It would seem so, if you listen to numerous persons speaking about horses and their training. I’m talking about “The Blue Rinse Brigade”, as my friend Chris so humorously refers to them, although they come from all age categories; those persons who so self-righteously tell you that you are being cruel to your horse because you insist that he do what you ask and that he mind his manners. They believe that you should never hit a horse, no matter what he does, nor use force with him, and that you can teach a horse to do something simply by repeating and repeating your request; they believe that all horses (and other animals) are sweet and gentle and that all there is to training them is simply to understand them fully.

These ideas are, in reality, rubbish. Of course one needs to understand horses and how their minds work in order to successfully train them and have a good relationship with them. But one also needs to realise that horses are very big, powerful, and dangerous animals, even when they are trained; horses weigh a thousand pounds and more, and if they refuse to go where one wishes or to get out of one’s space, the human can in no way use physical strength alone to make the horse move. An untrained horse is much more dangerous; it is an ignorant, not-very-bright animal who is ruled by his instinct to flee from anything that frightens him and to push out of his way anything which causes him annoyance.