Tell Me A Story

Humans are brilliant at telling stories.

Today I came across a Facebook post from a woman who was seeking reassurance that the challenging behaviours her horse had been displaying were a result of the horse processing emotional trauma, not the horse struggling to cope with a physical issue. I started to respond, but thought my words might be a bit challenging. So I decided to bring my thoughts here instead.

There is always the possibility that a horse who has found a safe space to express itself is in fact expressing pain. And we can't always find a source for that pain, much less a solution. And it can be easy for us to search for a work-around and create a narrative where the problem can be fixed and the horse can be made comfortable and we can continue the journey we have in mind for the horse.

The question of whether an issue is physiological or psychological seems to matter a lot to some people, but from my point of view it really doesn't make a difference if the result is the same. If a horse says 'no' because of discomfort, does it matter whether the discomfort is due to physical injury or emotional trauma? If tiny things push the horse past its threshold and into explosive behaviours, does it matter whether the contents of the overflowing 'worry cup' are 'real pain' or psychological stressors, or a combination of both?

When we seek to differentiate between the two, we risk falling back into that trap of elevating physical injury above mental or emotional injury. But the thing with horses is that it is relatively easy to push them through physical discomfort and train them out of complaining.

Through the work of Becks Nairn and her horse dissection investigations we can see with painful clarity that a lot of horses carry physical damage that they are never going to recover from and that will always prevent them from being comfortable under saddle. Some of these horses probably have emotional issues as well, and some of the emotional trauma is probably related to their physical issues.

Through training, we can manipulate a horse in pain to a point where we can believe that they are not in pain. That's human nature, and does not come from a place of malice. We want our horses to be well. But we also need them to fulfill a role in our lives, and it can be really hard to let go of that.

I had a beautiful Thoroughbred who I retired at 6yo because she just wasn't right. At the time we didn't really know about ECVM, I would just tell people I thought this horse had a pinched nerve in her wither. I was able to keep her as a pet and companion until she was 26yo, by which stage she showed classic signs of ECVM and was barely able to lift her hind feet. This horse was a picture of contentment in the paddock for all those years, but as soon as she told me she was not coping I had her euthanased.

Had my mare been sound, the last 20 years of my life would have been very different. She was such an exciting prospect, so talented. Letting go of the dream I created around such a beautiful young horse was heartbreaking, but over time it turned out to be the best thing I could have done for her. I could have pushed and kept riding, listened to the trainers with tricks for shutting down her bucking. She might have ended up seriously injuring me. I was not 1/10th the horseperson then that I am now, but somehow I found the conviction to listen to that horse and rewrite the narrative I had created around her.

It's easy for us to read a version of a story and fill in the gaps and create what feels like a truth we can invest in. It's how our human brains work. Sometimes there are patterns that play out over and over and become predictable. Sometimes things don't make sense because the parts of the story conflict or because they don't fit with the truth we want to create. Sometimes we seek confirmation for our narrative and end up facing evidence that we can't make the story work how we want it to. Being open and objective is hard, practically and emotionally.

We can aim to create a space where a horse can tell us how it feels. Then it is our responsibility to listen to what the horse tells us and act accordingly, even if it tells us what we didn't want to hear. Sometimes we can't make progress with a horse because that horse is broken. Then we need to rewrite the story and create one where the horse is as comfortable as possible for as long as is practical.