At some point we have all wronged our Horse, of course the obvious choice is to learn and move forward. Yet, this is not always easy when we are presented with the same issue over again.
A Horse will always be a Horse, and we will always be Human. But this does not mean we cannot find more ways to flow together in areas of challenge.
When I first got Enchantress, she was incredibly head shy, constantly flinging her head up and around. I had a ton of bodywork done on her and it helped a bit but did not stop it completely. I believed this to be a memorized nervous reaction from a poll injury that she had when she came to me. I don’t believe she had ever been ‘eared’, so after 8 or 9 months of patience, a generous and natural environment, herbs, acupressure, and bodywork she was not ‘cured’ and it was maddening.
I would get so angry and frustrated that I wanted to put 5 halters on her and tie her to a steam roller so that she could not fling her head so I could prove to her that gently wiping her head and ears was not going to hurt her. That I was not going to hurt her. Of course I didn’t do this, but I desperately wished for a solution (right now) to ‘fix’ this issue. Most importantly for her to not feel the need to flip her head as I knew this was difficult for her too.
I was acutely aware that this fantasy was forceful and not at all the way I wanted to interact with my Horse, but I was out of ideas. Nothing worked. Despite her intense desire to interact with me, she was so reckless with her head in her nervous reaction to anything near that sometimes she banged it against things causing injury, fortunately nothing serious and both of her eyes have remained intact.
As Human I could not understand why she would risk injury to herself instead of considering her environment for safety to her head. As a Horse her instinctual reaction to escape what she felt was a threat, even a threat in her memory, thinking was not in the equation.
There were times when I would react by trying to force her head down, (as if I could even do that with a 1,000 pound Horse) and back her up to ‘make’ her keep her head still. I would try to reason or argue with her.
In this action I wronged my Horse.
Once the frustration was gone and reason returned, I knew she was not deliberately trying to annoy me. Her head flipping was out of her control. Literally, this was not something she planned; it was a reaction. And I would feel like crap for punishing her for this. I knew I had wronged her, I knew her actions were not intentional.
It’s upsetting when we cannot convince them that we are here to help them with fearful or painful concerns and in our frustration or overriding need to ‘fix’ things we can be as reactive as they are. And it’s easy to wrong our Horse in these circumstances.
She still gets some body work, and she gets exercise, and she has plenty of room to live like a Horse, so this is not a stable vice. It took a long time, but in the end, what has helped is relationship.
I felt I had no choice but to turn my commitment towards our relationship for answers. No, I have not gotten the ‘why’ she does this from her, but I have witnessed her becoming much less reactive and her flipping is maybe 30% of what it was. Her head flipping does not appear as fear, she is very eager to interact with me, so clearly this is something that has become encoded in her memory or/and her nervous system.
So, to try and correct her or train it out of her is futile and wrong.
If we truly love and respect our Horse, they will teach us understanding. Though sometimes not with grace and beauty, sometimes we learn this through our errors only to realize that we have wronged our Horse. Through deepening our relationship I have been better able to hear her, and she ‘showed’ me that she had a loose front tooth, the vet had missed this, but she showed me. Once that was addressed her head flinging lessened. This information came because of relationship.
The great soulution here is that once we acknowledge this, it is easy to let that behavior go and just move forward. If we leave behind our mistakes and move forward with pure hearts and intentions, our Horse will go with us.

The Invitation
First of all, when you look at ways that you have wronged your Horse, forgive yourself, and forgive your Horse. You cannot move forward with shackles of shame and regret; the Horse will read this energy making it harder to move forward. Notice the areas that you have wronged your Horse and look into understanding the real issue here, not the symptoms and actions. Understanding the natural instincts and reactions of both Horse and Human can bring insight into behaviors that we punish or we react to. Let go of the need to punish or blame and just move forward with honorable behavior, your Horse will also read this energy.