27/07/2025
Hard truth of horse training.
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it plain:
A lot of the problems people bring to me — barn sour horses, buddy sour horses, horses that won’t load, won’t stand at the mounting block, don’t stop, don’t steer, don’t pick up the right lead — didn’t come out of nowhere. They weren’t born that way. And most of the time, they weren’t trained that way either.
They were made that way. And most often? They were made that way by the very people trying to fix them.
Now before you get your feathers ruffled, hear me out. I’m not here to shame anyone. Horses are honest creatures. They respond to the environment they’re in and the leadership they get. If you’ve got a problem horse, that horse isn’t out to make your life miserable. That horse is just reacting to what it’s been taught — directly or indirectly — by you.
So before you go looking for a fix, stop and ask yourself one simple question:
“Did I create this?”
Horses Learn Patterns — Whether You Meant to Teach Them or Not
Horses are masters of pattern recognition. They don’t just learn what we intentionally teach — they learn what we repeatedly allow.
Let me give you a simple example. You ride your horse for 45 minutes, and every single time you dismount right at the gate. After about a week of that, your horse starts pulling toward the gate at the 40-minute mark. Two weeks in, you’re fighting to stay in the arena at all. You say, “He’s barn sour.” No — he’s gate-conditioned. You taught him that the gate is where the ride ends, and he learned it better than you realized.
Same thing with mounting blocks. You let your horse walk off the second your foot hits the stirrup? Don’t be surprised when he refuses to stand still. He’s not being disrespectful — he’s doing exactly what he thinks he’s supposed to do. You taught him that.
Buddy sour? Happens when every ride, every turnout, every trailer ride, every everything happens in pairs. You never ask that horse to be alone, never train it to focus on you instead of the herd, and then act shocked when it melts down the minute its pasture mate walks away.
These are learned behaviors. And if you taught it — even accidentally — then you’re the one who needs to un-teach it.
Avoidance Creates Anxiety
I see it all the time: the rider knows their horse doesn’t like something — maybe it’s going in the trailer, riding out alone, crossing water, walking past a flapping tarp. So what do they do? They just avoid it. Again and again.
And you know what happens? The horse gets more anxious. The issue doesn’t go away. It gets bigger. Because now that thing is associated with stress, and the horse has never been taught how to work through it. The human’s avoidance has created a mental block.
And then one day they try to address it — maybe they need to trailer somewhere, or they’re in a clinic and someone pulls out a tarp — and the horse explodes. And they say, “I don’t know why he’s acting like this!”
I do. You’ve been letting it fester. You taught your horse that he never has to face the thing that scares him. Until now. And now it’s a fight.
Inconsistency is the Fastest Way to Ruin a Good Horse
You can’t train a horse one way on Monday and another way on Wednesday and expect them to understand anything. And yet that’s what a lot of folks do.
Monday: you make him back out of your space.
Tuesday: you let him walk all over you because you’re in a rush.
Wednesday: you smack him with the lead rope for doing the same thing he got away with yesterday.
Thursday: you feel bad and let him be pushy again.
That horse has no idea what the rules are. And when there are no clear rules, a horse will either take charge or check out completely. Either way, it’s not going to end in a safe, willing, responsive partner.
Stop Saying “He Just Started Doing That”
I hear that phrase constantly: “He just started doing that.”
No, he didn’t. You just started noticing it once it became a problem you couldn’t ignore.
Most bad habits start small. A little shoulder lean. A step into your space. A half-second delay in picking up a cue. But when you ignore those things, they grow. Horses don’t suddenly wake up one day and decide to bolt, buck, rear, or refuse. They show you the warning signs first. It’s up to you to listen and respond before it becomes a crisis.
So the next time you say, “He just started doing that,” stop and think: Did I actually miss the signs? Did I allow this to build?
Horses Are Honest — But So Are Results
Your horse is just doing what it was taught. Maybe not on purpose. Maybe not maliciously. But consistently.
The results you’re getting today are a direct reflection of the leadership you’ve given up until now.
And the good news is — that works in reverse too.
If your horse is a problem today, and you take responsibility, and you start showing up consistently, with clear expectations, fair corrections, and better timing — the horse will respond. Horses aren’t holding grudges. They’re not being stubborn just to spite you. They’re not political. They’re not bitter. They’re honest.
They will follow a better leader the moment one shows up.
Final Thought
If you’re spending your time trying to fix a problem, the first place you need to look is the mirror.
Because if you’re the one who taught it — even by accident — then you’re also the one who can fix it. But only if you take responsibility.
Stop blaming the horse. Stop acting surprised. Start being the kind of leader your horse actually needs — not the one that avoids, excuses, and compensates.
The horse isn’t broken. The horse isn’t rebellious. The horse isn’t hard to train.
You’re just trying to fix something you created without first owning the fact that you created it.
And until you do that, nothing is going to change.
