Monty Roberts - Horse Sense for People

Sean moved into the center of the pen and gathered up the shredded remnants that had been a saddle, retreated and closed the gate behind him. Once the potential danger was removed, the mare walked away from me. I got up, stroked her head and walked around the pen with her. Sean went for another saddle and returned to the pen. This time I kept her on a lead while putting the pad, saddle and bridle on.

Sean came in later and rode her with no trouble, finishing up in just over two and a half hours. The owner actually rode the mare within two weeks and was extremely pleased. Later reports reached me that this mare became a wonderful animal for both this lady and her daughter. It was the first mustang she had adopted and this experience was so positive that she became president of a mustang association.

Several times she invited me to come to adoption events and start mustangs, which I was delighted to do. She felt that they had a better chance of being successfully adopted if they were already “joined-up.”

The bizarre behavior described in this story has never reoccurred with me, nor have I heard of it happening to anybody else. While the occurrence may have been unusual, her desire to protect me amplified the potential for close human-to-horse attachment. The mare’s body language was there for me to read, but I was confused by the speed of events and perceived only the aggression with which she attacked the saddle. It took me a long time to realize that this was the act of a mother to protect what she now considered to be her family. I had not before realized the depth of bonding that Join-Up creates. In the mare’s mind I was to be protected from all danger and that included a possible attack from what she perceived to be “the deadly saddle.”

Surely one of the most important jobs a parent has to do is to protect the child from any kind of threat. This must be a deeply instinctual trait imbedded in the brains of all mammals. This mare exemplified the extent to which a mother will go to protect what she perceives to be her maternal responsibility.

A human being (predominantly a fight animal) will quite often act out in violence even when it is not in his best interest. I feel that most traditional horsemen would have stood their ground to this mare and wherever possible would have struck her, feeling it was the only way to protect themselves. Many of the horsemen I have known in my time would have literally beaten the hell out of her.

We all know now what a mistake an act of violence would have been at that moment in time. I believe that she would have instantly become a mare never again to trust a human under any circumstances.

We have been closely associated with the horse throughout almost the entire development of our species, and possibly this is why the concepts that I have explored in this book are as sound as they are.

This new millennium will be the first in the history of humankind without the horse as the mainstay of our transport system. The horse owes us nothing. They have fought with us in our wars, plowed our fields, fed us and remained the most faithful of servants. “Man’s best friend” has probably been an accolade preserved for our dogs for a few thousand years now. I’ve heard it said the Egyptian pharaohs were the first to use this term. I love dogs and I believe that people can love them deeply and that dogs try to please us far more than most people will, but there is also a case for the horse being man’s best friend.

The horse has been our partner in an incredible range of serious activities, and we must never forget the effort the horse has made to entertain us—racing, polo, dressage, jumping, rodeo and every kind of game or competition that you can imagine has been done in one form or another on horseback. The horse has served us as a pleasurable companion, to a greater degree than we realize. At the turn of the twentieth century the horse was our primary vehicle and practically the only power source on the farm. By the mid-1900s they were scarcely used in these ways, yet in the United States the total horse population at the turn of the twenty-first century was three times larger than it had been a hundred years before. How can this be when we don’t need them anymore? Because we do need or want them for our entertainment and pleasure.

But there is more to Equus than just the enjoyment of all the sports and pastimes with which we associate the horse. We can use his natural existence as a metaphor for our lives today. I once believed it was nothing more than a metaphor, but I have discovered that the horse has many of the same responses and needs as humans; and the horse and human have closer behavioral ties than I had first considered. The reason horse and human work so well together may be because they do share much in common—the horse’s behavior is not alien to us. It is little wonder that what the horses tell me in the language of Equus, their natural communication system, can be translated directly to the world of humans.

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Recently, we had two very interesting horses brought to Flag Is Up Farms, which gave me a unique opportunity to test the true nature of this language. One was born without hearing and the other had been blind from birth. As events progressed the blind horse regained its sight following surgery, but the deaf horse will remain so for life. The deaf horse understood all my communication (in body language) and joined-up well with me. The once-blind horse had difficulty in deciphering my movements; they meant very little to it. These experiments proved that their body-language communication is to a great degree learned, although partly instinctual, and that sound is not terribly important. Mares might call to their foals or vice versa, and sounds will alert horses, but they do not play a major role in their communication system. “Actions speak louder than words” is a nice saying and one we humans use quite often; generally, however, we do not live by it. The language of Equus is, in fact, one of actions, not words.

If you still find it difficult to believe that sound is not a necessary element in the language of Equus, you only have to look at the behavior of a herd of wild horses. Every time I bring wild mustangs to the farm, they run and hide in horror at the neighing of domestic horses because they fear that a predator will be alerted. It is clear to me that this language I have identified is silent—it is a body language that utilizes direction, speed and gesture to receive and pass on information.

The most common forms of communication on earth are silent. Bioluminescence is used by billions of marine animals. It is a light show. Their little bodies are equipped with a lighting system that flashes in patterns only they understand. Body language is used by literally hundreds of species. It may seem to uninformed human beings that many gestures are without specific meaning, but be assured, the more you learn about body language, the more specific you find it to be.

Since 1986, when I first showed my work in public, thousands of people have come to Flag Is Up Farms from all industries and walks of life to watch me demonstrate Join-Up. Most of them had no idea what to expect. I noticed an odd phenomenon and began to make a mental note of its occurrence. At the beginning of a demonstration I send the horse away into flight mode around the pen, and when he shows that he is ready, I communicate an invitation to join me. The horse turns toward me, walks in close and reaches out to touch my shoulder with its nose. At this precise moment I often hear a gasp from the crowd. On several occasions I have actually heard the commotion as someone falls. After the person affected has recovered, he or she has relived with me stories of mental or physical abuse. Oftentimes women are reduced to tears at the sight of a flight animal accepting and trusting a potential predator. This is no coincidence: it happens too often.