At a bare minimum, horses need Friends, Freedom and Forage.
It’s really important to provide horses with regular exercise, a good farrier, a skilled saddle fitter, dentistry, a reliable vet and effective nutrition… but all this isn’t enough to ensure a horse is well in themselves.
They need emotional support from us too.
Emotional upset from stress can become physical.
The difference in horses' behaviour can be striking depending on if they are calm and confident or stressed. This isn’t just because, like us, they act differently when they are worried.
Like us, the chemistry between their brain and their gut (the gut-brain axis) can effect their health (impacting gut health, elevating risk of ulcers, colic, weight loss, gut acidosis, right through to coat and hoof condition) as well as their mental emotional state (spookiness, unpredictable behaviour, stereotypies such as pacing, cribbing and head flicking.)
It’s a two way street and grass mould toxins, different pasture with high ‘sugars’, changing feeds, stress from shows or travel or herd changes and separation can all trigger the cycle of affected gut and mental states.
Trinny here (view reel) is safe, she has forage and freedom and friends (over the rail behind me) but the change of location has her very worried wondering why she hasn’t gone home to Juno, and her gut became acidic pretty quickly which would have added to her discomfort.
She kept running back to me, and it was really nice to know that me being around helped, and we sat on the patio beside her field so she could see us as well as pony next door. But as you can imagine she was really glad to get home the next morning and get back to her familiar routine - and BFF Juno!
How can we support our horses emotional needs?
To be honest, once the stress event is happening, it's mostly too late - just breathe!
It's times like this that you see the result of all the work you have done building connection and incrementally exposing your horse step by step to new stimuli while keeping them below the fear threshold, encouraging curiosity and rewarding try.
Your horse is assessing this new and frankly terrifying phenomenon and based on their life experience and confidence level they are making a decision on if they need to take desperate action to save their life; or if they believe you will keep them safe and they will survive.
The time to prepare for the unexpected is... every day.
Every piece of time we spend with our horses is training them (consciously or unconsciously, toward or away from what we want) and when crunch time comes you find out how successful you have been. I love the saying ‘you can’t train your horse for every situation but you can train how your horse will respond to a bad situation’.
In all the little things we do for and with our horses, we teach them either that they are 'on their own' or part of a solid team. There are countless ways you can show your horse you are there for them.
From a gentle touch before haltering, to lowering a hoof after picking it out instead of dropping it. From feeding your horse at a regular time (oh yes they know if you are 20 minutes late!!) to spending 'no-demand' time in the field with them. From grooming them their preferred way (tail scratches and gentle body brush, yes ma'am) to moving to stand between them and a scary object. From comforting them when they decide they need to avoid something and helping them overcome their worry, to finding fun challenges to conquer together.
Think about how you can build more reliability into the way you are with your horses, and you will both be happier, more confident and safer.
Disclaimer: If you need to, get off. Many horses feel safer with their human on the ground beside them, and you are less likely to get hurt. There are no medals given out for staying on when things really go wrong. 🖤