Alright, I will admit it. This post has been a long time coming, so I will just come right out with it. I’m an addict. I imagine this answers a lot of questions for both the friends and family who have racked their brains over the years wondering why I can’t be normal, why I don’t seem to care about status and money enough, where all my time goes, and why I move around so much. The truth is my addiction is hard to feed, and you can’t get it filled on demand. It can be expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming. When you’re on it, it makes you ask hard questions about yourself and face parts of you that are ugly. So here it is, “My name is Henry Merrill, and I’m addicted to horses choosing to be with me.”
Jokes aside, you might ask what that means, so I’ll do the best I can to explain. Horsemanship means different things to different people. I think to call yourself a horse person, you should both be able to move all the horse’s body parts without resistance and refine their temperament. How you do that is important, but this isn’t about just moving the body, and it’s not just getting them broke.
There’s a third element to horsemanship. It’s the one I’m always hunting. It’s something that happens when the horse wants to be with you when they look to you for companionship. This doesn’t come from being authoritarian with the horse, nor does it come from allowing them to run all over you. It comes from repeated experiences showing the horse the best parts of itself. Showing them how brave they can be. Pretty soon there are moments the horse wants to be around you. You’ll know it when you see it and when you feel it. There’s a lightness in the horse, a stillness and a quietness, coupled with energy. It’s a curiosity, alertness, and a desire to interact with you. What we’re supposed to be doing is getting the horse addicted to these moments, but hopefully, we’re getting addicted to them too.
When I was younger, I was skeptical it existed. The truth is, it probably didn’t exist in myself. I had a lightning-quick temper then, and people had led me to believe I was some kind of badass, which I was far from. It wasn’t until later, through really searching myself, that I realized just how much fear was inside me, just like is in the horse, and I found ways to free myself of that. Well, if you can be that for the horse, if you can guide them and help them free themselves of that fear, with dignity and compassion, fairly and consistently, pretty soon, those moments seem to happen more frequently. There are guys like Buck who seem to get them all the time, and the phrase, “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” comes to mind.
Like I said, I believe it starts with yourself. If we will slow down and remember how much fear the horse lives with, we will realize the best deal we can offer the horse is relief from that fear. Think about the fear that lives in you, fear of something tangible like heights or not being able to feed your family. Then, think of the fear of something less so. Maybe it’s a fear of not being high enough in a hierarchy, fear of not being able to be with the right mate, fear of wasting your life, or fear of not being recognized for your unique talents and ways of being. Scary stuff.
Now imagine that horse, a prey animal, and imagine their fears as all those things, both tangible and not, intensified… It’s beyond overwhelming. Just like us, horses can learn to cope with that fear in a healthy or maladaptive way. They can shut down and internalize it, learn to be explosive, even aggressive, much like I had done when I was younger, or we can teach them to face it and cope with it. To be brave. Just like the human world, for the horse, it’s just the luck of the draw who they wound up with and how they mentor them. I hope for your horse’s sake, some of this resonates with you.
Those fears can get a hold of you, and you can learn to cope with them in maladaptive ways too. The ways we’re coping with fear might be pretty ugly, just like they can be with the horse, but occasionally, if we’re lucky, we run into people who really see us, and who we dare to be brave enough to show ourselves to. If we can learn better ways to deal with them, ways to “move our feet that are acceptable,” when we get tight, we can come down easier and be able to build on that the next time. That’s who I want you to be for your horse and that’s who I’m addicted to being to all horses. They deserve their dignity no matter what, to see and be seen for what they are, what they aren’t, and what they could be.
It takes a while to learn how to go about it. What I’m talking about isn’t abstract or metaphorical, I promise you. I’ve decided I don’t want this to turn into a dissertation defense of my horsemanship, nor a lecture on methodology. If I could just write it all down for you though, I would.
What I will say is, it’s not just behavior modification. It’s not a dull lethargy. It’s not fear, and it’s not the absence of boundaries that comes when a horse no longer respects you. It’s a release from fear. It happens when they trust and know that you’ll help them be bigger if you can, that they know they can be ugly with you, that you know it’s ok. They’re just seeking relief and you won’t punish that, rather gently and firmly guide them to finding it within themself. You’ve communicated clearly and consistently enough that they seem to know you want what’s best for them, and that, though you may have different personalities, wants, and desires, you’ll deal with them fairly in helping to see your side of things. You can’t force it, but it’s also something like respect. It’s the understanding you’ll play fair with them, and they can gain a sense of peace, and security even, by being around you. Furthermore, they’ll associate dopamine and serotonin with this process, and they’ll learn how to find it on their own. Then you can go down the road, separate but together.
I don’t know that it can be that all the time. After all, we’re a human and they’re horses, but I’d like it to be that way as often as it can. That’s what I am addicted to. Whatever my horses can or can’t do has been accomplished in this way, and that’s something I’m proud of.
I wrote this with the idea it might give someone out there hope. This industry is full of a lot of bad stuff: charlatans and smoke and mirrors. Many people aren’t hunting what I described. They’re not evil, they’re just seeking the relief, and they use horses along the way. What I’m here to tell you though is that money and status can’t buy it. If you take shortcuts, you’ll fake that you have this, and maybe people will buy that you do, but you never really will. Even worse you might buy your own bullshit and stop hunting it. However, if you choose to seek it out, I swear it’s worth it, and it’s greater than diamonds or pearls. It’s hard to get and rare, but it’s real, I promise you. Just be careful though, because once you get hooked there’s no going back. Then again, that’s just what a junkie would say though.