One fact of life is that everything changes. In fact, this is the only constant we can rely on in the human experience and in nature. However, change itself becomes something that humans fear and often seek to avoid. A horse is closer to nature and often handles change very well. The more natural a horse is the closer it is to the elements; therefore, the better it adapts to change.

Changes of importance in horses are things like change of place, weather conditions, adapting to Herd order, having a new owner. These changes usually directly affect the horse by changing its life. A wild horse learns to accept and understand change as a constant in life. With its keen senses, a wild horse can often detect and prepare for change. The wild horse can then cultivate changes into positive experiences very readily. Often the training approach is flawed so that riders and horses see change as a negative experience if it is defensively resisted or avoided. This is usually because changes are unnecessarily seen as unpredictable elements in a riding program. However, these moments of change can be good if we allow it to be good.

Charles Darwin understood that speciation was a way of a whole species of animal to proactively adapt to environmental change. The genotype of a particular species was favored naturally if its physical features and behavior better suited it to adapt to a given environment. The species that is more receptive to change would most likely survive. This is evident in wild horse herds. The most receptive and sensitive Mare leads the herd as the matriarch. She understands how to cope and adapt to change. She and her family would most likely have learned to be more allusive to danger while learning to trust other things and would survive longer through this confidence and understanding. The matriarch would also know from raw experience what not to fear as well, thus preserving themselves even more.

When a horse or human encounters change in their lives they basically have three choices in order to address the change:

1. Resist - fight change
2. Embrace - adapt to change
3. Ignore change

An un-natural horse that is in a perfect man-made environment and is restricted and sheltered from change often cannot embrace change because it is not capable. Unlike a natural horse that looks to accept things, horses that ignore change have become immune and defenseless to it. A horse that does not react to change in the learning stages is often an unsafe and difficult horse to train. This type of horse would be docile and would not care either way when change is apparent. For instance, when I ride a natural Colt he will most often investigate new things to overcome its curiosity or even fear.

Often lack of patience and skill kills this from happening in many horses initial training. The un-natural or tainted horse will avoid and/or ignore these same things even if stuffed right in its face. It has to be almost forced or set-up to use its natural abilities properly.

I have found that a horse is not really a 'creature of habit' but is a creature of change. Horses like routine and develop habits but this is not it motive to do so. Initially, a horse needs to react to pressure points or situations where a rider causes stimulus in order to learn what to do. Often learning creates situations where a horse learns the difference of what to do and what not to do. All of this comes from allowing a horse to explore natural movements and instinctual responses while in the learning process. A conditioned - learned response often comes about after a reactionary or innate response occurs. The opposite effect occurs more often before the intended response occurs in a horse i.e. a horse naturally resists or moves away before in gives or moves toward pressure. Just suiting a horse up for a discipline and drilling it over and over without allowing any change into its training creates horses that are unmotivated and resentful of what they do.

Curious things happen when the human, horse and change mix. The outcome can be positive, negative or mixed. It is hard for a horse to accept the changes the rider presents it with. Just about all problems with horses are based on the idea of presenting the cause and effects of changes to them. Overcoming reactions and opposition to change produces reliable riding horses. For example, even changing direction on a horse can set it off into panic mode and as more accomplished riders know a change of lead is often a very difficult concept to sell to the horse. A horse overcomes these changes and fear if the rider has a solid foundation of signals to guide the horse's confidence with. For the horse to fit a rider's ideal often comes with resistance and rejection.

A natural colt that is used to change knows the feeling of sun, wind, rain, snow, hail and cold. A natural colt learns to roll in the mud between storms, scratch each others backs and play on a calm day. This type of colt strives to change and therefore can cope in the human arena much more easily. They are often over receptive at first being wary of the new changes; their keen senses and reactions are often misunderstood as being 'wild or rank' when actually they are being very natural and cautious about the predicament that the person has put them into. The more sheltered and protected the horse is the more it reacts to change that is irrelevant to preserving its nature. For example, a horse that is not well adapted to things may ignore changes and make critical errors in judgment. They may not be aware of danger such as, fences and obstacles etc. because of improper socialization. In the end, we are looking for an independent horse that can cope effectively with change and a horse that can make confident choices within its environment.

Unlike us, usually horses look for a chance to embrace change. Their nature tells them to adjust to this continuum in nature. When over handling of a horse and protection of it overrides its natural dynamics, the propensity to learn from change actually diminishes and weakens its life skills because essential learning is withheld from it. The horse learns to accept change in a diluted amount which ironically forces a horse to weaken its natural inventory of behavior and makes it more susceptible to danger in the long run. Exposure is the best foundation training for any horse. Exposure to changes and things strengthens in natural inventory of behavior.

A horse that has the dynamics of change in its life has learned to understand danger as well. Change has taught the horse valuable lessons. If a domestic horse was to be turned into a wild herd of horses, think of the education that horse would receive. If it resisted change or ignored the herd communication system of gestured retreats and advances and bodily signs its survival would be threatened. If the horse over reacted to something that is unreal and insignificant to the whole herd it would be driven away. A lone horse in nature has its days numbered. Being accepted within a structured herd guarantees its survival.

It is interesting to think that a horse kept in a highly structured human environment i.e. a show horse average life span is usually around 12 years (mainly due to illnesses like colic, laminitis and so on.) A natural horse's average life span is usually at least 30 years. Maybe if we had the ability to pro-actively handle change like a natural horse does, exposing rather than protecting ourselves from things, the negative effects of life would be reduced and we might live a more potent and vivacious life: Think like a horse and embrace change!