30/03/2023
Horses are often used as a symbol for freedom. Their beauty at liberty, when running free with the wind in their manes, is unmatched.
Human intervention often tries to manipulate that beauty. To condense it down and control if. Oftentimes, this desire for control ends up extinguishing the beauty that is the freedom of the horse.
Flashes, draw reins, side reins, leverage bits…
There is no shortage of equipment on the market that serves the purpose of trying to control the horse better, speed up a certain result or stop them from doing something unwanted.
A general rule of thumb for equipment is that if it leverages and produces an immediate result, it likely is aversive at minimum, or painful, in some capacity and thereby demands from the horse a quicker response.
Some equipment may produce more favourable behaviour if it’s simply more comfortable for the horse, but much of the equipment humans are compelled to use in training is for human comfort and desire, not horse.
The natural beauty of the horse is unmatched.
If humans would stop trying to control and micromanage the horse, we could achieve a degree of harmony and fluidity that is unmatched.
The peace and fulfilment that harmony brings both horse and ready is worth the long journey to grasp it.
Restrictive and forceful training equipment will always come with a price and, unfortunately, it’s usually the horse that has to pay it.
No one knows how to carry the body of the horse in more harmony and correctness than the horse themselves*. Trying to force them along the journey by leveraging restrictive equipment oftentimes disrupts their ability to find comfort and equilibrium on their own.
* and if they don’t know how to carry themselves correctly naturally, forcing them into a new position all at once with the leverage pulling the head down and in won’t be the best way to change that
