Giving Consent

Does your horse agree with the way you work together?

Giving our horses the ability to say yes or no - to give consent - is an important training tool in the Equestrian Movement tool box.

It is next in line in our philosophies after first do no harm.

One of our big over arching goals is for our training sessions to happen FOR the horse.

WITH the horse.

Not to the horse.

We want them to not only participate but enjoy the learning process, and for movement to feel good for them.

Part of making this work is having the horse able to give consent to the next ask.

Sometimes there is a long gap between the previous ask and when they are ready for the next ask. As trainers and riders we tend to rush the process, and this is when our horses can hit breaking point. When the tension of the ask, ask, ask builds up, their frustration, confusion or overwhelm can burst out of them and be deemed as them being naughty at best and dangerous at worst.

When we give them permission to process and move their emotion (or even better show them how to process and move their emotion), where they can say

• “I’m not ready”,

• “I don’t understand”,

• “my body isn’t ready”,

• “I need a break”,

• “I’m hurting”,

Or anyother form of no that they might have, we are allowing them to express what they need from us to succeed in their training session.

It may well mean we need to adjust the goal posts for what we hoped to achieve.

When our horse feels listened to and isn’t reacting off their emotions, when that horse feels heard, they don’t have to act out with large and potentially dangerous behaviours to get their message across.