Awareness Is the Beginning of a Beautiful Partnership with Your Horse
Most of the problems riders face with their horses don’t start in the arena. They don’t even start when you pick up the reins. They start long before that—often before you’ve even noticed what’s happening.
Your horse is communicating with you all the time, but are you listening? Are you aware? The blink of an eye, a flick of an ear, a shift in weight, or the way they breathe when you approach. Are you aware?
These are not random quirks. They’re messages. And if we’re not tuned in, we miss the moment. We miss the communication. We ignore where the problem begins. So, EVERY time you greet your horse, whenever you are DOING something to them, tune in. Be aware.
Horses thrive in communities and flourish with social interaction. It’s who they are at their core. And because of that, our role isn’t simply to “handle” or “train” them — it’s to relate to them. Riders need to be AS aware of their horses AS they would be with another human being. At least as aware because a lot of people are out running around being too busy to notice the little things about others, and it’s not fair to our fellow humans or horses. After all, what attracts your horse to you is the very same thing that draws you to a partner, a friend, or a loved one: that feeling of being seen, valued, and given just a little extra attention above everything else.
For many domestic horses, the richness of herd life is limited or missing altogether. That leaves us, their humans, as their primary source of social connection. Which means that if we ignore their attempts to communicate—because we’re focused only on “work” or “performance”—we’re not just missing training opportunities, we’re failing to meet their most basic needs as a species.
Think about how you feel when your own basic needs aren’t met. When you’re exhausted but can’t rest. When you’re hungry but have no time to eat. When you long for connection but instead feel isolated. It doesn’t just feel uncomfortable — it changes who you are in the moment. You may become short-tempered, distracted, anxious, or withdrawn.
Children are the perfect mirror of this. A hungry child is cranky. A tired child melts down. A lonely child acts out just to get attention. None of these behaviors are “bad” — they’re simply signals that a need has gone unmet.
Our horses are no different. They don’t have words, so they use movement, expression, and behavior to say, “Something is missing for me.” Too often, we dismiss that as misbehavior instead of recognizing it as communication.
And while it may feel revolutionary to acknowledge horses as sentient beings, it isn’t new. The old classical masters already respected the horse’s voice. Charles de Kunffy reminded us: “Training is dialogue, not domination.” Walter Zettl said: “Always put the horse first. The horse always has a reason for what he does.”
They knew. They wrote it down. They taught it.
But here’s the difference: today, we should be able to do even better. With everything we now know — from psychology to neuroscience to ethology — we have the tools to move beyond even the classicalists. Respect is the starting point. Compassion, awareness, and connection are where we must go next.
Now, allowing horses to communicate with us does not mean we abandon boundaries. Boundaries are essential in every healthy relationship—human or horse.
As a parent, I often see debates about “gentle parenting” versus “old school” parenting. I’d say my parents were “old school”. We had boundaries, gentle parents seem to allow those to be more fluid. But setting boundaries doesn’t require harshness or punishment. You simply make the boundary clear, and there are natural consequences if it’s crossed. The same applies to horses.
Where many riders struggle is in the balance. Some lack boundaries altogether, leaving their horses confused. Others set boundaries so rigid that they stop listening to their horses at all. True partnership lives in the middle space—where you can allow your horse expression, and still show your horse clarity and consistency.
This balance is exactly what I teach in Reconnect, Rebuild and Ride with Heart. We wade through my 7 Seeds of Partnership and find more connection and clarity for humans and horses. Each “seed” is a small awareness shift that helps riders recognize where issues begin—before they become resistance, tension, or disconnection.
It’s not about controlling harder or training longer. It’s about tuning in, noticing, and responding in ways that honor your horse’s needs as a partner, not a problem.
A Simple Awareness Practice
Here’s something to try the next time you walk into the barn:
Pause before you halter your horse.
Notice three things your horse is telling you—through body language, expression, or movement.
Ask yourself: what do these cues say about how my horse feels right now?
Instead of moving straight to your agenda, try responding to what your horse is already communicating. (You can just think about it, you don’t have to do it aloud)
That tiny shift in awareness is the beginning of true partnership.
Reconnect, Rebuild, and Ride with Heart
If this resonates with you, I invite you to join my upcoming Reconnect, Rebuild, and Ride with Heart cohort. Together, we’ll dive into the 7 Seeds of Partnership, explore how to fulfill our horses’ social and emotional needs, and rebuild the kind of connection that makes riding feel like flow instead of frustration.
Because being a thinking rider doesn’t mean over-analyzing. It means noticing what’s real in the moment—because our horses already are. When we shift from expecting readiness to cultivating connection, we not only get better rides… we give our horses better lives.
Check it out: https://equusenlightened.com/reconnect-rebuild
