Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

First of all, you need to know that not every horse is the right horse for every person, although every horse that passes through our hands has something to teach us if we’re willing to learn. 

For example, in New Zealand I did a “healing” on a horse fairly fresh off the race track who got to the end of the session and told me that she needed a new owner.  She was petrified of hurting her new green rider/owner and the two young kids that ran around her feet.  The emotional damage she had suffered had established reaction patterns that were way too dangerous for this situation.  How beautiful is it that this horse should be genuinely worried for her owner?  What would your horse tell YOU if you could hear them?

Well, you CAN hear them.  “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You” is about showing you how to hear your horse in an extraordinary way and how to use what you hear to get the results of the confident and gifted rider – even when you’re not!  Click here if you don’t need to read the rest of the article to know you want to buy the book now!

Let’s have a look at how we could help this dangerous horse if we had some good riding skills. 

Lots of horses are trained in what I call the “oh shit I’m dead” zone.  Depending on your goals, there’s nothing wrong with this (although I must tell you that the horse doesn’t like it much and yes that is an understatement!) For lots of people, training instant, autopilot reactions like this will produce the results that they want.  And if that’s all you want from your relationship with your horse, then that’s OK.

But for lots of people and lots of horses, that is not OK.  I’m looking for more from my horse than simple obedience.  I’m looking for a spectacular relationship and for the amazing co-operation that comes from that relationship.  And for the dangerous horse, it is seriously not OK.  Some dangerous horses are saying “I can’t do it like this, I’m really frightened.”  Some dangerous horses are fighters who are saying “I won’t do it like this, I’m frightened too”.  Fear is the thing that is common to all dangerous  horses.

Bobby’s Diaries talks in great detail about the comfort zone, the “not too sure” zone and the “oh shit I’m dead” zone.  The “oh shit I’m dead” zone is an emotional place where only reactions take place, where no thinking can occur, no logic is applied – just pure and simple survival reaction.  And the way the horse’s brain works, the reaction will be the same as the reaction that they gave us last time – even if that reaction produced a result that had crappy consequences for him and probably us too.

The dangerous horse has established, for whatever reason doesn’t matter, survival reactions and patterns that are a danger to us as riders and maybe even as handlers.

These patterns can be changed in the “oh shit I’m dead zone” if you are a very good rider with very good horsemanship skills.   Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for you guys who read the book and who are also not world class horsemen) that’s not me. 

Fortunately for the horses of all those people in the same boat as me, these patterns can also be changed by a reasonable rider working to help the dangerous horse find a DEEP comfort zone  and then systematically work that comfort zone and expand it baby step by baby step, until everything that we want the horse to do is in his comfort zone.  While we are doing that, the neural pathways of the brain are gradually re-aligned to this new way of doing things and the horse’s old reactions become the new, more useful, more co-operative and certainly safer ones. 

We can expand their comfort zone, safely, by introducing all kinds of things into their DEEP comfort zone on the ground before we get on. 

For example, we could get rattly plastic bags that might blow across their path in the wind, into their DEEP comfort zone;  we could get loud motorbikes that we could come across on a bush ride, into their DEEP comfort zone; we could get moving pushbikes, prams and umbrellas that we come across at a show or out and about on the road, into their DEEP comfort zone; we could get cars, trucks, tractors and trains, whatever moving vehicles that you could remotely possibly come across in your life with this horse, into their DEEP comfort zone; we could get simple everyday things like a horse rug into their DEEP comfort zone (even if you don’t use them, there could come a time when for health reasons you might want to use one and when they are sick is not the time to be stressing them out); we can get the float and travelling in the float into their DEEP comfort zone. 

When Bobby and I were part of the State Rescue Service’s mounted branch, we were needing to get helicopters flying overhead into his DEEP comfort zone. I’ll let you know for free that being in his “oh shit I’m dead” zone was not pretty for a few seconds there!  We’ve done stock whips, we’ve done lunging type whips and dressage whips all whistling around him because we’re after communication and you can’t communicate with a tool that they are frightened of.

The list could (and for the dangerous horse maybe should) cover everything that they could possibly come across in their environment before you put a foot in the stirrup. 

We’re helping someone work through some issues with a horse that used to be dangerous.  He’s not dangerous anymore because he’s communicating clearly when things are not OK to move on to the next step.  He quite clearly is not happy with the way he has reacted in the past and he has committed to changing what has to change in order to not hurt this owner again.  His desire to co-operate with her to make them both safe is truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve been privileged to be involved with.

For most dangerous horses, we don’t need to be world class riders with brilliant horsemanship skills, we just need the patience and commitment and the desire to truly understand them and work with them and for them, instead of against them.

For most dangerous horses, the mind connection and our willingness to listen to them changes their world … and ours, seriously fast. 

For most dangerous horses, our willingness to communicate instead of dominate,  changes their world … and ours, seriously fast.

Sometimes it’s the best and most athletic horses that have become the most dangerous.  They are just looking for us to do it differently.  And here’s a way to do it do it differently -  “Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You”

You don’t need a dangerous horse to love this book, but if you’re interested in how people have used Bobby’s Diaries with horses who were considered dangerous to varying degrees, go to the “People’s Stories” category, scroll back up on the right hand side of this screen or click here to buy the book and get the secrets of the great horsemen and women now.  You could be reading this electronic book in five minutes through the most secure financial site in the world.  ”Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You” comes with a guarantee “love this book or get your money back”.  If you have an open mind and you’re willing to try something just a bit different like getting your horse to train YOU how to be a confident and gifted rider, then you’ll be like everyone else who reads this book – busting for the next one!