Natural horsemanship is pretty much what the words suggest: a natural gift for working with horses. I have lived with horses for almost all of my life, and I had frequent occasion to be amazed by the almost smooth bonding some riders seem to enjoy with their steeds. I used to hear others expound about natural horsemanship, and while every one of them appeared to put their own slant on it, the basic talents that constituted natural horsemanship couldn’t be anything except the same for everybody. A lot of trainers claim to be in a position to install something akin to natural horsemanship in their students, but if you were to observe closely, you would find that every one of them have different approaches to the same basics. That isn’t intended to be a disparaging remark, because lots of the trainers I know are totally devoted horse people, who take pride in implanting good horse sense in their scholars.

I would outline the main characteristic of natural horsemanship as the capability of both rider and pony to speak with each without resorting to oral or body language. It struck me all of a sudden one day, while I was mucking around in my horse’s stall, that natural horse sense is in a way a divinely inspired horse sense.

I imagine it was based on my church-going youth, and my remembrances of Gen.1:24-25, which discusses God creating horses; Gen.1:26 that deals with God’s creation of mankind and Gen.2:19-20 where God allows man to name the animals.

What makes folk identify with horses so much? What makes some people such smashing horse persons? Why do some people have the capability to train horses and human scholars just the way in which they desire, like they have some kind of a direct connection to the brain rather than to the ears and the eyes?

I believe the divine part comes because of these assets: the abilities to speak with our God and God’s creatures, including the horse. My relations with my horses have given me such a lot that is precious in life, and have taught me a lot about life and divinity and the need to constantly improve myself.

At the end of the day, it reduces down to this: God works to build our trust in him and we work to build our horse’s trust in ourselves. God puts us thru stress (seldom above what we will handle); when we have had enough, we surrender to him and look to him to steer us. As a pony trainer, I too put my horses under pressure of learning (seldom testing their toleration level) till they surrender and learn how to let me guide them.

The horses, as well , have taught me lessons. They have taught me that if you don’t have man made blinkers on, you will be in a position to see all human beings as equal to one another, regardless of race, colour, wealth, education or any other aspect. As far as horses are concerned they see only humans, they don’t see white homo sapiens or coloured homo sapiens or rich homo sapiens or poor human beings. I haven’t known a horse to carry a grudge for more than a day. Even after a pretty serious argument one day, the following day the pony is back to basics. Horses have no needless ego and are always game for another try at a relationship.

Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like all things about riding hats