Old School Philosophy for Modern Day Horsepeople Warren Bengston has a heart for horses and people. He's spent 42 years as a farrier, 3 years breaking horses, and 10 years as a missionary to the Ojibwe Indians. You will find pieces from each part of his diverse background interwoven into the fabric of his writings.

"I feel your pain.” “That person is a real pain.” Does the one making those comments feel physical pain? In tough economic times we say farmers are really hurting or truckers are hurting, but we don’t mean physical pain. Our topic here has little to do with physical pain. It may be involved in a calculated, measured, and very brief way to some degree, but the pain referred to here has more to do with the struggle or stress involved in learning lessons, mastering concepts, and coming to grips with reality.
Preparing the soil for a crop requires a lot of humdrum work and considerable expense. However, in order to get a good crop that will feed man and beast, it cannot be avoided. The pleasure of the harvest is always preceded by the “pain” of preparation and planting.
This illustrates a problem some horse owners struggle with. We want the harvest but we dislike, fear, or don’t understand the purpose in planting. Soil preparation is disruptive and messy; planting is done fairly quickly but the sprouting and growth of the plant takes moisture, sunshine, and time.
It appears, then, that pain has purpose. Well, not always. A lot of pain in the world has no purpose for those bearing that pain. When the corrupt inclinations of the human heart are granted unbridled expression, there is going to be suffering that can have no ultimate benefit. Hopelessness and despair are the certain results of pain without purpose.
Conversely, when circumstances are less than desirable but are not the result of oppressive influences, people often rise to the challenge, overcoming the odds, giving adversity redemptive value. They discover a strength and resilience that they may not have known were it not for the adversity they endured through no fault of their own.
That is not to say that we can’t profit from adversity that we bring on ourselves. In a way, life is a series of lessons. However, pain without redemptive hope is torture to some degree and that pain and suffering are precisely what constitute abuse. The abused human or horse is suffering in some way that has no redemptive purpose. We endure surgery and dental work because there is purpose in the suffering. We have veterinarians “hurt” our horses because we hope for a positive outcome. Is the vet abusive because the gelded colt has a period of soreness during the healing process? To give him the gift of a calmer life, we subject him to pain and suffering. That pain and suffering is brief but of long-lasting benefit. When pain, stress, or pressure on a horse is competently applied, the result will always be positive or beneficial.
Although joy in the journey is certainly a human trait and does not exactly fit a horse’s perspective, yet the journey should be pleasant for the horse, and can be for one that enjoys the contentment provided by competent leadership. Contentment for a horse is a sense of safety, security, and knowing how to fit into our world. This kind of contentment is best acquired by way of solid engagement that clarifies boundaries, human expectations, and intentions. The handler who knows what he or she is doing will help that horse come to some positive solutions in the time it takes the particular horse to figure it all out.
As the horse’s confusion melts away, the pain of the process sets in motion a journey into the human world with all its strangeness. The horse steadily gets comfortable with the new expectations and requirements and, with the oversight of a benevolent dictator, the struggle or process begins to yield redemptive hope. That hope in turn gives the horse a reason to willingly enter into a partnership with his human.
There is no magic in any technique or idea that we can come up with. If all a handler is doing is going through prescribed motions, it is abusive if the stress or pressure applied does not provide the horse an opportunity to make a response and become a participant. Anything that is confusing to a horse is abusive because the horse is deprived of the security he is looking for. The most common form of abuse in today’s horse world is not physical. It is the mental abuse inflicted by sincere but confused people who cannot or will not provide leadership with integrity for their horses.
The pendulum has swung from some physical abuses of the past to the mental abuses of the present. When the mentally abused, leadership-deprived (confused) horse acts up or acts out, many assume that in the past the horse was physically abused by bad people. No, most of the time he was mentally abandoned or unintentionally abused by good (confused) people with bad information and bad horse-handling concepts.
When a horse is afraid, resistant, or defiant regarding farrier work, we have ample evidence of mental scars. There may have been abuse, but more commonly the scars are the result of a horse having little or no ability to control himself or respectfully regard human expectations.
Now, how do we fit into this scenario? Only after we have endured the struggle of laying our own foundation of knowledge and understanding can we really start connecting with our horses. Then, after a time of becoming secure in our horse-human relationship, we may take on a challenge of helping a mildly troubled horse. As we guide the horse out of despair, confusion, and insecurity, teaching him to regard human expectations and take control of his natural inclinations, we experience something new. It is the pleasure or the joy that comes from helping a troubled horse shed his misconceptions, preconceived ideas, and dedication to his own agenda. Without the pain of the process, we would not know the joy of the journey.
We are climbing a mountain that has no top. We are traveling a road that has no end. If somebody tells you about a road that has an end, it is a dead end that leads to nowhere. When we think we have it all figured out, we will meet a horse that will make us look pretty silly. If we understand that there is always more to learn, meeting that horse will not throw us for a loop because we will see it as an opportunity to invent or learn a new way to help a troubled horse. It is not possible to look into the eyes of a freshly reformed horse and not experience something that is at least similar to joy.
Pain in the process has everything to do with choices, and choices are inevitable because options exist. When we choose to do what we feel like doing as opposed to what we know we should or shouldn’t do, we will suffer a consequence of some kind sooner or later. The problem of delayed consequences simply will not go away. It’s the delay that fools us. If we touch a hot stove, we learn instantly—unless our nervous system is slow and it doesn’t hurt until 10 minutes later. Eventually we figure it out after some repetition.
Humans can warn and teach each other verbally regarding right and wrong, dos and don’ts because we think abstractly and understand morality, but our horses can’t possibly have a clue as to our expectations. We pull them out of their world into ours by force; it is not their choice. We own them. Anything owned is controlled and/or managed by the owner. We use horses for our benefit, be it pleasure, utility or both. For that to happen in the most positive way, stewardship must become the biggest part of ownership. For the horse to become our servant or employee, it must have an understanding of what is expected. To give the horse that understanding, we provide options. Our response to the horse’s choice of those options gives the horse the information needed to make future choices. We force the horse to choose but give it the freedom to choose between the options we have provided.
When we make the right choice pleasant and the wrong choice consequential, the horse starts to catch on to our requirements. If this process is to have clarity, the roots of that clarity will be in how well we have answered the horse’s three basic questions: What do I need to be afraid of? What can I get away with? What do you want? Our answers to these questions let the horse know whether or not we can be trusted or respected.
With each question, the horse invites us to help him in a particular struggle. Each answered question provides him with a more solid sense of fitting into a world he didn’t choose. Some questions call for information or instruction, while some only require a yes or no. A yes gives assurance and a no provides boundaries. The need for both cannot be overstated, as they are part and parcel of clarity and security. In the herd, yes is expressed by ignoring the issue but no is expressed by whatever degree of “pain” (pressure) is necessary. No provides the boundaries that give yes a place to be. Sometimes a properly placed and timed hit or kick is called for to either establish a NO or wake up the calm, laid-back horse who just doesn’t care about much of anything. Those who believe that is abusive are simply not aware of the natural way horses sometimes have to say no to each other.
Round pens, white sticks, ropes, straps, bits, whips or any other gadget we use must in that use offer choices that bring clarity to the process. If the pain (stress, pressure) of the process does not lead to joy in the journey, it is abusive no matter how gentle it may be.

Warren Bengston