Does Partnership Mean Letting Your Horse Walk All Over You?

Does Partnership Mean Letting Your Horse Walk All Over You?

Absolutely not. It doesn’t mean that we stop training or developing our horse’s riding abilities either. Partnership does not exclude setting healthy boundaries in our relationship with a horse. Considering how horses learn, it’s our responsibility to guide their development in a way that ensures they remain safe both in handling and training.

What Does Partnership Mean to Me?

COLLABORATION

Partnership is about walking „side by side” with your horse. It means that the horse cooperates during grooming sessions and engages both physically and mentally in training tasks. You can, of course, control a horse like a puppet, always tying it up securely with two leads in the aisle, assuming it will never understand how to stand calmly during grooming. But doesn’t it motivate you when you know the purpose behind a task you’re performing?

What Can You Teach Your Horse?

– Lifting its legs on its own for cleaning

– Standing politely during grooming or hoof trimming without leaning its full weight on you

– Lowering its head for mane trimming, putting on a bridle, or inserting its nose into a halter on its own

– Standing calmly with the lead rope draped over a fence, without the need for tight tying

– Walking politely on a lead without constant corrections to its pace or direction

– Approaching a mounting block calmly

– Walking into a trailer without stress

… and the list could go on with hundreds of other things that are worth practicing with your horse.

The other side of partnership:

SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

What does this mean? I want my horse to engage mentally in training, to think about the task and stay focused. Do you allow your horse to make mistakes, or do you protect it from even the smallest error? I’m not suggesting that you deliberately put your horse in tricky situations only to heroically rescue it afterward. Rather, I allow the horse to explore what happens if, for example, it tries to jump over the poles set up for trotting. Naturally, I ensure the horse won’t get injured and that conditions are suitable for such attempts. This is especially evident with young horses learning to work over poles on the lunge line. Sometimes, they might think, „What if I jump over three poles at once? Maybe it’ll be faster?” I let the horse try, and what happens? The horse realizes that it’s too much effort and only complicates the task, so it’s better to trot over the poles.

This is just one example, but don’t be afraid of your horse making a mistake. If you give it the chance to think and learn from the experience, it’s less likely to repeat the wrong move. If you’re training a more experienced horse, you probably want it to remember the basics on its own. Do you really need to remind your horse of the direction at every step or constantly ensure it keeps moving forward, fearing that a slight change in leg pressure will cause it to slow down? Probably not. We want the horse to take responsibility for 49% of the tasks in this partnership.

What About the Remaining 51%?

Here, too, lies our significant responsibility and commitment to cooperation with the horse. If you treat horse training as communication, an exchange of information, a flexible dialogue with an intelligent being—your horse will be grateful for it.

Shared responsibility includes:

– Caring for your horse’s well-being: plenty of time on safe pastures, proper nutrition, veterinary and physiotherapy care

– Ensuring the correct fit of all equipment, not just the saddle. Girths, saddle pads, boots, halters, cavessons, bridles, bits—everything you put on your horse should be at least neutral, ideally comfortable.

– Developing your own riding skills: body awareness, seat improvement, and enhancing your riding intuition

– Tailoring training to your horse’s age, physical, and mental capabilities. If your horse is 18 years old but not in the best shape, consider whether it’s time for an early retirement. There are many groundwork exercises that an older horse can still do, and nothing strengthens your bond like relaxed walks in hand. Not every horse is ready for the same tasks at the same age. If your friend’s horse is also 8 years old but performs more advanced exercises than yours, remember this isn’t a race. Some horses develop faster, others slower. It’s important to tailor training to both you and your horse, and time pressure won’t help in this. On the other hand, if you have a yearling that has undergone imprinting and early training—is it really necessary to train it like an adult horse or engage in regular „join-ups”?

Is Dominance Necessary in Horse Training?

If you want a horse that doesn’t make any decisions and quietly complies with human demands, even when it doesn’t see the sense in them—then maybe yes. This is the guiding principle of both traditional and older natural natural techniques. However, numerous scientific studies clearly show that horses don’t operate within a linear hierarchical structure in their lives, and the idea of the human as the „dominant boss in the herd” is not feasible. While it may be a nice narrative, sometimes it’s just wishful thinking on our par