4th November, 2013 Beachcombing

Photo courtesy Bridget Hughes IHRA

I was amused recently to hear a list of holiday complaints which included the classic line that "The beach was too sandy". It reminded me, as if I needed it, that our biggest complaint about our horses is that they act like a horse...

There's lots of reading to be done about horses both in books and on Google but beware of any book that attempts to intellectualise the behaviour of horses or the way to 'fix' them. The risk of fitting horses into categories and solutions into levels is that it becomes a straitjacket and have you ever tried riding a horse or working him on the ground in one of those? Whether it is physical or mental, it makes your work clunky and unnatural. At the other extreme beware of anyone who tells you it is a gift; you've either got it or your haven't. Both extremes are an attempt to make you feel inadequate by over-complicating things or making something unreachable.