Do horses like being ridden? As a Horse Communicator it was time to find out.

As you may or may not know by now, as well as being a Horse Communicator I also love statistics 😉  I’m always really interested to note some of the common responses I get when I’m doing remote animal communication sessions, regarding things like happiness, pain, diet etc.

Recently I decided on the spur of the moment that I’d really like to gather some stats on my own 3 burning questions.  So, I did 250 mini horse communication sessions, to find out – 

• Do horses like being ridden?
• Do they mind having bits in their mouths? and
• Do they like being a horse?

So I put a free offer post on Facebook, wondering how many of horse owners would be brave or interested enough to know the answers…?

I obviously shouldn’t have been worried about not getting a big enough sample – or that they might not care or want to know the answers for their horses.  I was inundated with volunteers!  (The real answer there is probably that, if you’re following an Animal Communication page, you probably do want to know what’s going on with your animals!)

In the end I answered the questions for 250 horses.  There were another 170+ requests that I didn’t get to!  RSI and the need to attend to my paying clients stopped the experiment there, lol.

I asked people to post a photo of their horse, with its name.  For each photo and name I made an energetic connection, then I used my pendulum to ask my 3 questions.  I did that for each of the first 250 horses.

Although I had some idea what the answers might be, I still found the outcome really interesting.

Do horses like being ridden?

What did the horses say?

The final statistics were, that:

• 35% of horses don’t like being ridden
• Only 22% of horses don’t mind having a bit in their mouth, and
• 25% of horses don’t like being a horse!

Bear in mind that these answers were valid for that moment in time, and could have very many contributing factors.

I was quite surprised that 65% of horses like being ridden, especially since horses aren’t actually designed to be ridden.  Often they aren’t structurally sound for riding, and (according to my findings at least) they are often in pain.  (Admittedly, my pain findings may be high because that’s what has prompted the owners to consult me in the first place.)

It’s also possible that if you as a horse owner care enough to ask whether your horse likes being ridden or not, then your horse is probably mostly ok.  The majority of horses that really don’t like it probably get no voice or opinion about it.

• My other thought was, is it because they are domesticated?  Or, because they are habituated to being ridden?
• Or, is it just an indication of how they feel about the person riding them?  We’d have to dig deeper on an individual level to answer those questions.

Since I’m a horse owner as well as a Horse Communicator, when it came to the stats about wearing a bit I was less surprised.

Do they mind having a bit in their mouth?

Why would any sentient being like having a piece of metal in their mouth that someone routinely pulls on?!

• Here in New Zealand (in my experience), it seems pretty uncommon to properly introduce and teach horses about bits as part of the starting process, and that probably doesn’t help.
• Another reason could be mouth conformation.  Horses with smaller mouths or lower pallets, those that it’s harder to find a bit to comfortably fit, are probably much less ok with wearing them.
• And, perhaps the biggest reason that some are ok with bits is to do with the rider, and how they use their reins.

Then the final question – do you like being a horse.

25% said no!  What on earth could that mean?

• Well, maybe they’ve had a bunch of bad experiences in this life, or with a previous owner.
• Maybe their first experience of human handling, or being started, was a negative one.
• Perhaps they don’t like their job, or don’t feel that their opinions are listened to.
• And, maybe, in a past life they were a different animal, and preferred that… 😉

Now here’s some newer info. 

I did another horse communication pendulum survey recently – a much smaller one, of 48 horses – where I asked 2 questions:

Are you happy, and
Are you in pain.

It was encouraging that only 4% weren’t happy – but, a whopping 31% were in some sort of pain.

With such a broad question, we don’t know:

• the degree of pain, or how long the horse has been in pain,
• whether it’s fixable or not,
• or whether it affects them or their suitability for riding.

It’s still an interesting statistic that gives pause for more thought about how our horses are actually doing.

So, what happens now that we have this information?

If you were one of the 250 who got the answers for your horse or horses, were they what you expected?

Will the answers you got cause you to change anything?

Do your horse’s opinions or likes and dislikes count for anything?

If you weren’t part of the actual survey – do the stats surprise you?

Here’s the video from a few nights after the survey:

If you’re not sure what your answers meant, of course you can book a session to dig a bit deeper, find out why you got the answers you did and get an action plan to move forward with <3

If you’re interested to know more, I have a free PDF for you.  The stats in this one are gathered from sessions I’ve done as a horse communicator – over 500 of them – not by using a pendulum.  This PDF has stats for how many horses need their teeth done or diet changed, how many saddles don’t fit, and various other things.

Join us on my Facebook page, Trisha Wren, Equine Energetics, and do let me know if you have any burning questions you’d like me to research.

Check out some other options for getting answers, below.

                     

Keep connecting with your horses,

Trisha x

About Trisha

Trisha Wren has been an equine professional for most of her adult life.  She rode, competed, and taught Western Riding for 15 years in Scotland, then horse and rider bio-mechanics in New Zealand and Australia for 10 years.  She’s been a full time horse and animal communicator since April 2016. Find out more about Trisha here and sign up for her self paced Animal Communication course here.