Greeting and
touching your horse
There
are two real secrets to my horsemanship that I wish I could get across to every
owner and handler, farrier and vet in the world. When I meet any horse – any
horse – the first thing I do reach out towards their shoulder with the back of my hand. I might do this three times
with a more wary horse before touching the horse on the shoulder or the neck
and moving away. Again I might do this three times or more to ask the horse to
understand that I come in peace. This is my promise to the horse: I am not
going to eat you and I can be trusted. I tend to find that every horse then
relaxes and wants to engage with me because they know that I understand how they
feel.
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| Castillo appreciated being asked nicely |
The
second secret is how I touch a horse. To me, patting is a bizarre thing to
do. Why when a horse has done well would we want to slap it? I think that
horses learn to associate that a pat means that they have done well but it does
not reward them in itself. Horses have very sensitive skin and a gentle but
firm rub or stroke is much more pleasant for them. I use a firm, flat touch, fingers together, and then
often move my fingers along the lower muscle in their neck. That really helps
them to relax. Yes, horses do like being scratched but it’s a very intense
experience and too familiar in the first place. A nice slow rub on the shoulder
or between the eyes is a great reward. In an ideal world we would spend as much
time hand grooming our horses as we do brushing them and get to know what touch
they like where; I call this seducing your horse. Once a horse knows that it can trust you not
to be rough or to brush it like a carpet it is much more able to relax and much
less inclined to feel the need to protect itself by blocking you with its head
or biting or kicking. If your horse moves around when tied up to be groomed,
he’s usually trying to tell you something!
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| Kolinka relaxed under this deep flat touch. |
I do
concede that it is a good idea to de-sensitise your horse to being patted just
because so many people come up and pat a horse – especially judges. Patting,
like most of our horsemanship, derives from the military where men probably
didn’t want to be seen stroking each other.
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| Lots of horses love the base of their forelock rubbed. |
It
should always be your decision as to when and how you touch a horse and its
better not to touch a horse that demands it. This doesn’t mean that you have to
stop being affectionate around your horse. I give my horses a lot of affection
but not when they demand it. If we give lots of rubs and strokes when a horse
walks up to us and gives us a push, then we are reinforcing that behaviour. I
see a lot of owners who answer their horses with a rub or a stroke,
particularly around the lower mouth or nose, whenever the horse presses them to
do so. Most are not even conscious that they are doing it. We tend to think
that the horse is being affectionate but it is actually the first step to the
horse establishing their leadership over you and starting to feel insecure. I
also see how this creates a lot of mouthy and nibbly horses.
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| Will you just stop fiddling with my nose! |
