For all horses, the instinct to survive is strong. They will do what ever it takes to stay safe and protect themselves. Sometimes we humans forget that the horse is a wild animal at heart, one who values safety above all things and who will protect themselves at all costs. This instinct is one that often gets horses into trouble in the human environment, and one that leaves us shaking our heads in disbelief at the things we see horses do to themselves ... all in order to survive. As predators who are seldom threatened with loss of life and liberty, it does not make sense to us to risk injury or disability or even death, in order to escape and be free. We are very fortunate on the whole to walk this world with such an easy arrogance that it is our world.
Yet, to the horse, it is precisely this instinct, this willingness and desperation to stay free, that has kept them alive on this planet for so long. Does your horse kick, buck, bite? He may not generally. However, do you think he would be prepared to if he felt the need? You bet he would.
By now we understand that we are learning the language of the horse - through ground skills and games - in order to communicate with our horses and to become good leaders for them. ‘Dominance’ is not the ideal terminology to use to describe our goal in achieving Alpha status, because humans - being so literal - take this that we have to dominate the horse, rather than to simply be more dominant than the horse. A totally different mind set. This is the language of the horse and the one who speaks it the most fluently and convincingly and is prepared to back it up, becomes the Alpha. This is serious business for the horse as it is his livelihood at stake.
Any horse, if he feels his life and freedom are threatened will back up his intention with whatever measure he deems necessary. In the extreme, they will fight to the death. In the instance of a herd of horses, this is often the case with stallions, in determining who will be the lead stallion. In the herd dynamic, there is the group of mares and foals. Then there is the bachelor group, who are constantly testing each other to see who will be next in charge. Then, there is the one and only stallion. He is natural, adrenalin fuelled, testosterone on legs, whose only jobs are to procreate and protect the herd. He will do this with every ounce of strength, agility, flight and fight in his core, until one day a young colt who is bigger, faster and stronger will challenge and defeat him.
A horse’s gestation period is eleven months and a mare will rarely have more than one foal at a time. In order for the herd to survive, the stallion will keep the mares impregnated as much as possible. If he encounters a mare in season, it is his job to fulfil his duty! Look out anyone who stands in his way.
Stallions take their responsibilities very seriously. They will not just hand over the role of Alpha horse to anyone. It is their job to look for holes and weakness in their challengers and their reflexes are as fast as a snake. Often when they play the dominance games, they play them for keeps and they know the games better than anyone. Some horse owners will say that their stallion is quiet and wouldn’t put a foot wrong. If you have such a stallion, good for you. Just remember, the situation may not have come up yet where he felt the need to defend or protect himself; that doesn’t mean that it won’t.
For these reasons we recommend that if you are contemplating having a stallion, you get your savvy levels up quickly to at least Level 3. You do not want to be learning new horsemanship skills while playing with the master! That would be like learning to swim in a shark infested pool! Make sure you have a stallion for the right reasons. There are already a lot of very good horses out there to choose from without adding more. It might pay to remember that already there are more than 60,000 horses per year destroyed in Australia.
If you already have a stallion and you want to learn more, there are a couple of options open to you. Either follow the QS coaching programme and get your horsemanship skills up quickly; come along and audit at some clinics to get your knowledge; or even better, borrow or bring another horse to a camp or clinic to learn with; or bring him along to have lessons with a qualified handler on a private basis. Only our instructors who have certification in Difficult Horses are approved to help you with your stallion. We do not have stallions at clinics for safety reasons. Yours might very well be a quiet stallion, however the savvy thing to do is to set yourself up for success.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.