The Myth of the Bad Horse

my stressed out horse on xc… still not being bad.

We’ve all met that “bad” horse. That terrible horse who looks at you from his stall with a sour look on his face, perhaps pinning and gnashing his teeth when you walk by. When you bring him out to tack him, he might try to kick you while you’re girthing him, or turn to try to bite you, his teeth clicking together as he misses your arm. Or, perhaps, his “badness” is something you only see under saddle. Maybe he scoots away from you on the mounting block, making you exclaim out of frustration that he’s being deliberately disobedient. Or, once you’re on him, he spooks or bolts or maybe he bucks. Worse yet, perhaps he makes a habit out of being light in the front end and rearing up on you. All of these bad behaviours, to you or your trainer, may have been regarded as quirks or the horse“being a dick” and you’re taught to ride through them. Use the whip a little bit more on him when he bucks. Smack him on the shoulder when he scoots away from the mounting block. Yank on his mouth and get off and run him in a circle around you when he rears. There are varying degrees of the “bad” horse: sometimes he might be hot and nervous to ride, quicker to buck and rear than others. Other times, maybe he wouldn’t dare offer a buck, bolt or rear but he is notoriously lazy under saddle and might kick out when you put your leg on. To combat this, your trainer probably has you use a whip and/or spur and maybe despite this, he still continually backs off and kicks out at your leg. Perhaps, his bad behaviour escalates with time, no matter how much you discipline him for it…

Is he truly the “bad” horse? Or is the “badness” on the humans’ part for ignoring his numerous attempts at communication, growing increasingly more frustrated as time goes on… or worse… shutting down and giving up entirely on communicating his woes?

The vast majority of riders have, at minimum, met a horse like I’m referencing here. More likely than not, you have at least a few in your public boarding barn and you’ve probably seen several that fit these descriptions over the time you’ve ridden. I’d bet it’s a lot more than just “several”, personally. I see this horse everywhere. He exists in many accredited training and show barns. I see him competing in every ring known to mankind, may it be western disciplines, dressage, show jumping, or eventing. There he is (or she is), shouts of communication falling on deaf ears. I’m sure many of you reading this probably are expecting this to be some dramatic article sensationalizing the woes of horses who just need a “firm hand” and to learn some “respect” and if that’s true, please, for your horse’s sake… keep reading.

As a species, humans are incredibly self absorbed. We often lack the ability to sympathize with other species (and even our own), let alone try to comprehend the differences with how they think versus us. We might bring our narcissism into the training of said animals, viewing their behaviour through a human lens rather than through the realistic lens of their own species. When horses are bad, it is easier for us to blame them for our frustrations. Easier for us to assume that we are doing everything right, that we haven’t missed anything and that it is the horse trying to deliberately disobey us. This allows us to wash our hands clean of any wrongdoing, proclaim ourselves amazing trainers and then take out our frustration on the horse by getting after it and feeling like we’ve really done something… like taught them “respect”… a concept horses are mentally incapable of comprehending due to the lack of a prefrontal cortex. Despite this fact, people remain willfully ignorant, looking for excuses to justify why their horse is an exception, why they can understand the concept of respect or why they react vindictively, despite science pretty damn solidly proclaiming that they damn well can’t.

So, if this “bad” horse isn’t actually being bad, what in the world is he trying to communicate to you? Probably a number of things and unfortunately, due to the language barrier between us and horses and our species’ far greater intelligence, it can require a lot of trial and error on our part to figure it out, if we actually care to. Like I said, it is easier to blame the horse and remain ignorant and to some extent, with many horses, it will work because lots of them are willing to shutdown and carry on through pain and discomfort because the outcome is worse if they don’t. Their riders aren’t willing to listen to their shouts, they just shout back louder whilst wielding weapons. And so, the horse withdraws within itself, succumbs to the reality of life without a personality and stops trying to communicate. The rider views this as a win because it allows them to ride the horse through their pain, anxiety or discomfort and they truly believe they’ve done an amazing training feat by “fixing” the horse when really all they’ve done is ignored the issue, stuck a big ol’ bandaid on it and gave themselves a pat on the back. Some horses may be willing to carry throughout life shutdown like this, while others may revolt when they finally hit the breaking point of pain or fear and then they react big. Some just end up breaking down completely after years of masking pain physically but communicating behaviourally, only to be ignored and forced to work through it. Good choices, eh? Not.

