
I found these notes at the website linked below. I can't help but translate this information to the woman who is a wild horse.
"The horse is just a horse with one primary motivation – finding a safe place to be. His safety is foremost in his mind.I can't help but see a lot of parallels between a horse's needs and a free-spirited woman's needs. She needs a strong, self-assured and calm man. Uh, you can ignore the part about a saddle though. That just ain't gonna cut it with us wild ones. You're just gonna have to grab hold and hope you can stay on for the ride. ;o)
Safety comes before food, before sex, before play, and way before working and partnering with humans. In fact, all those needs must be met before the horse can focus on relating to a human being, and the feeling of safety must remain within the horse while he is doing whatever we may ask of him. Yet, horse people frequently ignore this fundamental fact.
Tom Dorrance used to say, “They’ll get to feel like you could ride them up a telephone pole or down a badger hole.” They become that confident under saddle, if you keep them feeling safe.
That sounds easy enough, until you try it. How do you give the horse a safe place to be?
* First, you must appear to your horse as a calm, assertive, and strong leader – in every situation. When the hurricane of terror sweeps him away, you must be the calm in the eye of the storm, totally unflappable, calm, assertive, and strong, even in the worst of storms.
* Second, you must direct the horse’s energy. You do not try to control or contain it. There are thousands of gadgets, tie-downs, severe bits, stud chains and the like, all designed to contain and control the horse. Using these devices is a recipe for disaster – an attempt to employ pain to control fear. Energy bottled up and contained with no easy outlet for release is the definition of a bomb. Horse people ride powder kegs all the time! The more you contain the energy, the higher the pressure builds, until it finally explodes. Do you know what riders say then? - It just came out of nowhere!
It didn’t come out of nowhere. The energy was contained, wrapped up tight like a stick of dynamite - until the fuse ran out."
Here's the full article below:
Suite 101 - Fearful Horses: Building Your Horse's Confidence
