29/05/2026
“Don’t worry he won’t do anything” 🐴
Something I’ve been pondering this week is how wanting to be kinder to horses is often perceived to come from fear or nervousness. That the only reason you might back off when a horse shows some anxiety is that you’re worried the horse is going to do something to hurt you.
This comes from the widely held, but misguided, belief that horses are trying to dominate and take charge of us. That we must push through any effort they make to express their discomfort otherwise we will ruin the horse and teach them they can intimidate us or “get out of work”.
I go out to see a lot of horses who are showing behaviours that are perceived as aggression, pinning ears, biting, threatening to kick etc. Every single person has been told they must never back off as the horse is trying to dominate them, the horse knows they are “too soft” and the horse is taking advantage of this. This just is not the case. Horses are not aggressive animals, they are gentle and very easy to train when they feel safe and have their needs met. Behaviour is communication.
When a horse resorts to these loud behaviours they are shouting, usually because their quieter communication hasn’t been listened to. The majority of horses displaying “aggressive” behaviours are in pain, even if they aren’t experiencing physical pain they are definitely not okay mentally and ignoring their communication, or worse punishing it, will make life worse for them. Often punishment works in that it gets the horse to shut down and stop communicating their discomfort, other times it makes the behaviour escalate into something more dangerous.
If we learn to listen to their quiet communication and respond accordingly, they will no longer need to shout at us. This can take a long time when a horse has been ignored or punished for it their whole life and feels the need to defend themselves, especially when pain is involved.
When I meet a new horse I will perhaps greet them then gently reach my hand out to see how they feel about me touching them. Sometimes this is met with a horse looking away from me and pinning their ears, so I will immediately drop my hand and back off to let the horse know I’m listening to them. This is how you start to build trust with a horse. But often this is met with the phrase “don’t worry he won’t do anything”, which when we think about it really means “don’t worry you can continue to do whatever you want to him, even though you’re doing something he is communicating he really doesn’t like, because he is too gentle to actually hurt you”.
I do not back off when horses communicate discomfort to me because I am scared they will escalate and hurt me, I back off because it is the respectful thing to do and I want to start creating a rapport with that horse and let them know I will listen and they are safe with me. They don’t need to shout. Not being injured by horses is just a nice extra bonus.
This is not a judgement of people who have been taught this, it is a reflection of how horses are viewed industry wide. As long as the horse will tolerate something then it is fine to do it. We must not let the horse know they can have any control over what happens to them or else they'll become really dangerous. 🙄
Back in the days when I used to get on strange horses for people I remember hopping onto a horse who was extremely tense. He jogged away from the mounting block and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get him to walk on a loose rein and allow me to relax and wrap my legs around him. After a while the owner said to me “you can trot him you know don’t worry he won’t do anything”, and I realised that she thought I wasn’t trotting him because I was nervous he would explode. I had to explain that trotting him was inappropriate because he couldn’t even relax in the walk and it wouldn’t do him any good. We are always rushing and expecting our horses to just put up with things and improve when they are clearly struggling (turned out this horse had raging stomach ulcers and kissing spine but that’s another story).
I really want horses to be listened to before they have to shout and become labelled aggressive and dangerous. I encourage you to take some time with your horse and observe how they really feel about what you’re asking. Are you just going through the motions and carrying on because you know your horse won’t protest too much? Do you notice when your horse doesn’t want your touch? What happens if you pause and listen? 🐴
I am currently writing my next webinar "How to build a good relationship with your horse" which will cover topics like this one, I will add the link to express interest in the comments 😊