12/09/2025
✨🧬 WHY LOSING A HORSE HURTS SO MUCH
And why this time of year brings it all back 🐴💔
People outside the horse world often do not understand why the grief hits so sharply. Yet the science is clear. The bond between humans and horses is not imaginary, sentimental, or exaggerated. It is neurological. Physiological. Relational. And something else that sits in the space we still call magic.
Here is what research tells us.
🌿 1. Horses meet the criteria for attachment figures
Attachment theory says we form deep bonds with those who feel safe, steady, and emotionally reliable.
Horses do all of this.
• We seek proximity.
• They act as a secure base.
• We turn to them for comfort.
• We feel distress when separated.
Studies on the human–animal bond confirm that animals can be both caregivers and receivers of care. Horses are especially good at co regulation and emotional presence.
🧠 2. Your nervous system literally bonds with theirs
Oxytocin, often called the bonding hormone, rises in humans when they stand near a horse.
It rises in horses too.
Two nervous systems responding to each other in real time.
That is why the connection feels grounding, calming, and honest.
When this becomes part of your daily rhythm, the bond embeds itself neurologically.
💔 3. Grief is not a neat, tidy process
Modern neuroscience describes grief as a total rewiring of your internal map.
Your brain organises whole routines around the beings you feel attached to.
When the horse is no longer there:
• The map collapses.
• The routines echo.
• The body keeps searching for the presence it expects.
This is why walking into the stable after a loss can feel physically painful. Your nervous system is trying to update information it does not want to accept.
🌀 4. The “reward centre” of the brain is involved
In complicated grief, the nucleus accumbens stays active.
This area usually lights up when we see someone we love.
After a death, it can activate when we see reminders of them instead, creating a loop of:
cue → longing → sadness → craving the connection
Attachment does not switch off. It tries to continue.
🫂 5. Society often dismisses grief for animals
This is called disenfranchised grief.
No rituals.
Minimal acknowledgement.
A subtle message that the loss is “less than”.
Yet research shows animal bonds can be as significant as human ones.
Your grief is legitimate, even if the world is awkward around it.
❄️ 6. Winter amplifies old grief
Short days.
Cold mornings.
Slower routines.
The nervous system becomes quieter, and what was once tucked away becomes louder.
This is normal.
This is human.
This is attachment.
🌟 The Equimotional View
The human–horse relationship sits at the crossroads of science and something beautifully unmeasurable.
Horses shape our nervous systems, our identity, our steadiness.
When they go, the grief reflects the depth of that connection, not the weakness of the person feeling it.
If the winter months feel heavy, nothing is wrong with you.
You are remembering.
Your body is telling the story of a bond that mattered.
And bonds like that do not disappear.
They change shape.
They stay with us.
Quietly. Powerfully. Always.
