Doing Less, Listening More: A New Way with Horses

After five years away from regular time with horses, I’m finally back in the paddock. Muddy boots, hay in my hair, slobber on my coat - I’m like a pig in muck!

This time I’m only going to do it in alignment with my own values. Previously on different yards and in different situations (like when I was training for my BHS and coaching certificates) I’d have squashed and squeezed and adapted my style into the mould of how somebody else thinks I should be doing things, in an effort to people-please and to pass exams, but I won’t do that any more.

I’m working with some young horses who have an owner who shares my values. It is such a relief! I’m trying to give these these youngsters a good foundation. Things like picking up their feet, leading nicely, introducing long reining, and other groundwork, but I’m not rushing to tick things off a list. There’s no rush, because here’s the thing:

Slowing down and listening should be the foundation of all horsemanship.

The more time I spend with horses, the more I notice how much they benefit from space. Space to think, to process, and to let their adrenaline down. Horses don’t have a human agenda, and they don’t worry about how long something takes. The more I slow down, the better I can hear them when I listen to them. Small things get amplified, like a slightly stuck breath, or a tight lip. Those tiny cues that tell me whether a horse is really doing okay, or just enduring something. I want the horses I work with to be relaxed and to enjoy our work together.

Raven, a young Arab mare, has been a great example of this. She was unexpectedly unsettled by the presence of the lunge lines when her owner and I had expected to introduce her to long reining that day. We decided to go right back a few steps, take the pressure off, concentrating on helping her to drop into and maintain a low-adrenaline state while the lunge line was unthreateningly all the way over there. Then progressing to walking past it while it was gently wiggled. When she took a sigh and reached out to the line with curiosity, she got rewarded with a treat. Whenever she was brave enough to walk past slightly tensely but not break into a trot, we’d go and do something fun away from the wiggly line until she was nice and relaxed and chilled out before approaching it again.

I’m sure to an outside observer it would have looked boring, but I’m not planning to tour the UK hosting high pressure demos any time soon. Slow and sensitive, that’s the only kind of horsemanship I care about these days.

I used to think the priority for good horsemanship was being a good leader. I still think it’s important, but what I am leading has changed. My leadership priorities with horses used to be things like building rapport, trust, being clear, and being fair. Nowadays it’s just one: prioritise working in a way that doesn’t push the horse out of relaxation and into stress. That inevitably involves slowing down. Things like rapport and trust will follow.

For me, intuitive horsemanship starts and ends with noticing more. It’s about meeting the horse where they are, not pushing them into where I want them to be at the expense of their peace of mind. Often it ends up being the fastest way to get things done well anyway. And sometimes, the most helpful thing I can do is to do nothing. Just being there, present and calm, while they work something out in their own time.

I haven’t always been in the position of being able to take the time that it takes when it comes to horses - but I’m grateful that I am now.

Have you ever come back to something you used to love, and realised you’d changed… and so had your approach? I’d love to hear how your relationship with animals has shifted over time.