It is important to remember that none of us have all the answers, and I promise you that even the best horsemen can use some advice now and again. He pushed me to seek and to grow so much, and for that I am forever grateful.” Susan’s hard work with Gryphon paid off for her, for the horse, and even for me, as I ended up using Gryphon in a number of demonstrations and in this photo shoot for EQUUS magazine (photo by Robin Duncan). Says Susan, “Gryphon was never an easy horse, but he truly taught me the meaning of the Buddhist saying, ‘The Obstacle is The Path’. A trainer herself at the time, Susan recognized that her traditional approach was missing something when it came to settling Gryphon’s mind, so she went looking for new ways to help her horse. I first met my long-time student Susan Kauffmann when she brought her remarkable but often challenging Morgan, Gryphon, to one of my early clinics. Therefore, for many people, the answer is really about getting the right help, and being okay with needing help in the first place. I can tell you that there have been many cases where a student came to me feeling pretty hopeless about ever getting to a good place with their horse, only to find things changing - often surprisingly quickly - when they changed their approach and started working in a relational context. You may simply be like that horse that feels the need to flee from pressure, meaning you just haven’t yet been given the right tools to help you work through the “pressures” your horse presents. Do you generally feel confident that you can find a way to work through the issues, or are you frequently tipping over into doubt and fear? Do the challenges seem like an opportunity to learn and become a better horseman, or are they stripping away the joy you once felt around horses?Įven if the answer is the latter, the solution may not be to sell your horse. Now think of the challenges your horse presents for you as a form of pressure, and you are the horse having to deal with that pressure. However, if the horse has not been given tools that allow him to process different pressures and respond to them thoughtfully, he is going to tip over into self-preservation and feel the need to flee. He may even enjoy the novelty of the experience and gain even more self-confidence from it. If the horse has been taught how to think through various pressures in a way that has given him the confidence to handle whatever comes at him, this new pressure is likely to be a non-issue. One way to start processing what to do is to think of yourself very much as we think of a horse having to deal with some sort of new pressure. All of that and more can make the idea of parting with a horse anything but easy. We worry about finding the horse a good home. We may love the horse dearly, despite the struggles we’ve had, and it can be extremely upsetting to think of sending them away. We may believe that we have failed the horse and failed ourselves. We may believe we are weak because we are “giving up”. In reality, the decision to part with a horse can be a difficult and heartbreaking one. Sometimes, the challenges our horses present can feel overwhelming, yet I’ve often seen people make tremendous progress by simply learning to work with a more relational approach to training.įrom the outside, the decision to move a challenging horse down the road may sound like a simple equation: If the horse is too much for you, you should sell the horse.
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