Horses Do Well When They Can—Just Like Us

It’s not uncommon to hear horse owners comparing their horses to people all the time. In some ways, this can get them into trouble, such as thinking that your horse loves you and will never hurt you because their love for you can override the 55 million years of DNA telling them to protect themselves first when frightened. (Sorry, it’s not happening.) 

However, there is a lot of commonalities between horses and humans that can help us humans better understand how to coexist with our horses. Here’s a recent discussion where I felt the pull of the similarities.

During a podcast episode on The Mel Robbins Podcast, which I’ll link below, her guest, Dr. J. Stuart Ablon, who is an award-winning psychologist, Associate Professor, and Thomas G. Stemberg Endowed Chair at Harvard Medical School, said, “People do well when they can.”

Excuse me, what?! (as I take a deep breath and feel the weight lifting off of my shoulders)

To go into it further, paraphrasing the conversation with Dr. Ablon, he said: People do well when they can. If you are not doing well or someone you know is not doing well, it’s because they can’t right now. It’s a skill, not a willpower issue. There is a problem underneath the behavior that hasn’t been discovered.

Dr. Ablon works primarily with kids, and it hit home when he goes on to say that oftentimes the hardest working kids are the ones who are struggling because they are trying to keep up but they don’t have the proper skill sets and tools needed to succeed, so it looks like they’re just treading water or rebelling. When you come down on them to ‘try harder’ that is the worst thing that you could say to them. 

(*gasping as I have flashbacks of similar feelings in school.) I think it’s safe to say we’ve all experienced a time in school when we were struggling to comprehend a math problem or writing assignment that our brains just couldn’t figure out. Period. Then tell me how did you feel when you were given a hard time about not handling it well. I bet pretty poorly.

As a horse trainer, I cannot count the number of times I have seen a horse in a situation that they are a nice horse, have a lot of potential both physically and mentally, but unfortunantly they are in the hands of someone inexpereinced who is not capable to teaching the horse the tools and skill sets needed to be successful in the ‘horse owner’s’ environment. 

This could look anything from riders yee-hawing their horse through a barrel pattern, ripping on the reins expecting them to turn without even teaching the horse how to walk the pattern. 

This could look like a horse refusing to load in a trailer because he’s scared, and it turns into a lifelong dangerous bad habit. 

This could look like a horse that runs over top of anyone trying to lead them, or takes off bucking any time someone tries to ride. 

Why? Because just like a toddler, they do not have the skillset, and it is NO FAULT of their own. A horse, just like a child, does not want to be bad. They’re just trying to protect themselves while figuring out life off of the very limited experience they’ve had. 

I’m not saying that if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t even try. Any good horseman will tell you they learn every day from every horse, and the best way to learn is to just do it, but the difference comes in the mindset that you have in your approach. 

Are you trying your best to apply your foundational knowledge and listen to your horse’s signals as feedback on how they’re taking what you're teaching them, or are you just forcing them through mechanical manipulation?

That is why it is your job as a horse owner that if you ever find yourself in a situation where you know you don’t have the skillset to help the horse learn it properly, to stop before you make it worse, and get help. Reach out to someone who does have a better understanding of how to guide both the horse and owner. Not to mention, it will likely be less of a headache earlier on for them to teach the horse properly before you add bad habits that they have to undo before they can even get started. 

If you are interested in listening to this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, which I highly recommend, you can find it here > https://www.melrobbins.com/podcasts/episode-244