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Is the HORSE in touch with reality
Understanding horse AWARENESS
Reality is what surrounds our life in time and space, and if we observe how equines
interact with their surrounding, when they are alone or when with other individuals,
it becomes evident that relationships are key elements in a horse’s reality. At every
moment their activity is always connected with the perceptive attention to the surrounding,
and through their body language they let others know how they feel about their reality.
This can be an asset when there is harmony between
human and horse, or can be a real problem, when both
human and horse are disconnected from reality and from
each other.
Being a horsemanship clinician at Human Horse Sensing
I often work with new people and horses, teaching
them how to relate to each other. The way I approach
the matter of relationship between human and horses is
not by providing a series of exercises that leads to obtain
a certain behavior from the horse. Human Horse Sensing
teaches how communication happens in real life, and
gives people and horses elements that can be modulated
like a language during any activity to achieve a harmonious
interaction. Learning this system is pretty simple; the
fun part comes in the time shared between a human and
a horse. The mechanism of a relationship is different than
what happens when people and horses interact by the
way of training. Both relationship and training are important,
but relationships are social actions that transfer in time
and space from a situation to another.
Human Horse Sensing allows for establishing an immediate
spontaneous communication with any horse, and people
are often impressed by watching when I teach and work
with horses that I have never before approached. I like to
state that it is not “my magic”. The horses comprehend the
communication because of how the method is formulated,
participate because they understand without the need of
training, and enjoy it.
The way I have learned the critical importance of being
able to spontaneously and efficiently relate to a horse
happened when in my youth I rode in flat races horses that
I have not even seen before the moment of getting to the
paddock, just before going to the starting gates. As jockeys
sometime we had to ride and do the best to win on horses
that we have never ridden before, with minimal contact,
at high speed, in a precarious position, and in competitions
that last a minute or two. The feeling I had when I won a
race with a newly met horse was very strong, and I openly
shared it with the horse after the finish line, not caring if I
looked like a little girl loving on “her pony”. I always tried
not to use the whip while riding to the finish line rather I
made my body motion blend with the horse’s one, and we
played as a team. The time I spent with the racehorse was
short, but still challenging, between riding in the paddock,
surrounded by people that did not keep in mind the horses’
presence, and the race itself, a group performance where
each pair wants to prevail. I very much respected the racing
code, and listened to the trainer’s instructions, but this
was just a part of it, I also had to face whatever situation
would have been presented to me and the horse, which
requires being completely aware of the situation, deeply
knowing the possibilities for the horse’s behavior and hav-
TRAINING & Showing
ing an efficient immediate
communication between
us. That, to me is the goal
we all should have, which
allows for truly establishing a
relationship with a horse.
Horses are masters at being
aware of their surrounding; it
is an instinctual behavior of
animals that are prey in their
natural state. To be aware
of their surroundings horses
use their senses that are always functioning, and they
modulate their behavior based on the information collected
in the moment, on the past experience and on their
personality. Obviously it happens while they have freedom
of choice and are interested in what they choose to act
upon, but this is often not true when they are interacting
with human beings. When living in natural herd setting a
large part of horse behavior is spent in relating with others,
and they do so with movement. Human beings and
equines have very different specific traits, but one they
definitely share is that they are social individuals. This strong
common element can work in bridging the gap in communication,
when we switch from human spoken language to
the visual language of movement that is the equine way
to convey information. This can only happen when both
individuals have choice in behavior and decide to communicate.
I have found that there are some social concepts
that we can modulate instantly on the ground and
in the saddle that have the same meaning for human and
horses, and Human Horse Sensing communication revolves
around those elements.
When horses live in a domesticated environment they
adapt to the circumstances, and their contact with other
equines is very limited. Relating to human beings represents
a large portion of their close interaction with other individuals,
and it is very important that it happens in an appropriate
manner, since it is a key part of their life experience
and impacts behavior, and personality.
We can interact about social concepts in common with
horses by sight, hearing and when spatially close enough
by touch, and horses can immediately perceive our communication,
but we have to consciously switch from spoken
language to movement and think in terms of which sense
will carry our communication to the horse.
On the ground, the way we should switch from language
to movement is to think to reach the horse in terms of sight
and hearing, that are always used by horses when interacting
with other individuals from a distance; touch becomes
an option for close up interaction, along with smell and
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