Horse Behaviors and Instincts

Natural behavior and instinct - Babies cry, children play, horses kick , horses flee etc.....When you think of it, horses live in a bit of conflict between their domestication and natural instincts. No wonder there is confusion on their part and on ours! If we understand why a horse is using their (defensive) natural instincts, we can direct them to focus more on what we are asking of them. For the most part, horses are not "bad" on their own. We tend to bring out their defensive traits when we ask them to (in their sense) put themselves potentially in the way of physical or emotional discomfort or harm. Last year in Ocala, I witnessed a professional transport company loading a farm's horses to return after circuit. No one representing the farm was in attendance. The carrier's drivers barely took 5 minutes to try to get the horse on the truck. (This was a full load with air ride etc...). They whipped it onto the truck. That took them one half hour. Great. So now at home when the trainer or owner tries to load this horse and it STARTS by kicking back at them, they may assume the horse is just being bad on its own. So unless you start a horse completely from the beginning yourself or buy a horse from a breeder who also has a reputation for turning out horses that have good basics and handling, you must always be ready for your horse's instinct to arise from a previous experience. Identifying this behavior which can be anything from kicking to resistance in riding (such as going behing the bit, stopping at a jump etc...) as the horse's instinct to protect himself is the first step. How you work with your horse after that makes the difference.