How Much Does History Matter?

I had a conversation a while back with someone about the past behavioral history of a particular horse. It made me think about how much history should matter when we decide what horses are appropriate for what riders and what settings.

Behavioral history is often a deciding factor in what use a particular horse is put to. In some cases it can be the difference between a horse who removed from their herd to be sold or unfortunately even abandoned or euthanized. We assume that if a horse has demonstrated negative or dangerous behavior that they will reliably demonstrate similar behaviors again. This makes good logical sense, but I think we often forget to take into account the personalities and motivations of the horse involved and the particulars of the situations in which the previously demonstrated unwanted behavior occurred.

Horses are intelligent creatures who have their own personalities, motivations and ideas. Work with enough horses and eventually you will find a few that don't like you and you don't like them. These horses will go out of their way to test your limits, and only do as you ask begrudgingly at best. Yet they may be another person's favorite horse. Likewise you will probably find a few horses that you work exceptionally well with. Horses that will give you 125%, but may not give someone else the time of day. Sometimes I think we end up writing off horses as having "behavioral problems" when they simply have a personality conflict with a particular rider or handler.

Or perhaps the environment is to blame. Some horses due to past experiences or personality quirks are simply not reliable in a given setting. I knew one mare that hated arena work and would buck, kick, lie down and roll, bite and generally make life difficult for anyone who took her into an arena. Anyone who saw her only in an arena setting would likely label her as "dangerous or advanced rider only." But she was a completely different horse on the trail. She quickly became everyone's favorite when it came time to take the newbie riders out on the trail. She never spooked, never bolted, would do everything she was asked, and never showed the smallest sign of being barn sour or herd bound. Likewise I knew a fabulous lesson horse who was an angel in any arena environment. He was as bombproof as they come and perfectly content to go nicely along even for a beginning rider. He was the kind of horse that took care of his rider and made his rider look far more capable than they were. Take him out on the trail however, and you were in for a nightmare. He would jig the whole way out and back, panic and bolt for no apparent reason, and call for the other horses constantly even if half the rest of the herd including his best friends were already right beside him. If you had only seen him on the trail you might call him "spooky" or "nervous" but he only demonstrated that behavior on the trail.

My point is that just because a horse has bitten, kicked, or dumped someone in the past doesn't necessarily mean that every interaction they have with humans is doomed to end badly. Horses are by their very nature dangerous to be around. We minimize those dangers through careful management and mindfulness of each horse's individual personality and limits. Writing off the use of a particular horse due to a handful of bad experiences, half of which you may not know all of the particulars about does not necessarily do anyone any favors. It may in fact deny the horse and future riders and handlers some very valuable experiences.