Natural Horsemanship
What is it and why is it so important?
Natural Horsemanship is as old as the hills and where it
all started is a topic of hot debate but why do we need it
now and why has it come to our attention so much more in
recent years?
I
feel that more recently our
good horsemanship
which is simply what Natural Horsemanship is, has somehow
got lost in our desire to achieve more in a shorter time.
These days when a horse throws his head in the air, we
often simply add a martingale, if a horse won’t stop
for us we might add a flash nose strap and maybe a stronger
bit and if our horse won’t hold a shape for us we may
put him in draw reins. Now I’m not saying you should
instantly remove this sort of tack, in fact I believe you
must do whatever you need to to keep yourself safe, but
what I am saying is that we shouldn’t leave it there
but we should look at why the horse is behaving this way
and search for a way of schooling him that will help him to
use his body correctly and see us as a director rather than
a dictator. When we begin to understand how a horse thinks
and why he behaves the way that he does I’m confident
that we would find that we wouldn’t need these bits
of tack, as
Natural Horsemanship will show you how to communicate with your horse and how to build a relationship based on an understanding of horses behavior with their own kind.
Once we understand and take on board a horses needs we have a place to start working with them, there are three basic essential elements in a horses life, Safety, Comfort and Play. To feel safe a horse needs to be in a herd and if you are with him he will assume you are within that herd, he then needs to know that there is a herd leader as this is the one that will keep him out of danger. Now few horses really want to be heard leader, they get to eat and rest less as they keep watch and this is why in an established herd there are not many fights. But there must be a herd leader and if you’re not up to the job he’s very likely take on the role himself. He may well start off being pushy and bargy, taking little notice of you but this is only because he is not confident that you are able to keep him safe. To convince him of this you need to become herd leader yourself and no amount of carrots and cuddles will do this, you’ll have to talk his language if you want him to understand. Through speaking to the horse in the only language he knows, body language we can begin the process of a partnership based on trust and understanding and this is why we need Natural Horsemanship.
To fulfill the comfort needs of the horse we need to provide food, water and shelter where we have taken him out of his natural environment into our man made one.
Play is where the young horses especially learn the manners of the paddock while having some fun.
This video clip shows Daisy working at liberty.
