My Opinion on Breaking Horses

I do not believe in "training" horses. I do not believe in "breaking" horses. I do not believe in these things because horses do not need to be trained or broken. What do we "train" horses to do? Have a person on their back? That does not take training, that takes trust. Do we train them to trot, canter, back up, collect, switch leads, turn left or right? No, we do not. Everything that we try to teach horses, they already know how to do. Horses know how to jump a 3 foot fence. They know how to do a flying lead change. They know how to do a sliding stop. Sure, we teach them the cues for these actions, and we show the horses when we want them to perform them. But, I can hardly call this training. It does not take training to jump onto a horses back and ask for them to gallop, and it does not take training to get them to stop bucking or rearing. 

When you hear the word "horse", what comes to your mind? For me, I think of freedom, strength, and spirit. We all know that horses are naturally wild and free animals, so why would we ever want to break that beautiful spirit? It is just like a slave giving into another human's power because they know that they'll never be able to fight back and win. No horse should ever be treated like a slave, or feel like one!

I believe that to become a true team, and to be in harmony with a horse, all that it takes is love, trust, freedom, acceptance, and the willingness to listen. 

Now that I listen to Lilo and give him a voice in what we do, he is confident, and has never been happier.