The Art of Horsemanship

It is believed that horses were domesticated around 6,000 years ago by the great nomadic tribes of Eurasia. The people of Kazakhstan and Mongolia have the claim of being the greatest equestrians in the world as they continue to depend upon equines in their daily life. Mongolians teach their children to ride when they are still babes and horses are still worshiped by the Kazakh people. What brave, understanding, spiritual souls were the first to sit on a horse's back? How did they nurture the horse to trust them? Was it a horse they rescued? Perhaps they raised an orphaned foal. We will never know. What we do know is that from then on horses have played an important role in mankind's history.

Through ancient history only two texts on horsemanship have survived. One is the Kikkuli from the Hittite Empire but there is no translation available for purchase. The second is The Art of Horsemanship written by a the Greek soldier named Xenophon in 350 B.C. This important piece of equine writing lays out the foundations of horse training and care that still hold true in modern times and even before Xenophon's time.

Xenophon preaches that patience, understanding, trust and care are the best methods to training a horse: "The one best guideline, in fact the golden rule, in dealing with a horse is never to approach in anger" (36). This is the absolute rule through mankind's history with horses. If a person goes to train their horse in the wrong mindset the horse will sense this and the results could be disastrous. There have been many stories when a horse goes through a major setback because they had one bad session with the trainer. The art of patience is necessary and all equestrians should learn to work at the horse's rate of acceptance and not on the trainer's schedule. I knew a horse and he was skittish and very green. His owners sent him to a trainer who expected Chief to perform to her standards alone. When Chief came back he was even more nervous and seemed unsafe to ride. This past summer Chief was sold to someone who took the time and patience to work with him. My unsafe, skittish equine friend now goes along as pleasantly as my own Skye.

Horses are noble creatures who, in general, want to please their riders. When a horse is labeled as crazy or unsafe it is not because the horse was born that way. In nearly all cases the horse associates negativity with humans. The horse has been abused or misunderstood. Kindness and positive reinforcement are a human's greatest allies in training a horse. Horses that associate humans with positive aspects of life are more than willing to work with their human leaders: "your best plan will be to show the horse kindness whenever the horse dies as you wish, and to reprimand the horse when the horse is disobedient" (45). By using positive reinforcement to reward a horse for a desirable behavior the horse will want to repeat the action. A horse should be reprimanded only if he is truly misbehaving. Too often horses are reprimanded when they are simply confused and do not understand what they are being asked to do. Thank goodness horses have a forgiving nature as in my early days of equine ownership I made this same error.

I would strongly recommend any equestrian, whether they are a professional trainer or a pleasure rider, read Xenophon's The Art of Horsemanship. I read this ancient text to remind myself that the bond between human and horse has existed in different time periods and other countries. The world has gone through so many changes since man first allied himself with horses. I live in the resulting world. However, one thing has remained. The indestructible bond some humans have with horses has survived.

The Art of Horsemanship is available in print but also can be downloaded for free on Amazon's Kindle.

Sources:

The Majesty of the Horse by Tasmin Pickeral
The Art of Horsemanship by Xenophon
http://globalhorseculture.typepad.com/global_horse_culture/2008/05/conditioning-th.html#comments