Let me tell you a story that really opened my eyes with regards to these cases of “bad” horses. Recently, I took in a client horse who had a history of competing in eventing and doing quite well. The horse was successful over fences, never stopped and was forward to fences. Overall, he was always a lazier horse who required lots of leg to ride and didn’t have an aptitude to go forward much. Randomly, he started sucking back more and more under saddle. He would also start resisting lateral work like leg yields, crow hopping or tripping instead. He became more and more dead to leg and the solution suggested to his owner by a trainer was to use a crop or spurs to urge him forward. Not an odd request, a very common one seen in most training barns, in fact. Also, not inherently problematic, but let me tell you why it sometimes can be and why it’s so common for people to make this mistake.

So, this horse would express disobedience or “disrespect” by backing off, trying to move down to slower gaits or jogging around like a western pleasure horse. He would get a smack with crop, asked to go forward, and pressure was removed when he did. Oddly he just kept backing off. More pressure, more smacking, “send him forward”," “make him go”. He would resist sometimes by hopping up to rear, but then going. The owner was doing what they were told by a trainer, a professional they trusted and at the time, they trusted the method to work for the horse. For a while, it worked just enough and they even did a basic veterinary exam, got him some maintenance of joint injections which seemed to help for a short time, even though he still remained lazy and in need of motivation to go forward. Then his behavioural issues increased. Walking away from the mounting block, then rearing when riders would mount. Evading the bit, hollowing out his back, refusing to go forward even when the pressure of a whip or spur was added, slamming on the brakes randomly under saddle and rearing. The owner did everything that many would suggest like checking saddle fit, chiropractor and massage. They even went above and beyond to check for kissing spine, to no avail. After further therapy to rule out any back pain, the horse was put back into work and was a bit better about not evading the bit, still not forward. The owner was still having to heavily use a whip to send him forward and smack him hard right behind their leg to “reinforce” their aids. Again, a very highly suggested and commonly used method by many many trainers and suggested to this person by their trainer.

The use of the whip to force him forward worked for a short while again, so his work load was increased as he got back into fitness on the flat, still requiring fairly heavy use of the whip. He started back over fences and was better behaved over fences than he typically was on the flat. The owner then went away and had a friend getting on him. The horse started to squeal and rear very high up when the friend first got on, but since this was after him having a short time off, it didn’t raise any major alarm bells. Friend was a good rider so rode him through it and was fine. Owner came back, could not get the horse forward under saddle and he would start to resist the heavy whip use and still lose forward motion. He would bolt away from the mounting block before getting on. The owner sought help out from another trainer, who proclaimed the horse as a “dominant” type and proceeded to try to enforce further dominance over him, getting fairly aggressive in their quest to have him relax at the mounting block. Owner admitted to being quite uncomfortable, but was not a professional so let the professionals do their job despite said discomfort. The horse then started to strike out or kick at people even during ground work, resorting to biting and acting out. The suggestion by many was predominantly that the horse was just ill-behaved and needed to learn some manners and be put in his place….

Eventually, this horse came to my barn. Knowing the past history of the trainers, I assumed he would be pretty shut down. I asked for specifics on vet records and it had looked like he’d had everything looked at and done pretty recently. His owner had done far more diagnostics to assess his behaviour than most people would. I started this horse in a ground work based program without any aversives like the whip because these increased his “bad” behaviour. I used a target to get the horse following it and seeking it for forward motion and while it worked, he was still quite sucked back despite being highly food motivated. I worked with him daily with this to the point where he learned a very good understanding of the target, wanted to be caught and wanted to be trained and yet, I would get him doing a nice forward trot on the ground, only to have him slam on the brakes and suck back. I was mystified. There was still a clear improvement however, so I gave it time but I was suspicious something else was the issue, so I started to watch this horse in my time off while he was out in the field. This is a big perk of living on the property and one of the newest developments to a change in my training methods. When you see how horses behave on their own, it’s a lot harder to anthropomorphize their behaviours or make excuses. Anyways, this horse was out with a young buddy who liked to play. On cool nights, many of the horses at the farm like to run around and play and chase their friends and field neighbours up and down the fence lines. This horse’s buddy would do the same and try to get Problem Horse to join in. On numerous occasions, I noticed the horse start to engage in play with his field mate and suck back just like he did with me in training.

This is where the wheels in my head starting turning once more. Even at liberty, on his own time, where he was completely quiet and relaxed and happy with no bad associations like the ones he had learned from too much pressure, even then, he still sucked back. Something wasn’t adding up: I knew I had missed something. The program was helping to mend his psychological behaviours but something from within his body was preventing him from engaging in the manner he wanted to. I brought this up to the owner and bless their soul, they were absolutely okay with looking further into it from a vet perspective. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but many owners in the same position would insist it was a behavioural issue and refuse to put more money into it, especially after looking into it to the degree this owner had. Many would probably just pull the horse out of my program and send the horse to someone who would train increasingly more loudly until the horse responded, but his owner was different. We took him to the vet for another lameness exam and some more comprehensive x-rays of joints.

And guess what? We found a joint that had started to erode. The arthritis was so bad, it would certainly be painful. It would certainly be cause for a horse to suck back and avoid any forward motion beyond the walk. It would certainly be a reason for a horse to trip or to associate the mounting block with pain. It would most certainly be a reason for a horse to stand and still refuse forward motion even whilst being struck with a whip. He was in pain- this whole time, he was in pain and had been trying to communicate. The horse was injected in several different areas within that joint following this examination. He was put back out to pasture, given a week off and then slowly started back into a lunging program. Different horse, immediately. He wanted to take off on the lunge. He wanted to buck. He wanted to play. He was trotting forward and OFFERING forward motion without being prompted to do so. He played in his field, running up and down the fenceline with his friends in the evening. His behaviour had done a complete 180, all because of the outcome of that exam. It was the only variable we had changed.

The stark difference in his behaviour is what did it for me. I can only imagine how many horses are out there suffering from similar physical issues and being forced to work through them due to their handlers and trainers mistakenly believing the problem to be behavioural, an act of disobedience and spite. There are not enough owners like this horse’s owner out there. There are not enough trainers willing to push for another vet exam, despite one already being done, to look further into it. I even doubted myself in asking for a second look, but I am so glad I did. I would imagine many behavioural issues, especially ones that come across as deliberate disobedience actually stem from discomfort. Sure, many may not be as severe as the lameness in this case, but tons of horses will willingly mask discomfort from poor saddle fit, back soreness from muscular issues or perhaps, minor kissing spine- lameness issues that haven’t blown up into big problems… yet. A lot of horses also suffer from psychological trauma or anxiety even if it isn’t a physical issue and many of said horses are punished for it. I’ve gotten in a lot of these horses, the sensitive ones with baggage, some shut down and some not. Most of them were just misunderstood for so long that they finally lost it. Or, the lucky ones come to me prior to hitting the breaking point that might result in them being called crazy or dangerous and losing their life.

A lot of these horses are ticking time bombs in a sense as they’re risking having a breakdown physically or mentally. They try their damnedest to communicate, and they’re usually highly intelligent. They try to tell their owners something is off time and time again, getting louder and louder but more often than not, their cries for help and acknowledgment are drowned out by the human desire to discipline them for poor behaviour. Horses, like people, all have different needs in training but no horse (just like no human) needs to be trained abusively or have their needs or attempts to express themselves ignored. Good animal training allows for communication from animals: they need to have a voice and if you let them, they will “talk” via their actions and expression. Sure, not all behavioural issues are soundness and you’re certainly not Satan for using a whip, but be mindful of HOW you use it and how quickly you either vilify your horse’s behaviour or shrug it off as being mere “badness”.

So, here is my plea: listen to your horses! Even if they communicate in a manner you view as undesirable, please give them the benefit of the doubt. Horses do not have it in them to be malicious, even if it sometimes feels that way when their behaviour disrupts our goals or makes our jobs harder. It can totally be frustrating, I get it, but we regard ourselves as the more intelligent species and often still choose to react like cavemen in how we handle things by silencing the very beings we claim to love with a passion. We should want our horses to talk to us; it should be viewed as a necessity for good horsemanship. Alas, punishing communication encourages silence and then you merely have a partner who gets no opinion and is there by coercion, forced to participate without any suggestions on their part.

There are no bad horses, just misunderstood horses who were let down in some way or another.