A random thought that I seem to have often, “my horse loves…”, usually this statement if followed by, jumping, trecking, dressage, hunting and the list goes on. But really do they? For the most part, No they don’t. I mean, OK they seem happy in what they are doing when they do these things, but do they “love” it, would they normally without a human, do these things? No. The problem that I find when I say this to people though, is that they think that I am saying that really their horse “hates” what ever it is that the person has said they love, but that is not it either. What I am getting at when I disagree with the “my horse loves…” statement, is that horses naturally would not do any of what we humans ask them to do and though many will with training, willingly do what we ask, does not mean that if given a choice they would rather just wander off and graze, scratch on a tree, have a drink or maybe roll in some dirt. My point is, that though we can get our horses to do many things that they likely would not without us, does not mean that we are making them “happy” or that they “love” it. All it means is that we have found a way to get them to do what ever it is that WE want to do, and IF we say, don’t have time to do what ever it is we’d normally be doing, in all honesty we are likely doing them a favour letting them just be a horse. So, my random thought for the day is, next time we think, “my horse really loves…” just take a second to break that thought up and take a look as if you were the horse and then decide if your original thought is what the horse does feel. The more we think about things from the horses side, the more we will find a success and balance in our relationship with them and both lives will be all the better for it. Have a great day people, Grazing Chestnuts.