Ask anyone who regularly comes into contact with a horse owner and they will tell you that all they want to do is talk about their horse. I think we are all guilty of it, I certainly am! But there are things we will never admit about horses, wrongly or rightly. Here are 5 things horse owners won’t admit.
1. How much they cost
This is something horse owners get asked a lot. Yes horses are expensive. But most horse owners will struggle to give you a number. This is partly because the costs change so much based on how you decide to keep your horse and the unexpected. But really, we can’t give you a good answer because we don’t know! We don’t keep track of how much our horses cost as we don’t want to know how big that number is.
2. Who is their favourite
It’s not that we don’t love our significant others, we do! But our horses have a special place in our heart what simply trumps everything else. We will avoid the subject of who is our favourite at all costs to save people’s feelings. We will try and skirt around the question when asked. But we all know that the horse is always our favourite. The dog is probably second…
3. That it’s the horse’s fault
The horse might have kicked them in the field, thrown them off during their dressage test or refused the last jump in the jump off. But it is never the horses fault! They will always find someone or something else to blame, often themselves or some innocent passer by. They made the horse jump in the field to get kicked, they messed up the approach to the final jump and some idiot decided to open a can of coke during their dressage test. But it is never the horses fault, no matter how much it might look like it from the outside…
4. When they lose their nerve
Everyone loses their nerve at some point. It could be something small like not wanting to compete at a certain venue anymore, to not wanting to jump anymore or ride certain horses, to not wanting to ride at all. It is completely normal to have a confidence knock. Horse riding is a dangerous sport after all.
But for some reason horse owners are so bad at admitting they are scared or worried about something. They either carry on trying to hide the truth, or avoid it all together. While I can understand this and I know I have been guilty of it, it just makes things worse for ourselves! This denial lets the issue fester and develop into a real problem. Opening up to a trainer or friend about the problem is usually the first step to working through it.
5. When it’s time to let go
Our horses are our world. We always want to do what is best for them, but sometimes our love for them can stop us from admitting when it is time to let go. There are lots of situations where you need to stop and realise it’s not working. It might be that your horse simply isn’t right for you, it might be that they can’t keep doing the level of work they are doing or it might even be time to say goodbye. All of these decisions can be difficult to make and we often need help from a friend to help us admit to ourselves that it is time to make that hard decision.
These are my top 5 things horse owners won’t admit about horses. Can you think of anymore?
