horses are a wicked problem
Image: Kas' beautiful mare Ziggy [photo credit: Karice Grundon]
It is Time for a Reality Check - Horses are Wicked Problems
I’m about to tell you something that will hopefully change the way you think about horses. If you’re feeling lost or stuck, it may give you the permission to pick a path and follow it. However, if you’re someone who believes you’ve worked it all out and have strong opinions on things—well, hopefully, it might make you pause, listen more, and appreciate the ideas of others a little more.
What is this paradigm-shifting idea?
Horses are wicked problems because “wicked problems” are a real concept, and I’ll be forever grateful to my brilliant friend, Kas Kenshō, for pointing out this intriguing idea, which comes from the world of design, planning, and engineering.
A wicked problem refers to a complex issue that is difficult or impossible to solve due to its interconnected and evolving nature. There are no universal “perfect” solutions to wicked problems, and you’d be naïve to think there are. The term was first introduced by design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in the 1970s, primarily in the context of social planning. Well-known wicked problems include poverty, racial issues, and healthcare access. Wicked problems are characterised by the following features:
No definitive solution: Wicked problems don’t have a single, clear solution. Any attempt to solve one aspect of the problem often leads to new issues or unintended consequences. There is no definitive solution that can be applied universally to all horses in all situations. For instance, Kas was inspired to see the connection between the wicked engineering problems she dealt with at work each day and her mare, Ziggy. Ziggy showed Kas that horse health, welfare, training, management, and the ability to form a partnership in the saddle is an interconnected, multifactorial complexity.
To quote Kas:
“Ziggy has been my inspiration for a wicked problem. It didn’t seem to matter what I did—I pulled one lever, and two more problems would arise, like some crazy whack-a-mole game, only to find that the ultimate action I had to take, to respect her health, welfare, and my relationship with her, was to put her down as her arthritis was too extensive. Any potential rehabilitation or medical intervention was financially unsustainable for minimal improvement. It was heartbreaking to realise the best decision for Ziggy was to end her life.”
Interconnectedness: These problems involve multiple stakeholders, disciplines, and factors, all of which are deeply interrelated. Changes in one part of the problem can affect many other areas. The interconnectedness with horses is complex. Just a handful of stakeholders include owners, family, property owners, equine professionals, equine professional registering bodies, discipline bodies, councils, governments, and so on. The factors are endless. You have owners' financial resources, time resources, location, availability of professionals, climate, feed availability, water type, culture, and so on.
The interconnectedness of wicked problems, along with the involvement of multiple stakeholders, restricts, forces, and creates barriers to options. Decision-making becomes more complex as stakeholders must balance competing needs, make trade-offs, and sometimes pursue solutions that are not perfect because others are not available or possible.
Dynamic nature: Wicked problems change over time. The very nature of the problem may shift as conditions evolve, making the solution a moving target. The effort you put into caring, managing, and riding is relentless and forever changing as the horse ages—not to mention, your own circumstances change. One thing that can completely change a horse’s circumstances is moving home. You might have a horse in one management situation where it copes fine, but move it to another facility and you can have a different, stressed version of that horse for many different reasons. It might be something like the horse now having to be stabled or kept in a small yard when it has only ever lived in a herd.
No clear definition: Wicked problems are often hard to define, with different stakeholders having different perspectives on the nature of the problem and what might constitute success. For instance, you might have a horse that bucks after a jump. Some will see that, take a video, and post it for laughs on social media; others will shrug and consider it’s just the horse’s personality; some will think the horse is being naughty; some will be concerned about soundness; some will blame the rider, and some will think it’s a good idea the rider is wearing a helmet.
A common debate is whether behavioural issues are soundness issues or training and riding issues. There’s a spectrum—with one end representing people who see everything as a lack of respect issue, while the other end includes people who will take their horse to the vet or put their hopes in a supplement instead of considering they may have a role in the struggles they’re having with the horse. The reality is—it depends—which provides good evidence for my argument that horses are indeed wicked problems!
No immediate or complete resolution: Since there’s no ultimate solution and “it depends,” efforts to manage a wicked problem usually result in ongoing adjustments rather than a final fix. We can’t sit horses down and interview them, nor are there many MRI machines in the world—or people who can afford to stick their horse in one (not that it would necessarily reveal a particular problem). Many times, we just have the best educated guess and we start trying things that “might” or “hopefully” help.
Solutions to wicked problems require flexible, adaptive strategies that engage multiple perspectives and acknowledge that not all consequences can be predicted or controlled. They are the type of problems that are more about how well you are prepared to investigate and understand the issue or keep exploring for the potential root cause. They are problems with rabbit holes—some good, some red herrings. Through my podcast, *Canter Therapy*, I get to speak to lots of horse experts—from therapists to vets and trainers. The good ones are thinkers and investigators. What makes them stand out is the curiosity and effort they’ve put into understanding the problems they’re presented with. They don’t follow a doctrine, but they don’t throw it in the bin either.
There are also rarely perfect solutions—only trade-offs. For instance, consider the scary trade-offs for the so-called perfect solution to horse welfare issues of banning domestication and thinking we can return all horses to the wild. Think of the chaos and suffering that would trigger—not just the impact on the horses that would have to be culled, but the impact on the land, wildlife, and the destruction of an industry and multiple cultures.
To make solutions even trickier, issues around the care, management, training, and riding of horses are also ones that you sometimes have to tackle without necessarily knowing whether you are on the right track or not because doing nothing is not always possible or even safe. Sometimes you only know you’re on the right track after you’ve started and made a commitment. There will be times you see improvements and other times you will realise you got sucked down a rabbit hole, or like Kas had to work out—sometimes the best option is to end a beloved horse’s life, and that sucks.
I hope the idea of wicked problems helps you see that advice out there about horses is not necessarily right or wrong—but more about better or worse.
Every horse will present as a unique case with certain barriers and challenges from the complexities of its life. We are all focused on different issues too, which means we are not all on the same page when it comes to considering what is humane. I watched one social media group debate for weeks the high-stakes welfare issue of whether a canter pirouette was a three- or four-beat movement, while some other guy is out there rescuing dying, discarded horses from rubbish tips in developing countries.
Horses are wicked problems. The depth of understanding of an issue is what separates better from worse, but sometimes the only way to gather that understanding is to make a start with what we’ve got at hand that fits within the constraints in front of us.
Written by Dr Shelley Appleton & Karice Grundon
