I get quite a few enquiries asking me to help with horses on the very general basis of building up a bond of trust between the owner and the horse. It makes me wonder to what extent we can actually ask a horse to trust us and what trust actually means. It isn't the same as unquestioning compliance. Trust, like respect (another difficult word around horses and one I tend not to use), has to be earned and the only way you can do that is to prove that you are trustworthy. Ultimately I don't think we can be totally trustworthy because sometimes we make mistakes through ignorance and recklessness and at other times we knowingly insist on a horse doing things that go against his very nature. We are asking a lot when we ask him to trust us and we shouldn't be surprised when they don't or they can't.
Today is the beginning of Operation Marlene Dietrich, when I start asking Theoden to "want to be alone". Once more I am aiming to go under the radar and the plan is to take him out in the trailer and then ride him home rather than asking him to walk out of Petra's magnetic field from the outset. Does he trust me in those circumstances? No, leaving her and his herd behind and going out on his own in the woods is totally counter-intuitive to him. I need to prove to him that he is not alone when he is with me.
