How to Stay Safe Around Horses: Horse Body Language
If you’ve spent any time around horses, it’s more than likely that you’ve been hurt or injured. You may have been kicked, bitten, bucked off, stepped on, or maybe hit in the head by the horses head!
It’s no fun getting hurt and the reality of it is that the horses don’t want to hurt us. Horses are prey animals and they have a very strong sense of self-preservation. Horses are always on high alert looking out for a predator that might try to attack and their fight or flight mechanism is what keeps them safe.
We, as humans, must learn to read the horse. True horsemen (and women) are very aware of the horse’s body language and they are able to sense what the horse is feeling and thinking before the horse reacts! This awareness of what the horse is thinking coupled with training tools is what keeps you safe around horses.
You must learn how to read the horse and understand what they are thinking AND train the horse to look to you and respond to your cues instead of panicking and fleeing!
In this weeks video I describe how to read a horse and what to look for to understand the horses’ mental state. Being able to really read a horse takes many, many years and thousands of hours!
An old cowboy I use to ride with in Colorado used to say: “How do you get good judgement? — Bad judgement!” I certainly have learned over the years from all those “bad judgment” calls but I hope this video helps you to better read your horse and avoid getting hurt!
Happy Riding!
Amelia
