My horse is testing me

We are often told by our peers and industry professionals that our horse is testing us and challenging us, and that we need to push them through it, make them do it or else you will end up with a dangerous horse.

My question to you is, why is your horse testing you?

There are 2 common reasons I see horses testing their riders:

• They don't want to put the effort it, they are testing to see what is the bare minimum effort they can give

• They don't have faith, trust or confidence in their rider/handler to be a good leader and make good decisions, so the stop following your lead and start questioning your decisions.

The second one is where we most often see the "dangerous behaviourse". Because now our horse no longer feels safe with us - because it doesn't feel like we are making good decisions for them.

So when we are pushing them in to situations where they feel uncomfortable, we are compounding unsafe feelings (they don't trust our judgement and ability) on unsafe feelings (they are uncomfortable about what we are asking them to do) on unsafe feelings (we are escalating pressure sometimes to the point of punishment) on unsafe feelings (as the rider we are getting scared that what we are doing is wrong and our horses pick up on our fear). If this is you, like many others, you are feeling the real feels of the conflicted equestrian.

All this can be avoided by strategically and intentionally choosing our challenges for immense sense of task achievement and satisfaction by setting our horse up to succeed and having adjustable goal posts. By working together with our horse to create a powerfully connected equestrian team. And it starts first with becoming a compassionate leader.

Want more information on setting your horse up for success and being a compassionate leader worth following? Check out our holistic horse handling course and join the waitlist for our next round of enrolments.