07/16/2025
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Training Is Not a Democracy: Your Horse Doesn’t Get a Vote
One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in the horse world over the years is how much people have softened in the wrong direction. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m all for kindness, for patience, and for empathy. But those things mean very little if they aren’t wrapped in clear leadership. Somewhere along the line, too many people started confusing kindness with permissiveness and leadership with cruelty. That’s where the wheels fall off. Because here’s the truth:
Training is not a democracy. Your horse doesn’t get a vote.
We are the leaders. And we have to act like it.
Confusing Emotion with Permission
A horse isn’t a dog, and even dogs need structure. But horses? Horses are flight animals. Horses are herd animals. They’re hardwired to look for leadership. And if they don’t find it in you, they’ll either fill that role themselves — which never ends well — or they’ll become anxious, reactive, or even dangerous. Either way, they’re not thriving, they’re surviving.
Somewhere out there, people got this idea that a horse “expressing itself” was the same thing as “being empowered.” But when that expression looks like pushing into your space, refusing to move forward, slamming on the brakes at the gate, or throwing a fit about being caught, that’s not empowerment — that’s insecurity and disrespect. That’s a lack of clear expectations. That’s a horse operating in chaos.
And a chaotic horse is a dangerous horse.
The Illusion of Fairness
I know some people mean well. They want to be “fair.” They want their horse to feel “heard.” But horses aren’t people. They don’t negotiate. They don’t take turns. They live in a world of black and white — safe or unsafe, leader or follower, respect or no respect.
If you try to run your training like a democracy — where every cue is a polite request and every command is up for discussion — you’re setting that horse up for failure. Because out in the pasture, that’s not how it works. The lead mare doesn’t ask twice. The alpha doesn’t negotiate. Leadership in the horse world is clear, consistent, and sometimes firm — but it’s always fair.
Being fair doesn’t mean weak. It doesn’t mean permissive. It means you set a boundary and you keep it.
Confidence Comes from Clarity
One of the things I say often is this: a horse is never more confident than when it knows who’s in charge and what the rules are. Period.
A horse that’s allowed to “opt out” of work when it doesn’t feel like it isn’t a happy horse. It’s a confused horse. A horse that’s allowed to drag its handler, rush the gate, balk at obstacles, or call the shots under saddle isn’t empowered — it’s insecure. It’s operating without a plan, without leadership, and without trust in its rider.
And let me tell you something — trust isn’t earned through wishy-washy “maybe-if-you-want-to” training. It’s earned through consistency, repetition, and follow-through. That’s what gives a horse confidence. That’s what earns respect. That’s what makes a horse feel safe — and therefore willing.
Manners Are Not Optional
When people send their horses to me for training, one of the first things I work on is manners. I don’t care how broke that horse is, how many blue ribbons it has, or how fancy the bloodlines are. If the horse walks through me, pulls away, crowds my space, or refuses to stand quietly, we’re not moving on until that’s fixed.
Because manners aren’t cosmetic. They’re the foundation of everything.
If your horse doesn’t respect your space on the ground, what makes you think it’ll respect your leg cues under saddle? If your horse doesn’t wait for a cue to walk off at the mounting block, what makes you think it’ll wait for your cue to lope off on the correct lead?
We don’t give horses the option to decide whether or not to be respectful. That’s not up for debate. That’s the bare minimum of the contract.
Leadership Isn’t Force — It’s Direction
Now before somebody takes this and twists it into something it’s not, let me be clear. I’m not talking about bullying. I’m not talking about fear-based training. I don’t train with anger, and I don’t train with cruelty.
But I also don’t ask twice.
When I give a cue, I expect a response. If I don’t get it, I don’t stand there and beg — I escalate until I get the response I asked for. And then I drop right back down to lightness. That’s how you teach a horse to respond to softness. Not by starting soft and staying soft no matter what. You teach softness through clarity, consistency, and fair correction when needed.
That’s leadership.
Horses Crave It — So Give It
Some of the best horses I’ve ever trained came in hot, pushy, or insecure. And some of those same horses left my place calm, willing, and confident — not because I over-handled them, but because I gave them structure. I told them where the boundaries were, and I held those boundaries every single time. I wasn’t their friend. I wasn’t their therapist. I was their leader.
And in the end, that’s what they wanted all along.
They didn’t want to vote. They wanted to be led.
Final Thought
If your horse is calling the shots — whether that’s dragging you out to the pasture, refusing to go in the trailer, tossing its head, or dictating when and how you ride — then your barn doesn’t have a training problem. It has a leadership problem.
Stop running your horse life like a town hall meeting. Training isn’t a democracy. Your horse doesn’t get a say in whether or not it respects you. That part’s not optional. Your job — your responsibility — is to show up, be consistent, and take the lead. Every time.
Because if you don’t? That horse will. And I promise you, that’s not the direction you want to go.
