Years ago I had horses, and spent some time learning to ride, drive and handle the first one, and then a second one, and finally a third. It was the culmination of a lifelong fascination with horses, and an activity to which I devoted myself with unfettered enthusiasm. The poor horses had to work every morning, no matter the weather, as I arrived at the barn at some early hour just past daybreak and made sure each one had ‘training’ for an hour each. Over the course of the decade that I devoted to this activity we tried hunter pacing, fox hunting, competitive carriage driving, pleasure driving, trail riding, mounted games, and dressage. The last and youngest horse got sent off to learn to jump and (with a different trainer) to work cattle, just to make sure he was well rounded. And during this whole period I also co-wrote a couple of books with a horse trainer and ran a video business which involved spending hours and hours at clinics recording people’s sessions with respected trainers from far away.

Since moving abroad and living a horse-less urban life I spend hours a week watching other people train horses on YouTube.

And this has led me to a few conclusions, none of which are different from earlier conclusions reached back in the day.

The main conclusion is that most higher animals are very aware of visual communication, more even than aural. And humans seem to have a particular quirk in which our minds run on Track A while our bodies carry on on Track B, C or D. Animals tend to do what they are thinking, with some rare exceptions of duplicity in some of the more intelligent ones, who can sneak, hide things, pretend, and so on.

But I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen people dealing with horses who have some of the following comportments, and don’t understand why their horse is hard to handle:

Agitated unconscious body language: example being a woman who I spoke to once who was standing at the side of her new pony – supposedly a nervous one, and hard to catch — who moved her feet and flailed her arms randomly while rapidly speaking about something or other, sometimes even hitting the pony unintentionally while gesturing. The pony stood as best he could, flinching when her hands came close to his head or neck.

One of the most outstanding features of the trainers I most admire is a profound calm. Their calm, confident, silent presence alone is already interesting to the horse, and provides a ‘refuge’ for the horse to pay attention to. In a few minutes the trainer can often halter the horse, lead the horse, mount and ride, and so on with none of the expressions of anxiety that the horse exhibits when handled by the owner.

One of the great demonstrators of this technique is Warwick Schiller. Another is Michael Peace. In both cases they have such a present awareness that they do not need to use large cues to clarify what they want. The horse can respond to very small cues because there is no ‘static’ obscuring the message. The presence of the trainer is like a break in the clouds, with everything suddenly revealed.

Other good trainers are slightly less quiet, and use louder cues, but use them with great consistency. The clarity of consistency in this case overcomes the problems the owner was having. In these cases the owner is often tentative, which the horse interprets as their companion being nervous and fearful, which makes the horse worried and unconfident. The arrival of a trainer who is confident and uncomplicated, even if a bit rougher than necessary, clarifies everything: yes means yes, no means no, and I always know if the human is saying yes or no. The owner is then retrained to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ instead of ‘well, I’m not sure, maybe, could we sort of should we, oh dear.’ And the horse, relieved of the morass of confusion, relaxes and starts to engage instead of wishing he could be anywhere else.

And then there are the range of horses who are perfectly good at doing this or that, but aren’t really trained so much as they have memorized certain tasks and enjoy human company. If anything unexpected happens they are a bit lost. But for many horses this is enough for a routine life of giving riding lessons or going to shows or just being a pet.

Living in a foreign country where understanding is always impeded a bit, I am a big fan of clarity. And I notice how relaxing it is to spend time with someone who is present and aware, where one can exchange some longer thoughts or work on a task together without the noise of agitated movement, agitated thoughts, or running hither and yon. One can find that calm in God’s presence, but now and then one runs into a fellow person who radiates that same calm, and it’s a real delight to share in it. Always grateful when that happens.