The Rightful Place of Sovereignty

I believe the world today has become more open minded, accepting, and liberal in expressing their views. While this is mostly good, as it minimizes judging, and leaves more room for understanding, it can also lead to confusion. Confusion of foundational truths, right and wrong, and whether something is helpful or harmful to the human spirit.

With the dawn of natural horsemanship has come a host of wonderful learnings and enlightened ways of working with, or maybe better put, playing with horses. However, there has also come a bit of confusion about our role in our relationship with horses. Leadership has become blurry. Boundaries have become indistinguishable. As we look to move away from force and domination, we have possibly lost the plot, and moved too far the other way. As with all things in life, there is a beautiful balance we are called to with our horses, and animals in general. I believe this state is aptly called sovereignty.

We are sovereign out of God’s creatures. We weren’t given size, strength, or speed as our modes of survival, but we were endowed with a disproportionately huge brain, with functions no other creature on earth possesses. Without getting into a physiology lesson, there are actual brain structures we have, that no other creatures do. This should lead us to believe it is our ability to think that should be the strength we turn to when trying to have a relationship with other creatures. The ability to put ourselves in their paws, or hooves. The ability to reason, plan, and study allows us our sovereignty. My friend Kylie loves the thought that horses lend us their legs, their strength, their beauty, while we lend them our ability to reason and think for them, keep them safe. So, if we can get on the same page with horses, it can actually be a mutually beneficial relationship.

The way we can go wrong is mistaking this sovereignty for domination, as mentioned earlier. There is no real satisfaction in “forcemanship” as horseman Jonathan Field puts it, when we make horses do things, either by mechanics, force or manipulation of their prey animal instincts. Sovereignty is leadership in its purest form, recognizing the comfort another creature can rest in, knowing we are in control, we will keep them safe, we have the ability to make good decisions for both of us, so they don’t have to. We have the ability to think about how to build trust, exercise self-control, and stay calm when they are scared.

Me on horseman Gerry Cox’s horse, Cooper. Cooper and I were fast friends, I believe, because he figured I was a decent leader and he could relax knowing I had his back. Also, he was quick to trust me due to Gerry’s excellent handling of him. Photo credit Heidi Shuster.

A wonderful example horseman Warwick Schiller gave in one of his educational video clips was a day when he was in his outdoor arena, looking to work with his horse. His horse had its mind outside the arena on some commotion going on far away, by the neighbours. Instead of Warwick steamrolling his horse and yanking his head or demanding his attention in some other forceful manner, he simply stopped, and also looked at what his horse was looking at. After looking for a few moments, and realizing

it was nothing they needed to be concerned with, the horse seemed satisfied, as his leader, Warwick had seen his concern, addressed it, and displayed a form of leadership a dominant horse would. You see, the dominant horse in a herd would be aware of any possible threats, he would look and assess, but if he then deemed it non-threatening and resumed grazing, the other horses would follow his lead and also resume grazing activity. This example Warwick gave was leadership in action, in a language the horse understands.

I understand we cannot always safely stop everything to assess a threat that isn’t really a threat, but I believe the lesson here boils down to a feeling about you, an attitude of the heart maybe, that the perceptive horse picks up on. He knows when you know, and he knows when you don’t, as Ray Hunt said. He knows when you are aware, and when you are not. As I often say in my articles, we must, as horsemen and horsewomen, ever be honing the skill of awareness. We must learn to be more like the horse. Putting aside the beeping and dinging of our phones, our “to do” list, and our goals, to simply really observe what is being presented by the horse, and work with him, not on him. This respect, and a keen sense of awareness, establishes us as a worthy leader in our horse’s eyes.

In this world that seems to have every shade of grey possible, let’s be clear on one thing… there needs to be a leader in human/horse relationships, and it needs to be you. To find out more about what a good leader looks like, look back at my September’s article on “A Leader Worth Following.” Until next month, stay safe and love your horse well by being the leader he wants and needs. Soda was able to relax on a loose rein after establishing leadership by directing some energy he had once we got out to do cow work. Leadership is an action, not being a passenger. Photo credit Possum Normand.

Elisha Bradburn and her husband, Clay, own Faithful Farm, an equestrian center in the Fraser Valley. Elisha’s passion with horses lies in psychology based horsemanship, with a strong consideration for the horse’s point of view. Elisha is available for clinics, expos, demonstrations and speaking engagements and can be followed on her Legacy Horsemanship pages on Facebook and Instagram or e-mailed at legacyhorsemanship@shaw.ca.

(See her listing in our Business Services section under TRAINERS)