The equestrian world is intent on the appearance of leadership and strength. Perhaps I should back up a bit and say that it’s true for the entire dominant culture of the United States. Don’t quit, don’t cry, don’t back down… When things get tough, we’re encouraged to beat the odds, fight to win, and make sure we look good doing it.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t look all that great when I’m fighting things. Usually, in fact, I just feel like a hot mess. When it comes to horses, it’s common to take a combative approach to a horse not following directions. Many times in lessons and training I heard the words “make him do it” or “he’s disrespecting you.” It was framed as me vs the horse. I would escalate and escalate, feeling worse and worse, until I was pounding on the horse’s sides with my heels or using full force to smack a horse with a whip to move them, under the shouted commands of an instructor. It didn’t matter, at that point, that I “won” or “lost.” I was already lost, panic overtaking reason and sending me into fight or flight. I was not a leader, I was not displaying strength. I was displaying desperation. It was a mess.
Many times, what I really need is to pause and ask why things are happening. Isn’t that what we would all want from a boss or a parent? For them to ask us what’s going on when we refuse an instruction or act out of turn? Perhaps we received some bad news recently or have something else on our minds. When a horse misbehaves there’s the tendency to become personally offended by it, instead of wondering why, when there had never been a problem before. If I pause, the horse may temporarily learn that they can get relief when coming to a sudden halt or grimacing at the girth. What they also realize, though, is that I’m paying attention. When I’m paying attention, and the horse also knows it, we can work on a solution together instead of being at odds in a power struggle. That, to me, is more valuable than getting my way. That, to me, is making us both stronger. Once we have moved through the problem together, the horse no longer needs to halt or grimace, so the behavior goes away on its own. I hope that many more humans are able to put aside the need to win or to show they’re capable of forcing the horse to do whatever they want, and instead can work side by side with horses to solve problems.
Follow my personal journey into working side by side with horses in my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, available on Kindle and Smashwords. Paperback version coming soon, in February. If you read my book and liked it, please leave a review on Amazon! Thank you so much.
Maeve Birch Home 