Once you understand natural horsemanship, you wonder why it took so long to take hold. But according to its advocates, the objectification of horses began many centuries ago, when our view of the horse was dictated by tools first used in the Iron Age. We can change that relationship – it all depends on what we do with our minds, our hearts and our hands.   

Horses are like people: they much prefer things to be done “with” them, rather than “to” them. There’s a very influential school of thought expounding the belief that the way we’ve been handling horses is a leftover from Medieval times, and needs to be reassessed. As with many of our modern “traditional” ways of doing things, they would argue, there is in fact nothing traditional about it at all. It’s a habit that has survived, unquestioned, for centuries, but which was, in fact, pre-dated by very different methods in other parts of the world.

Jayne Glenn, or “Wrangler Jayne” as she is known in the industry, is just the person to re-introduce these methods to the world. She also fits the profile of a likely target for criticism from those with more “traditional” views. She only came to a love of horses about fifteen years ago. Although there were little “clues” as to her destiny throughout her childhood, her urban upbringing prevented the early contact with horses she might have liked. No pony clubs – just Annie Oakley outfits, pretend steeds and the odd trail ride. As a result, she’s not considered a “horsey” person, with conventional horse experience. When she finally wanted to familiarise herself with a neighbour’s horses one day as an adult, she felt an overwhelming urge to establish a relationship with them before she yielded to that neighbour’s urgings to ride them. She also felt an instant revulsion to the idea of controlling the horse using “iron age” apparatus such as bits and spurs.

“One of main reasons they have bits in their mouth, spurs and shoes on their feet is because they used horses for warfare and needed armies of thousands and thousands of men and they didn’t have them, so they had to take the ordinary people and somehow keep them on the horse, and somehow stop the horse’s feet rotting in muddy, gooey conditions in freezing cold wintry Europe. In very early depictions of people on horses, they didn’t have anything in the horse’s mouth. It was a halter, or just a rope around the neck. They hadn’t invented the bit until the iron age.”

As is often the case, the available tools defined the method, according to Jayne. But what is her alternative? She believes we can look to the American Indians and the Arabian Bedouins for clues. “They use their bodies to guide a horse and to stop and go.”

Influenced by the wise Tasmanian horseman Philip Nye, Jayne runs courses for an ever-increasing number of people who can see the good sense of natural horsemanship. For those just beginning to know the horse, or for those who want to “unlearn” what they already know, Jayne holds courses around Australia, and on her property at Yering, in Melbourne’s outer north-east, and at the end of the course, participants have not only transformed their way of riding the horse, but even their attitude and approach to the animal. Those available tools removed, we come to understand more about the horse than we could have before, because we watch them respond in ways we hadn’t asked of them before. After they emerge from Jayne’s course, participants never see the horse the same way again. “Their lives are changed forever, because they realise they don’t have to be so harsh on the horse.”

The philosophy of natural horsemanship is to get the most out of the relationship by promoting understanding, “rather than saying ‘do as I say, because you are my tool.’ When you stop thinking of horses like that, you start having a relationship with them. Horses are not just for riding. They’re for relationships. When you trust each other, and you have confidence and respect going, you don’t need all this other stuff to pull and push them around.”

Those ancient people who rode their horses naturally lived with their horses. They relied on them and travelled with them. There was little need to tether them in order to ensure they didn’t run away. “Horses are herd animals. They stick with the herd. Humans become the herd too, and the horses see that that’s where their leadership and safety lie. And for the people, if the horses ran away, or were stolen, there was no transport. There was a completely different view of their value.”

According to Jayne, 80 percent of all horse owners these days are recreational, and so these new ways of seeing the horse need to be taught. “And of those 80 percent, 80 percent are women, and many had horses as a child, have raised their own family, and realised they still have this love for horses and want to get back into it, but feel they don’t have the same confidence, and they’re not physically fit. My method works beautifully for them, keeping them safe while enjoying their horse.”

Jayne is now making inroads into the pony clubs, where she takes a difficult horse and immediately shows kids how it will respond to different stimuli.

How did natural horsemanship first enter the modern consciousness? According to Jayne, a few “old cowboys” in the USA studied the way native Americans went about it, and, in their low-key way, just helped those who asked, without any desire to change the world. Ironically, it was a rodeo rider who took natural horsemanship to the next level. The gregarious entrepreneur, Pat Parelli, took the values imparted to him by these “old cowboys” seriously, and coined the term “natural horsemanship.” “Before that, no-one who knew of it saw it as an alternative. It was just called…horsemanship”, says Jayne.

Parelli wrote Natural Horse-man-ship and developed a course people could study at home, knowing they were unlikely to learn it from any existing teacher. After her encounter with those two neighbour’s horses, Jayne saw Parelli on television, and before she knew it, was immersed in horse psychology, horse behaviour and horse training, and when she finally acquired horses of her own, they took over her life. Philip Nye augmented her knowledge and experience further, and Jayne has since given some structure to the introduction of natural horsemanship to Australia.

