Years ago I believed that all horses were trainable and/or rehabilitated I got attached to them and would not accept giving up on a horses!  After working with horses for over 30 years, I changed my mind.  I have worked with a variety of problem horses; abused, neglected including horses pushed too hard and too fast by handlers, trainers and owners.  Every horse has a different potential for training. Some horses are easy to train. I’ve had Mustangs that I was able to take out on the trail by the second ride but I have also had Mustangs that took two months of work before I took them on the trail. I have worked with domestic horses that took much longer ride out on the trail because their Natural Survival flight/fear instinct had to be dealt with first.

 

Every horse must be evaluated based on its individual background; desirable and undesirable personality traits, past/present training and their emotional, mental, emotional state.

 

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What Makes a Horse Easy to Train?

We may be confused and complain about our training difficulties and happy in the successes. Easy horses make us feel like great trainers and the hard ones teach us lessons.

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• An “easy” horse is one that retains the training and improves each day. It appreciates and seeks praise and pays attention to its rider instead of the environment or other horses. Responsive to the aids, it seems to enjoy the work. A good horse is like that girl in school sitting in the front row who always raises her hand when the teacher asks a question. When I ride an easy horse it doesn’t feel like I’m doing any work.

• Difficult horses, on the other hand need the same lesson repeatedly, sometimes going months without improving. They focus on things outside the arena and seem to resent or fear work. They resist the aids, can be barn sour, herd bound, or spooky. Hard horses can be innately stiff or crooked. Trainers (and we are all trainers if we handle a horse) stay awake at night wondering how to get the hard horse trained.

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We cannot erase the horse's memory

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• Relapse and renewal of fear - Even after extinction training, traumatic memories can reappear, especially if the horse is exposed to the original fear-inducing stimuli or returns to the environment where the trauma occurred. This is due to processes like spontaneous recovery, reinstatement, and renewal of fear memories. 

• Extinction vs. erasure - Extinction training creates a new memory that competes with and suppresses the original fear memory. However, it doesn't necessarily erase the original memory completely. 

• Managing traumatic memories - While erasure might be challenging, horses can learn to manage their fear responses through techniques like systematic desensitization and creating positive associations with previously feared stimuli. This involves gradually introducing the fear-inducing stimulus and rewarding the horse for positive interactions, effectively creating a new, competing memory. 

• Individual differences - Horses vary in their susceptibility to trauma and their ability to recover from traumatic experiences. Some horses may show more resilience and adapt more easily to new situations and training techniques. 

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In conclusion

 

After years and many, many hours working with hundreds of horses there are a percentage of horses that cannot be trained to be; safe, trustworthy and reliable! The reason being their Flight/Fear/Fight natural instinct their most important survival mechanism is too high therefore not acceptable for training or rehab! If we do decide to rehab horses knowing that the survival instinct is very high likely it will require a long period of time, dedication, disappointment, patience and nothing with labor! If we decide to go on this journey, please know; there is no guarantee we will be completely successful because sometimes we cannot train a horse not to be afraid, we can only help it work through their problem and/or suppress it!