"You're not being a good leader"

The phrase so many of my clients have had bleated at them when they’re having behavioural issues with their horse and have sought help. Usually the solution they’re given to make them a “good leader” is to flap a flag at their horse or yank on the rope to punish them when they perform any behaviour that is undesired, with no sensible thought as to why that behaviour is occurring in the first place. As the horse quickly figures out how to get the scary, horrible behaviour from the human to stop, we’re told the horse is trusting you as leader now and is much happier. What is actually happening is the horse is being shut down and they still feel stressed, only now you’re another source of stress too.

If we want to train ethically and have horses who actually feel safe and relaxed around us, we need to be consistently calm and predictable to be around. Coming in like a sledgehammer with your flag/rope/stick every time the horse dares to move a hoof out of line or god forbid nudge you with their nose makes you a scary, unpredictable and exhausting person to be around.

You might be thinking “well its dangerous to let my horse walk all over me and being hard on him is the only way I can get him to listen”. When we only look at behaviour as stand-alone and something to “fix”, putting the horse into the situation where we know they’re going to struggle just so we have the opportunity to correct them harshly, we are setting them up to fail and using this to justify harsh training methods.

If your horse is bargey/pushy/strong/difficult to handle they are not rude/bad-mannered/taking the mick, they are stressed. We need to look at what is contributing to this behaviour, reduce that stress-load and then train in small, easy steps that set the horse up to succeed. If the horse is exploding and becoming dangerous then we’ve already gone way too far.

One of my lovely clients bought a new horse back in the Spring, they tried and vetted him, but once they got him home they started to have issues leading him to and from the field, handling his legs and tacking him up. They had a well-recommended horsemanship trainer out and were told that the problem was their horse didn’t see them as a good leader because they were too soft with him and that he knew he could walk all over them. They were told “horses crave leadership” and the trainer then proceeded to spend an hour chasing the horse with a flag or whacking the rope clip up into his face if he dared to move without being asked. My client expressed concern about her horse pulling faces and swishing his tail when they approached him in the stable with his tack and was told that she mustn’t ever back off when he pulled faces as she was teaching him he could push her around.

My client was obviously really uncomfortable with what she was being told and reached out to me. When I first assessed the horse I found him to be extremely stressed in the environment as soon as he had to leave his field, he did not feel safe and this came out as barging and pulling. He really did not like being touched anywhere on his body and I felt his topline wasn’t healthy enough to be carrying a rider and could potentially be contributing to discomfort around being tacked up and ridden. As soon as you even entertained the idea of lifting his feet he became extremely upset, something my client said had gotten worse since the trainer had tried to make him do it. This horse didn’t lack leadership, he needed help.

I strongly suspected we were dealing with possible gut discomfort exacerbated by the yard move and the ongoing stress, alongside other discomfort in his body. We completely parked the idea of riding for now and we went into what I call “crisis management”, when you can’t safely handle your horse for daily tasks and welfare needs, we need to get on top of those things first. My first concern was making sure she could bring him in from the field safely, I didn’t feel clicker training was appropriate straight away so we simply taught him to lead between buckets on the floor and threw food into them as we reached them. We could quickly use this to teach him a pattern to and from the field with buckets on the way.

We tweaked his management making sure he had access to appropriate forage at all times and the owner chose to use a gut supplement to support him with the caveat that she would go to the vet if he did not improve. I also gave his owner simple enrichment games to do with him with no pressure. This and the removal of the high-stress training/trying to ride him meant his stress levels dropped quickly and within 2 weeks we had a horse who was in a much more trainable state.

I explained to the owner that when he pulled faces at us he was communicating his discomfort and it was important that we did listen to him and back off. Within a few weeks she was able to gently groom him without him being upset. We got a good bodyworker involved once he was more settled as trying to treat or assess a horse who is so defensive around being touched can be counter-productive. They found that he had some soreness under his saddle area and through his back end which was definitely enough to make holding his legs up uncomfortable.

We are now at the end of the summer and she has a horse who is calm and leads well, she can groom and handle his feet with no issues and as we have gradually developed his body he is now comfortable to be tacked up at liberty. She has just started riding him for short periods a few times a week.

I see cases like this again and again, and all these clients want to do is what’s best for their horse, yet they are misled, patronised and told their kindness is the problem. We have to speak up and stop letting people justify treating horses like this in the name of “helping” them. It has been normalised and praised for too long.

Compliance should not be our only measure of success. 🐴