WATCHING HORSES MOVE

I watch horses move, this tells me the most.

I was asked today to give my opinion on a horse that is for sale. The person interested in the horse asked me specifically if I thought the horse had a kind eye.

Eyes are important, I look at them during training. I watch to see where the horse's attention is - internally focused or externally focused and where. I also watch for recognition and awareness of what they are learning to flutter across their eyes. Or if life disappears from their eyes if they zone out or shutdown. It helps me make training decisions and understand a lot about how they react to stress.

But if you want me to assess a horse the eye is not going to tell me as much as the feet! Let me see that horse move and what footage the seller has selected to show it off.

To me, movement reveals so much. When I watch a horse move it is layered with 4 important things:

1) Lots of detail about how the horse is feeling.
2) The impact of the environment on the horse's sensory processing capabilities.
3) The fluency of the riders or handlers thoughts travelling through the horse.
4) The soundness of the horse.

I think the majority of horses have beautiful soft kind eyes when they are relaxed and feeling safe. Judging their eyes in a photo when they could be focused, interested, worried, stressed or tired is going to be a bit of a red herring than any truly useful information.

Movement can also be a moment in time but it gives a few more interesting layers when you are deciding a long road trip or flight to go visit a potential horse.

This beautiful horse is a good example of how his movement is showing his transformation mentally, physically and emotionally. He came so damaged to his owner. Skin and bone, riddle with ulcers and injuries with zero trust in people. Struggled with movement, terrified of whips and refused to let anyone touch him.

In this session he showed us how much he had learnt; how well he was processing his environment; how good he was at following feel; how cool he was now with the training stick; and how his soundness and balance looked great!

All communicated to us from his movement.