04/03/2026
Har du en dårlig dag klarer du kanskje ikke regulere dine egne følelser og det kan påvirke hvordan du reagerer på hestens respons på deg og deres interaksjon. Hesten (et fluktdyr) som i sin tur leser deg som en åpen bok, både ser og føler at du ikke er i balanse. 🥰
Dysregulated people are much more likely to handle horses harshly.
I recently saw a video going around in which a trainer claimed that the horse tried to bite them (I didn’t see it, personally) and then proceeded to run after them while horse frantically ran backwards away from them.
They chased the horse backwards for several meters.
The reaction was incredibly disproportionate to what they were trying to punish.
It was a very clear example of a human who became irritated and annoyed with the Horse and responded disproportionately to the behaviour because of it.
Most people who readily advocate for the use of physical punishment with forces are dysregulated themselves.
This makes it next to impossible for them to make an informed decision on what is a proportionate response to unwanted behavior.
This is why we tend to see people who strongly advocate for punishment consistently escalate, the level of punishment used.
And because they are so emotionally dysregulated, they have a tendency to set horses off with their volatile energy and short tempers.

So, they often increase unwanted behaviours in horses, without intending to, because their behaviour and how they go about training is often stilted and impatient.
I share this from experience.
I was incredibly dysregulated during the time of my life where I used the punishment the most.
If I had a bad day, how I would respond to behaviour with shift dramatically, even if the horse did the same thing.
It made me a very unpredictable and unsafe person for the Horse.
Outside of the barn, I was dealing with a lot of trauma and hardship that was wearing my emotional resilience thin.
This coupled with years of conditioning that taught me it was OK to physically punish horses led to me often times taking out my lack of emotional regulation on horses.
It was incredibly unfair to the horses.
And the frequency and intensity with which I used punishment was more of a statement of the lack of tools in my toolbox, my own lack of emotional regulation, and my own lack of patience then it was about anything the Horse was doing.
I would frequently see explosive behaviour and horses escalate their behaviour and appear to be much more dangerous because I would cause these things to happen with how I trained.
And I see this happening across social media.
Trainers antagonize horses into explosive reactions by being abrupt, harsh, impatient and unclear.
Then, they use the reaction as a sign that the Horse is being disrespectful.
Then, they proceed to bully the Horse into submission and call this a success.
When in reality, the vast majority of the time, the explosive behaviours could’ve been completely mitigated and avoided if the trainer simply regulated themselves prior to entering the barn.
There is no place in good horse training for volatile emotions and a short temper.
And, yet, this is an incredibly common theme amongst horse trainers.
It is often openly accepted, and even applauded, in our industry.
And, frankly, it is an embarrassment.
There are far too many adult sized toddlers, running around antagonizing horses and creating the problems that they then claim to fix.

It is insidious and it is one of the foundational aspects behind the more severe cases of abuse that we see.
People don’t go from never utilizing punishment to whipping a horse 47 times out of nowhere.
They are conditioned to do so by repeating similar behaviours at lesser intensities over the course of time.
Eventually, when they are dysregulated that the way a horse behaves eventually sends them so over threshold that they just explode with anger, you see the outcome of more overt forms of abuse.
But, the signs preceding this, were always there.
And this is why we must not wait until we see the worst case scenario before we call out problematic themes in horse training.
The horrific cases of abuse that finally caused those who typically defend physical punishment to have a problem with it are the result of lesser forms of harshness being consistently normalized and condoned.
We need to address the elephant in the room instead of waiting until the room is on fire to notice that there is a problem.
We cannot expect horses to be more regulated, grounded, and predictable than we are ourselves.
If a trainer cannot control their emotions, they can’t expect a flight animal to do so in their presence.
I wouldn’t feel safe around someone who is giving off predator energy, either.
