In the wild, body language is the primary method of communication within the herd.

You can even see this if you watch horses in a paddock together. Direct eye contact, standing square, or dropping your eyes and shoulders all have very strong meanings in the horses world.

Most people just read the obvious, ears forward means happy, ears back means beware. There is much, much more than that and if you can read or even better, communicate using this body language you have overcome the biggest hurdle, you are talking to them in their language.

Hence the term ‘horse whisperers’. There is no black magic involved it is actually very logical or some might describe it as ‘natural’. Though the word natural, when attached to anything equine, seems to be a very misused, but an equally misunderstood term.

If the principles of Equus are applied during any process, such as breaking for example, the end result is achieved much quicker, and with far less anguish for the horse and the trainer. It is been demonstrated and proven on many occasions that you take an unbroken horse and have a rider on his back in less than an hour using Equus, and the horse accepts the rider with no question. Using conventional methods it can take days and in most cases weeks to get to that point, and even then the horse rarely accepts the rider as freely as the Equus alternative.

Common problems such as horses that take three hours to load, or refuse to load at all, are often caused or exasperated by inadvertent use of Equus!

You stand in front of the horse look him in the eye, which tells him to back off, and you then pull, and because horses are ‘into pressure’ animals, he pulls right back!

Horses that have never been trained using Equus, often load very well. However, how many of them would load by simply following their owner into the box with no headcollar? Very few, but any horse that has been trained to load using Equus, will load easily with no headcollar, if required.

Virtually, all problems can be helped and often completely cured by using Equus as the basis for establishing trust and respect, if the horse is particularly difficult then Reiki can be used in conjunction with training, this has the effect of bringing the horses adrenaline levels down and aiding their ability to then start listening and learning.

Horses that have issues such as not allowing you to touch their legs - a bit of a problem when the farrier comes. Horses being terrified of clippers, and having to be sedated before the hunting season starts, to really spooky horses that can be difficult or sometimes dangerous to ride out. Maybe you have a horse that has an aversion to sheep, bikes, tractors, letterboxes or some other strange phobia.

Some horses that have clearly been mistreated, abused or sadly beaten, can also be helped to overcome their fears. These cases are clearly much more intensive and it is not always possible to completely eradicate their obvious fear, but they can be helped with the help of both Reikki and Equus.

We will be running a couple of workshops here in Bulat Pestivien at the Spanish Mustang Stud in 2010  For information on these courses please contact Rowan on 0296 45 77 78 and or see "courses" page.