The Princess Complex

Have you turned your horse into a princess? I know I have. “Princess” has been one of Lacey’s primary nicknames since I bought her, so it was inevitable. When I look back on the horses I owned and rode decades ago, they lived a completely different lifestyle than the horses I work with now.

Photo Credit: Mutt Love Photography

Prior to 2013, the only form of bodywork I was familiar with for horses was massage therapy. Justice, the horse I owned before Lacey, had a massage here and there, but it wasn’t until I met a holistic vet that I was introduced to all the other therapies available for horses. Lacey lives a far more privileged life than the horses in my past. She has had a multitude of therapies including massage, chiropractic, osteopathy, acupuncture, acutonics, PEMF, active release, laser therapy, myofascial work, cranial-sacral therapy, Reiki, and other forms of energy work. She’s on her third custom saddle, as her back has changed over the years as she finished growing and developed her topline.

It would seem that Lacey has nothing to want for, body-wise. I do my very best to meet all her needs, and ensure she is feeling her best. I feel this is only fair, since I am asking her to do a lot by riding and competing. Sometimes horses are taken for granted, and people have an expectation that because we provide them with basic needs such as food and shelter, they owe us something in return. Although they may live a much cushier life because of us, we need to keep in mind that we are still asking a lot of them. They don’t choose to enter into this dynamic with us, in the same way we would go out and choose an occupation. While they may be very well paid for their services, they are still subject to working in a job they didn’t pick.

If we do a good job with training and relationship building, most horses love having a job. Some of this stems from living in captivity, where they have less stimulation than a wild herd. Also, because they enjoy bonding and emotionally connecting with us, as we do with them. But they have good days and bad, just like we do. Some days they’re excited to go to work. Others, they would rather laze around and do nothing but eat, sleep, and hang with their friends. It is important to recognize that they are sentient beings and have feelings, just like we do.

Is it possible for a horse to become spoiled? What happens when we take care of them so well, they start to expect certain conveniences? I have definitely turned Lacey into a princess, who will only work happily under perfect conditions. If she isn’t feeling fantastic in her body, she lets me know. She will feel unmotivated in her work and won’t give 100% effort. Although I may feel she is more than well taken care of, she sometimes has other opinions!

Two things can happen when our horses aren’t offering their best. We can easily think “you can work through this” and push them anyways. But it’s also easy to go the opposite direction and worry that they aren’t feeling 100% and not push at all. There can be detriments to both. The hardest thing is knowing which direction to go, or how to find a balance between the two.

Sometimes we make the wrong choice. We think they’ll work out of it and push too hard. Then they feel even worse the next day. Other times we don’t push enough, and the horse doesn’t use its body fully. I am guilty of both at times. It can be extremely difficult to tell whether a feeling of stiffness is physical or mental.

There are days when I think Lacey is just being lazy, only to find out at her next bodywork session that she had something going on that explained her lackluster performance. Then I feel bad for having made her work on difficult exercises when she wasn’t completely comfortable. There are other days, however, where she has me completely fooled. She will start off feeling unmotivated and like our warmup is a struggle, but if I get after her and send her forward, she ends up feeling fabulous and we have an incredible ride.

How do we learn to tell the difference? One thing that is very important is consistency. Having the same standards and expectations for our horse every ride, when it comes to basics like responsiveness to the aids. If we are inconsistent in our aids, expectations, or motivation, then our horses will also learn they can be inconsistent. Again, this is something I have been guilty of with Lacey, and she now knows that I won’t push her as hard when I’m worried she isn’t feeling one hundred percent. As a result, she will often exaggerate how she’s feeling to play to my empathy and get a lighter ride out of it.

I know there are many people out there who would argue that horses do not have the ability to reason or be calculative in this way, since they do not have a prefrontal cortex like humans do. However, their powers of observation are incredible as prey animals, and they definitely observe and take note of our behaviours. Often, they are far more in tune to the subtleties of our actions than we are; they notice the slightest change in our position or intention when we don’t even realize we’ve done something different. They are also tuned into our emotions.

Lacey absolutely can tell when I decrease my expectation even slightly. She can feel when I am worried, and when I hesitate to push her. As a result, over time, she has learned to create a certain feeling in her body when she wants to avoid hard work. The predictable human that I am, I almost always play right into that and start to over-analyze everything I am feeling from her. The predictable thought patterns from me start immediately: “Is she stiff? Does she need chiro? Did we work too hard yesterday?” Sometimes the answer to one or more of these questions is yes, but other times it’s no, and Lacey is just using her knowledge of my patterns to her advantage. She can also tell when I am tired and unmotivated. I need to be careful to always come into every ride with a level of focus and intention, or she will drop her energy to match mine.

I created this situation unintentionally, and I am spending a lot more time trying to undo it than I did producing it! It is always a struggle to balance honouring our horses’ bodies and feelings, with ensuring we work them at an appropriate level for their fitness and health. Letting a horse “slack off” and go around behind the leg or slightly crooked at times, not only sets a double standard, it also isn’t good for their body.

If your horse is feeling a little stiff and heavy in the contact, rather than allowing them to carry themselves this way, ask for better posture but at a lower level of difficulty. For example, perhaps you had planned to work on shoulder in today, but your horse is struggling to give correctly through their ribcage and bend. Instead of forcing the shoulder in, maybe you scale back and just work on shallow leg yields to get them softer through their body and still engaging the inside hind leg. Or if they are having a harder time sitting in the canter than they normally do, instead of simple changes through walk, you do changes of lead through trot. Keep your standards high for responsiveness to the aids but lower the workload.

Preventing a princess complex from developing is far easier than eliminating one once it’s started – trust me, I know from personal experience! Show up consistently every time you ride or work with your horse on the ground. Be clear in your communication, and consistent in your expectations. Horses are far happier with clear boundaries than ambiguous guidelines. If you’ve already created a princess, then it is even more imperative going forward that you are extremely clear and consistent in your expectations.

You can still allow your horse to have a voice and hear what they have to say. By no means am I implying that we should work a horse when it’s sore or ignore their feelings and needs. It is important that we tune into how our horses are feeling each day and honour their bodies and emotions. But it is also important that we don’t allow ambiguity to creep in, as then our horses lose their love of the work and their motivation to do it. If you get on for a ride and your horse just doesn’t feel right, it’s up to you to figure out in that moment if the best thing for them is to continue the ride and work through it, continue the ride but at a modified level, or ask for a nice halt, dismount, and figure out what’s going on before you push them again. Treat your horse like the princess they are to you, but beware of the pea!