15/06/2026
Really well said. As we therapy, if working with a horse we, the human must be ok with not knowing. Labelling or producing a story around a certain behaviour is never helpful….
Seeing the Depth of the Horse: Why Pattern Recognition Is Not Enough🤨
Humans are brilliant at recognising patterns.
In fact, we're so good at recognising patterns that we occasionally recognise them where they don't exist.
We see faces in clouds.
We see messages in coincidences.
We hear the same song twice in a day and briefly ponder if the universe is trying to send us a message.
And when it comes to horses, we are particularly talented at spotting a single thing and deciding we've solved the mystery.
The horse hesitated.
Aha!
It's saying no.
The horse swished its tail.
Clearly traumatised.
The horse looked away.
Connection has been lost.
The horse stood still.
Connection has been found.
The horse blinked.
The ancestors are speaking.
The problem isn't that these observations are completely wrong. The problem is that we often stop there.
Because once we've found a pattern we like, we tend to cling to it with the confidence usually reserved for people arguing on the internet.
The longer I work with horses, the less interested I become in finding the answer and the more interested I become in understanding the layers.
A horse may hesitate because it is uncertain.
Or because it is uncomfortable.
Or because it doesn't understand.
Or because its feet hurt.
Or because the person attached to the lead rope is sending signals with all the clarity of a malfunctioning GPS.
Life gets messy when multiple things are true at the same time.
A horse can be confused and uncomfortable.
It can be willing and worried.
It can trust you and still think your idea of stepping into that puddle is questionable.
Reality rarely presents itself in neat little categories.
Yet humans adore categories.
We want behaviour to mean one thing.
We want a tail swish to mean one thing.
We want a refusal to mean one thing.
We want certainty.
The horse, meanwhile, continues being a horse and stubbornly refuses to cooperate with our desire for simple explanations.
Which brings me to the question I now find most useful:
"What is this horse revealing about itself, here in this situation...and how can I help them?"
Not what story can I tell about this behaviour.
Not which ideology does this behaviour support.
Not which social media tribe gets to claim victory.
Simply: what is this horse revealing...and can I help?
Because behaviour is not the horse.
Behaviour is merely one small window through which we get to know the horse.
My plea is a simple one.
Look beyond the behaviour.
Look beyond the fashionable explanations.
Look beyond the rabbit holes.
See the depth of the horse.
See the layers.
Because when we stop chasing certainty and start paying attention to what is actually in front of us, something remarkable happens.
We stop seeing the horse as a puzzle to solve.
And perhaps we finally begin to see what the horse has been trying to show us all along.
Collectable Advice 232/365. Hit SHARE, or SAVE and please no copy and pasting❤
