One beautiful spring day in Southern France, a rider came and asked me if I could help him with this big horse: Vertige. A pretty nice horse, as long as you don’t ask anything from him. But try to make him walk, or to get on the saddle, or to do anything actually, and he starts to rear until you give up…
- Name: Vertige
- Breed: French/Quarter horse
- Age: 5 years old
- Genre: gelding
Vertige is a good example of the disrespectful little bullies we can meet in every livery stables worldwide today. The reason why there are so many horses like this is that the word discipline has become synonym of tyranny for many people. They make the confusion between violence and firmness, between abuse and rules.
Safety Advice
As usual, when dealing with this kind of horses, I advise you to ask for help from a professional if you don’t feel comfortable with the situation. If you feel good and want to handle the situation all by yourself, I urge you to review the Groundwork Fundamentals first.
These basic exercises will help you define your safety bubble. Backing Up and Lunging are essential exercises, and you have to be good at them before trying to reeducate such horses.
Build trust…
One has to put oneself in a horse’s shoes to understand why some horses behave so badly. A horse needs to feel secure, safe, at peace. That is his first objective. If you, as a human, are not capable of delivering this safe and secured space to your horse, that means he will have to do the necessary to take care of himself. And then, you become an obstacle to that notion of safety. Consequently, the horse will have to get rid of you in order to be able to take care of himself, and that translates into bucking, rearing, pawing, doing anything he can to make sure you won’t bother him any longer.
That is why Trust is so important. Your horse needs to know that you can take care of him. That means you ought to show him your self-confidence; you need to show him that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it; you need to show him that whenever he’s with with you, he will be safe and at peace.
… to gain respect
Trust is the first step to a mutual sense of respect. Indeed, once your horse understands that he can trust you, that you will do the necessary to make him feel safe, and cherished, he then will start to respect you as a good leader.
And that is what discipline means. Self-discipline comes first, that means you can not demand impeccable behaviour from your horse, if you are not irreproachable yourself. Then, by teaching discipline to your horse, you offer him a social frame within which he can move freely. Boundaries should be the same for both humans and horses, that is how you will be able to gain his respect.