But she knows care needs to be taken with the way she introduces a heretical idea. She is, personally, horrified at the way many people go about riding horses, but is at pains to explain that she doesn’t consider these riders malicious or cruel. Her ways are new, and people can’t be expected to know them when, as she says, they have learned mainly from imitating.

“People sometimes say to me, ‘I’ve had horses for thirty years!’ but I might have had pianos for thirty years. It doesn’t mean I know how to play them.’ But I don’t want to insult anybody, so I say, let’s look at cooking. You’ve been cooking Chinese food with a wok, bok choy, noodles, soy sauce, and eating with chopsticks, with a bowl. Now we’re going to cook French. Throw away all that stuff, we’re going to bring in butter and oil and tarragon and béarnaise sauce and we’re going to make soufflés in copper bowls. It’s completely different. You have to completely forget the other way, even though you’re really good at it. You just have to start from scratch. But they don’t want to be told what they’ve been doing for years is wrong, and I don’t want to tell them that. They know a lot about horsemanship already.”

By the end of two days with Jayne and her “Horsemanship with Heart” program, even the most resistant horsemen and women come around, thanks to her gentle and enthusiastic approach. “Once people understand it, they overcome their resistance and it’s become a very popular idea.” In fact, natural horsemanship is the fastest growing area of horsemanship in the world, according to Jayne. “More and more stores are carrying information, more stock, and more of the tools we use like treeless saddles, hoof boots, barehoof trimming…it’s huge. A lot of individuals are taking it up, too – natural hoof care, natural feeding.”

Jayne believes the most important fact about natural horsemanship is that it is for thinking horsemen. “It’s not just going to a shop to get a bit and saying ‘what have you got to help me control my horse?’ It’s about getting inside their head.” Sometimes, she gets her students to watch the horses in her paddock interact and ask them what they are “saying” to each other. “After a bit of education, they start to pick it up.”

But horsemanship is not just about thinking, it’s also about feeling. There’s a reason Jayne calls her program “Horsemanship with Heart.” Before you even begin to do it, you have to care. “You have to have the heart to improve yourself and have a relationship with the horse. I got an e-mail from a girl recently who told me about her horse and said, ‘I think natural horsemanship would be really good for me, what do you think? What can you offer me? Oh, and by the way, I’m blind and only have one leg.’ She also lived in England. And then I have some students say to me ‘Oh I can’t do it!’ and they’re perfectly able. That girl will do well because a lot of it is about heart and feel.”

Jayne’s main challenge will be breaking through the modern paradigm of horse riding. Sometimes they come to her with fixed ideas; sometimes, after a break from riding, they come back a little afraid that the horse will be hard to control. “But with natural horsemanship, they soon feel better for it, the horse feels better for it, and everyone is actually safer. Good horsemanship is safe. The horse is looking for strong, confident leadership – not a boss – and they will follow you. The best horse you can have is already out there in your paddock. What it takes is for you to develop yourself.”

Eventually, Jayne is hoping that her students become accredited, and natural horsemanship is taught as a matter of course. That will take some doing in a world that expects people to learn through the “conventional” avenues – avenues she refuses to go near, because she doesn’t believe in their methods. Wrangler Jayne is an accommodating lady, but that’s something she will never compromise. She won’t be happy until “natural” horsemanship is so natural to everyone that it’s “just called….horsemanship!”

Breakout:

The eyes have it

An important fact to remember about the relationship between people and horses is that humans are “prey” animals. “The human being is a predator, so the relationship is not natural at all. They’re prey animals. We eat them. Butcher stores in other countries have horse meat, for people to eat and to feed to their pets. Instinctively, deep down, horses know that if we get hungry enough, we could eat them. To them, we look like predators. That’s why we have both eyes on the front of our head, like a dog. That’s why the relationship between humans and their cats and dogs is so strong. We’re all predators. We’re motivated by the same things.” Jayne points to her Beaglier pup, Disney, asleep in his basket surrounded by his toys. “He takes his stuff to his lair. He accumulates them and he’s selfish about them. A horse doesn’t do that. They don’t accumulate stuff and go put it in the paddock. They eat, and they run.”  Horses put their heads down and graze. Predators hungrily accumulate food. “When we hunt for food, adrenaline courses through our body. When they eat, endorphins go through their body. They eat with their heads down which creates endorphins. When they’re excited, they lift their heads up, which creates adrenaline. When I’m working with people, I say, ‘Try to keep the horse’s head down. Try to do things that cause the horse to put its head down, because the endorphins will calm the horse down dramatically.’ Once you understand the physiology and the psychology of it, you can do simple things. I take feathers to my clinics, and say, by the end of this, you will be able to control the horse’s movements with this.”