10/11/2026
Trained Does Not Mean Broke — and Broke Does Not Mean Trained
There is a difference between a trained horse and a broke horse, and I think we have blurred those two definitions so much that people often assume they mean the same thing. They don't.
A horse can be extremely well trained and still not be what I would call broke. That horse may know advanced movements, understand complicated cues, perform at a very high level, and be capable of doing things most horses will never learn to do. But when something unexpected happens, the horse may still lose control of himself mentally and emotionally. That doesn't erase all of his training. It simply exposes something that the training hasn't completely addressed.
The picture with this post is a good example of the distinction I'm talking about. I don't know everything that happened before or after this single moment, so I'm not judging this particular horse or rider from one photograph. I'm using the image because it visually demonstrates an important point: the ability to perform advanced maneuvers doesn't automatically mean a horse has learned how to handle pressure, confusion, fear, frustration, or unexpected situations. Those are different parts of training.
I see the opposite situation all the time too. A horse can be very broke without being highly trained. I can have a horse that doesn't know a lead change, doesn't know how to spin, can't perform advanced lateral work, and certainly couldn't go perform an upper-level pattern. But I can ride that horse down the road, open a gate, move cattle, encounter something unexpected, and reasonably expect him to stay with me.
He may not know very much technically, but he understands how to be ridden. To me, that is a big part of being broke. A broke horse understands that when something goes wrong, his first answer isn't necessarily to leave, rear, buck, bolt, or completely disconnect from the rider. He has developed enough experience, confidence, and understanding that the rider still has influence when the situation becomes difficult.
A highly trained horse may know 100 answers when everything happens the way it has been practiced. A truly broke horse has learned how to stay with the rider when the answer isn't immediately obvious. That difference matters.
We sometimes get so impressed with what a horse can do that we forget to look at what the horse can handle. Can I change the environment? Can I increase the pressure? Can something unexpected happen? Can the horse become confused for a moment without falling apart? Can I make a mistake as the rider without the horse having a complete meltdown? Can the horse remain mentally available enough for me to help him through the problem? Those things don't necessarily show up in a beautiful pattern or a polished performance, but they tell me a tremendous amount about how broke the horse actually is.
There is another side to this that is just as important. Calling a horse "broke" doesn't mean the horse is trained. I've ridden plenty of broke horses that didn't have much formal education. They were safe, dependable horses that understood their jobs, but they still needed a tremendous amount of training to become better athletes. They needed better body control, better collection, better transitions, better balance, and better responsiveness. They might need to learn how to move their shoulders, control their hips, change leads, rate their speed, carry themselves correctly, or perform whatever their particular discipline required. They were broke. They just weren't trained.
This is one reason I don't like measuring a horse's education simply by asking what maneuvers he knows. Knowing more maneuvers doesn't automatically mean the foundation underneath those maneuvers is stronger.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Ideally, of course, I want both.
