Frame of Reference

I get a lot of calls from people who have horses with serious issues that they no longer want to keep. One call I got this past summer was from a woman who had bought a mare that she was told was well trained. She was sure that the seller had lied to her, or that the horse had been drugged when she bought her because the horse was absolutely crazy when she brought it home. The mare was uncatchable in the pasture and would bolt every time she went near her. She would rear up whenever she led her, and pin her ears and strike when she was upset. The horse wouldn’t take the bridle and when she tried to mount the horse would run off. This woman called me several times almost begging me to take the mare and I kept thinking “Why in the world would I want that horse!”
But of course I took her in anyway; I just warned my friend that this one may not get in the trailer! When I started working with the mare, she did everything the woman had warned me about, bolted, reared, pinned her ears and moved off when I tried to mount her. But I had her out riding on the trail the very next day. While you may have a picture n your head of me hanging on a crazy horse and dangerously flying down the trail on an un-broke monster, this was not the case. When the mare reared up, her front feet didn’t come above my ankle, but it was a rear. When I bridled her, she lifted her head and wouldn’t open her mouth, when I mounted she moved her hind end away from me. So it was easy to see why her previous owner had had some problems with her.
It would be easy to say that the previous owner just had no idea what she was doing with horses, but the truth is, she had many years of experience and had owned horses for most of her life. She had just never had a horse like this one before. Her frame of reference for horse behavior was much different from mine. The original seller hadn’t lied about the mare or drugged her, but her frame of reference was just different as well.
Horse training, especially NHT, is extremely popular and it seems to put a huge amount of pressure both on horses and horse owners to define levels of training. It suggests that we can easily put horses in definite terms and little boxes of broke or un-broke. The reality is, green broke to a pro Reiner is very different than green broke to a pleasure rider because their frame of reference is very different. Horses and people are extremely versatile and before we jammed them into our own point of view and fit them into different “levels” (as if one is higher than another); we should take the time to understand others point of view. Just because someone else's experience is unfamiliar to you, it doesn’t mean they know less, or are doing something wrong, or they are on a lower level than you. Neither is their horse. Keep an open mind and understand that no two horses are alike, no two people are alike and no two experiences are the same.