The distant ancestors of today's horses arose millions of years ago. The earliest identified horse forbear, Eohippus (the "dawn horse"), was a small, furry quadruped, about the size of a fox, with three or four toes (there's some disagreement in the literature about this number). As eons passed and planetary weather changed, horses found themselves having to survive in much drier, more open lands. No more skulking in the dense underbrush for protection from predators; to survive, horses grew taller, with far longer legs than before, to outrun the sabertooth.



Why is this important? Because, in the past 6,000 year history of the domestication of horses, their brains have arguably changed the least of all their body parts. While human intervention has resulted in horses the size of small elephants, and horses the size of large dogs, inside every horse is the mind of a prey animal whose first instinct when threatened is simple: RUN. Run first, ask questions later. Well, run first, anyway.



In order to get along with a horse, let alone form a satisfying partnership with one, we must remember this. And one other important consideration: inside the human skull is a massive brain, occupying most of that skull. Ever looked at a horse skull? it is occupied mostly by... teeth. Big, flat molars for grinding up grass. Oh,yes, and a small brain compartment up near the top! So, please, in this partnership, you must be responsible for most of the thinking. If you don't wish to do the thinking for your "herd of two," get a motorcycle. You'll have a lot more fun and be a lot less frustrated.

My Background

I have always loved and wanted to have horses. Before I could walk, I crawled to the back fence of our home in California to be as close as I could get to the Shetland pony who lived behind us. About fifteen years ago, I finally was able to realize my dream of a horse of my own.

But it didn't take long for the dream to start becoming a nightmare..... no pun intended. Although I had learned to ride as a kid, I had never really handled horses. It turns out there's a lot more to it than throwing hay and filling water buckets.

For the first six months, I rode my beautiful mare (pictured on the home page) nearly every day. but things went from bad to worse. All my experience had been with resigned, fairly dull, uninterested school horses. Sheba was nothing of the kind. She needed a lot more from me, but I had no idea what it was she needed. She became more and more uncooperative, trying to head out of the arena gate, or spinning around and making a mad dash for her stall if I tried to go on even the shortest of trail rides. People around me told me that she "had a screw loose," that she was going to hurt me if I didn't get rid of her. I grew increasingly frustrated and upset; in spite of all the self-styled expert opinions around me, I felt that the failing was mine, not hers. I began looking for other answers.

Luckily for me (and Sheba) I found some. Here's what I found out: it doesn't matter how loudly you shout if you're speaking a different language. And, just because someone doesn't happen to speak your language, that doesn't mean that they're stupid.

Horses have their own language, which the well-known trainer and clinician Monty Roberts named Equus. It is primarily body language, not verbal. And here's the great part: it's got a lot in common with human body language. So it's not that hard to understand, as long as you keep the horse's perspective in mind.