During my extra time off from work this Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to spend a day with my friend and trainer, D. John Deas.  I loaded up my K's (Kadence, Kasino, Kassidy) and hauled down to Gastonia for the day.

As I arrived, settled in, and started to unload, D. John was riding a 3 year old.  Kasino whinnied for Kadence as she came off the trailer first.  This series of events, combined with the fact that the weather was a bit nippy and the previous day had been a rest day for the 3 year old, momentarily caused him to lose focus.  D. John told me later he could have been pretty close to being bucked off if he'd mishandled the situation.

This started a conversation about being proactive versus reactive and how he (and many of us) think about situations differently than we used to.  He commented that there was a time that if a colt "did that to him" in front of a bunch of people and clients, he would have taken to snatching, spurring, and jerking, reminding him he could not "do that to him" and generally just putting him back in his place.  BUT, as he said, horses do not think like that.

Do you really think that 3 year old colt surmised out a whole plan??  Hmm...he's thinking, "part 1, wait until the weanling starts whinnying to distract the man on my back, part 2...."  NO! Of course not.  That colt was RE-acting to the situation around him.  The thought that it might make D. John look bad, get embarrassed or even get hurt never entered that colt's mind.

I've heard so many people humanize their horses (myself included!) in this situation.  Horses rarely (if ever) set out to do something "to you."  I am challenging everyone who has or works with a horse (again, I am including myself here) to be more proactive and let the horses be less reactive (and thus becoming less reactive ourselves).  The next time your horse is bad, disobedient, or otherwise disappointing, don't take it personally.  Think about what YOU could have done to make this less likely to happen.  Think about what you could do to correct adjust the situation RIGHT THEN.  Think about what you could do to make your request more clear for your non-English speaking horse.  Refocus yourself and your horse.  Try again.

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