Is your horse a saint?
Is he one of those angels so quiet you can do anything with him?
If he’s not, I’m betting you’ve met that horse before – the really reliable one at the riding school, the ‘bombproof’ child’s pony (have you thought about how unnatural it is for a prey animal to be ‘bombproof’?). A little dead to the leg and hand, perhaps, but makes up for it by being obedient, still, tolerant, tidy….
Ever wonder how he got like that? He wasn’t born that way.
What happened to the bouncy foal he used to be?
Your horse is a prey animal, and his VAGUS NERVE is a massive contributor to his survival. It is the sensor that tips him in and out of a DEFENCE state when there’s a threat signalled.
When a threat first appears, he turns off that playing/resting/digesting way of being and goes into the FIGHT OR FLIGHT picture we are used to seeing in a horse that we like to label ‘spooky’ or ‘sharp’. His heart rate rises, his head rises, he can’t be still, he can’t pay attention.
The vagus nerve also lets him interact socially and be playful when – and only when – his system is content that there’s no threat.
WHAT HAPPENS if he spends too long in a fight/flight state that he can’t resolve? Eerily, it’s this – he ‘freezes’ and shuts down his reactive systems. Instead of his body chemistry giving him everything he needs to get out of his situation, it gives up and tries to let him survive it. Just survive.
He’s the horse in that top paragraph.
When your horse is in a defence state, whether up or down, he can’t think straight, or relax, or yield to whatever your request is. Not letting you in is the only way he can protect himself.
It’s a warning light and it needs to be your top priority. ‘Pushing on through’, ‘not taking any nonsense’, not ‘letting him away with that’ might seem heroic, but be careful you don’t get your excited response by pushing him to a freeze state where he’s just shut down…
It’s not safe to ignore the warning lights.