Before I became a horse trainer, I was a horse rider and competitor. In those days, if someone asked me to describe a horse I had been riding, I’d say how big it was, what breed it was, what colour it was, how old it was, etc. Then I might mention that it was easy to handle, or dangerous to ride, or loved to jump, or hard to catch.
The first list, where I featured the horse’s breed, age, height, and colour, is all a description of the horse. The second list is descriptions of my training.
Describing a horse as brown, small, or large-boned or short-backed are all accurate descriptions that can’t be changed and will be accurate throughout the horse’s entire life. But describing a horse as lazy, spooky, difficult, hates men, rushy, are not descriptions of a horse, but of behaviour. Behaviour can be changed. Behaviour is determined by factors that we can change. So much of what we describe about our horse is not about our horse, but about us.
When I first started teaching clinics, I would sometimes let participants ride my horse, Chops. Chops is a 14hh pony (and still with me at age 35). I would sometimes get criticised for riding a pony because some said that, as a professional horseman, I should be riding a real horse and not a pony. My comeback was always, “If you think she is a pony, you get on her. She is no pony.” I always described riding Chops as like driving a Ferrari.
But Chops taught me that she was not like driving a Ferrari at all. When I rode her, she would work from a thought. She was always right under me and always ready to connect to my next thought. The level of sensitivity and connection made it feel what I guessed it must be like to drive a Ferrari. But when I allowed students at a clinic to ride her, I was shocked to know how different she was with other riders. Some students couldn’t get her to go, and some couldn’t get her to stop. This was not the Chops I knew and loved. But in reality, it was.
Yes, she is 14hh tall. Yes, she is a redhead. Yes, she has two club feet. Yes, her nose will sunburn every summer. Yes, she is all those things.
But, she is not like a Ferrari. She isn’t super sensitive. She isn’t lazy. She isn’t spooky or rushy or dull. She can be all those things, but they are not who she is. They are who I made her through my training and our shared experiences together.
We can do nothing about the size, the colour, or the conformation of our horse. But the rest of who our horse is, is largely influenced by us. We can and should take the credit for the good stuff and the blame for the bad stuff.
Me and Chops. Two great minds coming together. 😂