Major Behavior Types in Horses

In their everyday need for survival, horses have created a communication system that is noteworthy. Wild horses are like a society of nomadic people who have leaders of leaders. Because nature’s habitat for horses is open range-land, each horse has freedom to pick and choose a band of horses where he or she fits in and where his or her personality type is needed.

I have observed three major behaviors in horses: Leadership behavior, dominant behavior and submissive behavior. These behaviors are also the personality types as well. Herds are made up of the right balance of personalities, with each personality fitting perfectly in the chain of command. If the herd makeup is not harmonious, then this is when horses tend to move on. An important difference between lead horses and dominant horses is that dominant horses show no interest in leadership issues such as where the herd should go for food or how to escape from danger. Rather, they are interested in dominance issues such as maintaining or raising their position in the pecking order. For this reason, a lead horse is generally the most intelligent horse in the herd. In general, the higher a horse’s rank, the more intelligent he or she is.

Over the years, I have seen that with horses put together in a herd by humans, the lead horse at first acts much like a horse with a submissive personality. The lead horse, whether it is a lead stallion or a lead mare, is simply waiting for the horses to sort out their pecking order. Once the order is established, he or she knows that the horses will naturally be able to accept his or her direction. Lead horses at first will avoid any conflict. I have even seen them run to escape from a dominant horse.

Fights are usually between consenting scrappers, while the submissive are protected by onlookers. From the herd instinct of horses, core values and laws are developed that support the needs of the whole community, from the strongest to the weakest individual.

Horses do not live gentle lives even though the natural condition they share together is spent in harmonious herd behavior. Harmony is achieved through leadership that doesn’t come easily. Lead horses are responsible for keeping the harmony by enforcing fair social behavior with the horses that are too aggressive. They avoid physical conflict by enforcing rules of behavior through aggressive body language at the moment a horse would naturally run in terror.

This behavior causes a dominant horse to surrender to the laws of the community rather than his own unfit, dominant behavior. Lead horses learn early that dominant horses pick fights while lead horses ambush dominant horses that don’t pay attention to the lead horse. There seems to be an unwritten rule that horses must submit to any horse that catches them off guard. In my training, this knowledge works like magic to teach aggressive horses to respect my authority.

Carolyn Resnick

Horsemanship from the Ground Up

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Comment by Jennifer Lamm on March 4, 2010 at 12:25pm: Hi Jackie.... here we are in the best spots!!

Comment by Jennifer Lamm on March 4, 2010 at 12:24pm: Hi Carol. I am studying with Steve Boyles and we talked about some of your training techniques last week in my lesson... my lessons are really just hanging out with Steve and Toby and Oliver, my geldings.... we practice herd behavior and work at liberty with my horses..... I'm not much of a rider yet, but I do alot of groundwork with my horses. I guess because it is super important as far as I can tell, and because my first experience was with Cavalia, where it was perfectly acceptable to play with your horses and most of them weren't even riding in the first few performances..... anyway, Steve has taught ME to be the lead horse..... I do think I am the most intelligent horse in the herd and I have avoided conflict and now, with 4 years of practice I enforce fair social behavior with my aggressive horse and I am pretty good at shutting down my 4 year old who really has dominant but stupid behavior. I just called him aggressive, but he's sort of like the cowardly lion... ... like he just tries stuff to try it.... he needs to be pushed around alot..... but, once he tries, if corrected correctly, he completely submits.... he does not really start fights but just when we are all 3 calm, me, Oliver and then Toby, my older horse, he will just bite Toby on the top of the neck for no reason that I can tell and that is his big move..... Toby can move him off of his food with pinned ears and they play alot and don't really fight... they push each other with butts, but not a lot of kicking.... they both have really good manners around me, but Steve taught me so much about water ritual behavior... I call it Boot Camp. For about 5 months after my horse ran me over I didn't let him near me.... and I pushed him around even more than I did when he was a baby... it ain't easy raisin one up.... anyway, these topics, of herd management are the most interesting to me... I'm into horses for 6 years and I do liberty work and practice being on the ground so all this behavior stuff is right where I am with my learning curve.... thanks for posting about it!!

Comment by Jackie Cochran on March 3, 2010 at 1:53pm: Very interesting, I am interested in learning more of your methods. Since, with the MS, I am so unsteady on my feet I have to deal with stuff while riding, and I work at becoming a trusted leader rather than a despotic boss (like I was trained to be when I started.)
Thanks for writing this blog.