25/05/2026
Nervous riders love inventing rules about horses… that aren’t actually true.
You’ve probably heard them all:
“Horses don’t like dogs running at them.”
“You can’t expect a horse to stay calm if another horse gallops past.”
“You can’t ride 50 metres up the road and turn round again — you’ll teach it to nap.”
“If you’re nervous and trembling, the horse will feel it and react badly.”
And the classic: “You must stay perfectly calm, heart rate down, no excitement at all.”
These sound like facts… until you run them through The Extreme Test.
Here’s how it works: take the limiting belief and push it to the most ridiculous real-world extreme. If the horse still copes perfectly there, then the “rule” was never true in the first place — it was just fear dressed up as wisdom.
Dogs running at horses?
Go to a county show and watch the hunt display. Hundreds of hounds are weaving in and out between the horses’ legs, barking, darting everywhere. The horses? Standing there, half asleep, ears floppy. Nobody minds. Not even a little.
Another horse galloping past?
Watch the wild horse round-ups in America or Australia. Thousands of wild horses are stampeding flat-out, wild-eyed and terrified, thundering through the gates in a chaotic mass. The cowboys’ horses? Standing quietly at the side, watching the whole thing like it’s Tuesday.
Turning round and coming back again?
Think of the ploughman who spends all day going up the field and turning round to come straight back again… every single furrow, all day, every day.
Or the milkman delivering down both sides of the street. Are we seriously saying a horse can’t manage a 50-metre turnaround without deciding to nap forever? Absolute nonsense.
Trembling and shaking?
Ever been caught in a freezing rain shower? Rain pouring down your hat, straight into your shirt and pants, teeth chattering, muscles literally banging with cold. The horse? Just slops along in the mud, ears back, thinking about its dinner. It didn’t explode because you were shaking.
And while we’re at it — the idea that you must stay perfectly calm with zero heart-rate rise?
Pop to the Riding for the Disabled stable. Watch the extremely excited autistic kids bouncing, squealing, hearts racing with pure joy. The horses? Calmly plodding round in perfect rhythm, completely unfazed.
See the pattern?
Most of these “rules” nervous riders repeat are just stories we tell ourselves to justify staying stuck.
Horses are far more capable, forgiving, and level-headed than we give them credit for — especially when we stop projecting our own fears onto them.
So next time you hear (or catch yourself saying) one of these sweeping statements, run it through The Extreme Test.
If the belief falls apart when you take it to the extreme… it was never true to begin with.
Horses aren’t fragile.
They’re just waiting for a confident leader who knows the difference between real danger and made-up fiction.
What’s the daftest limiting belief you’ve ever heard (or secretly believed) about horses? Drop it in the comments — let’s put them all through The Extreme Test together! 👇
