09/08/2026
Your horse does not give a s**t about you.
Now wait ✋️ gentle parenters, stop crying. Rough n tough cowboys, this aint your time either.
Inherently by design, your horse does not give a s**t about you. They can like you and have a deep innate curiosity.....but really.
No matter how many cookies or magnawave sessions you produce, 99.9% of the time that horse will ALWAYS choose their equine friends and a pasture life over you. The other .1% is the ones with the broken leg that can't get away.
Do with that what you will.
You will always, by nature, come in second to your horses innermost desires for companionship. Why? They speak their own language. There's no wishy washy second guessing who's bossing who who's doing what. There's a pecking order, there's food, there's friends and that's it. We humans can be a bit...well, delusional.
I love horses. Insane about them. Based off the traumatic status of my bank account, mental health and extra years I've aged my body it should be clear to anyone horses are my drug and I need intervention ASAP.
Unfortunately all of my friends are horse loving morons like me 😆
With the right training, timing, energy,pressure, release, you can absolutely form a beautiful harmonious relationship with a horse. That's their gift to us. They aren't going to inherently desire it the way we do but they can match your desire if you set things up for them to meet you on that journey. It. Does. Not. Come. Easy.
We ALL want that. The magic. The bond. The whistle and the horse comes flying across a field....
But let me tell you- horses that operate on a whisper and take a joke did not inherently become that way.
Far and few between are the talented indivuals that seem to come wired with a will to please and a servants heart. In the thousands of horses I've met I can think of 3 that took very little convincing that my ideas might be better (safer) than theirs. They don't come along naturally vulnerable and open to connection very often often, if you have one, hang onto it....
Same for people, eh?
Somewhere along the line, some tenacious, hopefully kind, but firm human, gave them boundaries, structures, and exposure thus creating a language and a safe space where they learn how to act.
If you aren't familiar with the process I might shock you with this- sometimes you have to be bigger and more interesting to the horse than ANYTHING else going on around to make an impact and a difference. And sometimes, it looks ugly for a minute. Not proud of it and it doesn't feel good but I s***k my horses when they're being dangerous towards me. I chose life, so they can continue to have the cushy life I think I make better for them that they really don't care about anyways....(i.e. sentence one )
Its kind of like the lead mare giving a swift kick to another horse as they walk by too closely.
They do it all the time. Every freaking day. It's truly part of their language.
We're humans and I can't kick as hard as a horse nor do I want to.
But, if my horse isn't safe and respectful of boundaries that I've put in place and practiced, I die, probably, and seeing I pay their bills, that would be bad. Like they become dog food, bad.
I absolutely think horses inherently can learn a sense of purpose and like having a job. It goes along with their inherent desire to move freely 24 hours a day, and perhaps intuition passed down from years of literal harnessing them and pushing and driving them to a place with intention. They have a natural urge to move and go somewhere. I sometimes wonder who's really the dumb one- us humans who decided to try to ride and control a 1200 lb wild animal, or the horses who give into it and become a beast of burden. Maybe it's not dumb as much as it is a god given grace...let's go with that.
I'm going to use teaching a horse to stand tied for example. It is necessary for long term safety of both horse and the human.
Emergency vet visits, standing for hours at a trailer on the side of a road broken down, handling situations with ease and grace...do they want to do it? Absolutely not. They'd rather be with their friends, eating...
However our job as the human without the foremost fight or flight response (i.e. critical thinking skills!) is to teach them to learn and adapt to almost any situation- once they know they are not dying and can trust you to keep them safe- then comes the relaxation.
All of the things I mentioned before happen regularly but are not things we can ever plan for. How do we prepare? I think alot of it has to do with method and intentions.
Tying your horse up short to make their neck sore and tired?
Yeah, thats s**tty. It's 2026. Get some damn skills. Lateral flexion leads to vertical flexion. Anyways.
Tying your horse and letting them sort out their emotions and the boundaries of " I have to stay here right now even if I don't want to" is GOOD.
It helps prepare them for the WHAT IFS and the OH S**T moments.
Preferably when they're younger and more impressionable.
The older and bigger the untrained horse is, the bigger the reactions and the more tedious the process can be.
Remember, I pay their bills and I can't if they kill me.
Someone once insinuated to me that I must just be arrogant and domineering to try to "make" horses do things. BRUH. Im literally just trying not to die.
I wouldn't let my child turn into a terrorist and I won't let my horse be one, either...because I CARE.
Be wise and be smart. Stop putting your human emotions on a large fight or flight animal. Tie your horse. Stress them out a little then back off. Show them the way out of the red zone. Give them a job. Give them clear communication. Stop being a marshmellow.
Keep giving it treats and love but s***k your horse as necessary, keep it real. You didn't make it through life without learning your way through some stuff that was hard. Stress and hard knocks can be part of the journey.
Also if you've made it this far, you probably need a therapist.
Penned by Ian Ras
