We live our lives making hundreds of choices every day: what to wear; what to eat; when to put the dishwasher on: when to hang the washing out; what time to start work etc. Mundane though most of our decisions are, they enable us to have control over how we live our lives, it gives us autonomy.

Now Imagine you are a horse! most horses have very limited option to choose how they live their lives, they are almost completely governed by the decisions WE make for them; whether they have a herd life or a solitary life; whether they have freedom to roam or are confined to a stable for 16 hours a day; whether they have adlib forage or one net overnight and an empty belly for 10 hours; whether they are allowed to self-regulate their own heat or over rugged and overheating; whether they are trained with compassion, ethics and biomechanically sound training or are treated as commodities, held in torturous positions with gadgets and/or forceful, backward acting hands all for the glory of a red ribbon.

The choices we make for our horses matter to THEM.

The most basic of choices we make for our horses should be to ensure their innate instincts are met - freedom to socialise, freedom to eat, freedom to move. Our horses are social animals, they need friends and autonomy to choose when and how they do things. Since 1997, I've chosen to keep my horses in a herd life, living out 24;7, having adlib forage. In this way they can choose to share the same blade of hay or choose to eat a net on their own; They can choose to share the same droplet of water or choose to drink alone; they can choose to rest together or choose to rest alone. That is the choice I made for my horses. Not an easy choice for me at times but a much better choice for my horses. Choose to learn more about the benefits of outdoor, herd living, your horse may benefit from your choice!

Subsequent choices we make for our horses are how we handle and ride them. If a horse could talk, I'm sure they would say - please choose a system of training me that makes me feel good, feel safe, that doesn't confuse me, that is consistent, that doesn't hurt me. Since 1997, I have chosen to train my horses 'classically'. I chose to train my horses without gadgets, without flash nosebands, without over flexion, without compressed necks, without low - backward acting hands, without bleeding mouths and bodies destroyed by terrible training, without the accolades from a broken competition system. Not an easy choice for me at times but a much better choice for my horses. Choose to learn more about training using French Classical Training, following the principles of the school of Legerete, your horses will benefit from this choice! 

We owe these amazing, sentient animals the RIGHT CHOICES.

On the Friends, Forage and Freedom page you can find plenty of images of my own horses and my client’s horses. These images represent the good choices I’ve made over my lifetime with horses. I'd like to think my horses and my client’s horses approve of the choices I’ve made for them. What choices do you make for your horses?

By Kat Layfield thinkingequitation@gmail.com