Horses Never Lie Quotes

“One of the biggest problems I see when working with folks and their horses is that the vast majority of people have been trained to always look for the bad things their horses do. Because they’re always looking for the bad, they easily overlook the little tries and sometimes have trouble seeing the good in their horse, even when the good jumps up and bites them in the butt.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“Once I quit fighting with him and began rewarding his efforts to respond to my cues, he became extremely willing to do what I was asking. The fight and confusion just seemed to melt away,”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“However, I don’t think that we should let the task or goal become the end-all to a training session, either. If things aren’t going well, maybe it’s time to listen to what our horse is trying to tell us. It could very well be that he has the answer to why things aren’t going well, and if we give him half a chance, perhaps he’ll tell us what that is. I have seen so many horses almost”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“After working with that gelding, I made a much bigger effort to look for and find the tries that my horses offered during training or any other time, for that matter. In doing so, I quickly found just how much I had been missing in the simple communication between my horses and myself. For instance, I noticed that my horses often tried to respond to my cues much sooner than I’d ever imagined. Often times they would respond even before I had actually applied the cue, a pretty scary thought in and of itself. The other thing I noticed was that very often the try was so subtle that, had I not been paying attention, I would have missed it altogether. As a result, I was forced to become much more aware of what my horses were doing at all times, not just when I was asking something from them.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“We needed people who would give the horse the benefit of the doubt in most situations and who would think through a problem with a horse instead of just reacting to it. We wanted people who could think on their feet but who had soft hands and good hearts.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“The emphasis was on “soft.” No matter what else happened, the wranglers were to stay soft while riding the horses. Soft hands, soft seat, and soft legs. There was to be absolutely no hitting, kicking, slapping, or yelling at any time for any reason. The penalty for doing such things was to be placed on a two-day suspension. A second offense would lead to termination. Neither penalty was ever needed. At times it wasn’t easy to stay quiet with the horses because so many of them had been “used up” over the years, dulled to any form of cue. However, we remained consistent in our focus and the horses responded. The wranglers were instructed to ride the horses with the softest cues possible, often using nothing more than a light squeeze to get forward movement and a shift of weight in the saddle, along with light pressure on the reins, for a stop. They were also instructed to look for, find, and then release their cues at the slightest try from the horse—something they all became very adept at doing. With everyone riding in the same manner from one day to the next, all the horses began to respond within a few weeks. Before we knew it, all of our horses, including the very old ones that had been in the program for years and years, became responsive to the lightest of cues. We’d taught our horses to be responsive to these light cues, but a question remained. How could we keep them that way, particularly with the hundreds of different people who would be riding each horse over the summer? The answer was simple. Everyone needed to remain consistent. So, instead of expecting our horses to respond to the conflicting cues that each new rider was bound to give, we taught each rider how to communicate with our horses. Each week when a new batch of guests arrived at the ranch, we held an orientation in the riding arena. During this orientation, we explained how our horses were trained and what was expected of them as a rider of one of our horses. We gave them a demonstration in the saddle of proper seat and hand position, so they could keep their balance. We showed them the cues for walk, stop, trot, lope, and turn, using a horse right out of the string. Once we had demonstrated how our horses worked, we got everyone on horseback in the arena and helped them to practice giving the cues, allowing the horse to respond, and releasing the cues so that the horse would remain responsive. Of note is the fact that after”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“Oftentimes we get so hung up on accomplishing goals or relying on techniques or methods that we don’t allow that piece of ourselves—the piece that lets the horse know we can be trusted—to shine through.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“Still, it’s an interesting dilemma . . . wanting to be trusted but not necessarily wanting to trust.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“The key, then, is to find a way to get horses to see you as the individual who can help them when they need it.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership

“There’s something about horses that we all need to understand—their only real job in this world is to stay alive from one day to the next. Nothing else really matters.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership