse has one or more tasks in its herd. These result from the respective abilities that a horse brings with it.

The horse that other horses follow most willingly is the horse that is most experienced and thus enjoys the trust of the other horses. This does not mean, however, that a less experienced horse of the herd cannot make a suggestion or that all horses follow the most trustworthy horse in each and every situation.

A herd leader is not characterised by brusque, dominant behaviour and constant control. He is reliable and the other horses trust it.

We were told to be dominant and sometimes rough with our horses in order to enforce what we want from them or to prevent them from doing something we don't want and which could be or become dangerous. We learnt that we need to control the horses to keep us and the horse safe.

Dominance and control were supposed to give us the safety we wanted and needed when interacting with the horse.

And behind all this, sits this one feeling: fear. Fear of losing control.

People who act bossily are unlikely to win their horse's unreserved friendship or trust. Horses that are treated that way may do what the human tells them to do, but the quality of this contact is different: the horse responds out of fear, because it knows that it will get into trouble if it does not do what the human demands.

The desired safety in interacting with the horse is not achieved this way, as there will always be something the horse is more afraid of than the reactions of the human.

Mutual trust is what helps us out of this trap and trust does not come from dominance, pressure and control, but from mindful interaction with each other.

If you understand your horse, note and respect its boundaries, know it, value it, observe it in your daily contact and support it when it needs support, the horse will trust you very quickly. It then understands that the human is on its side, attentive and reliable.

Horses like to be with people like this. They respond to them in a friendly and dedicated manner and start to show a voluntary and joyful interest in being and working together.

And indeed, the circle closes here, because mutual trust is the best AND safest basis one could wish for. It creates a connection that cannot be achieved with dominance, pressure and control.

Those who trust, feel safe and understood, need not be afraid and turn to the one they trust even in