After a lengthy discussion with my wonderful wife and life partner and also a very successful horse trainer we concluded that Trust is the most important attribute to have in order to be able to reach all of our goals with horses. Whether your goal is FEI dressage, endurance, various world titles or simply a well trained all around pleasure horse, you need to fully trust your horse/animal partner.
We weren't sure if knowledge or experience is perhaps more important, but we know people with sufficient knowledge and years of experience that are held back only by lack of trust in their horse. These can be accomplished riders in their field, even competitive horseman, but they can not reach their and their horse's full potential because of lack of trust and usually a touch of fear that goes with it.
Trust is something that takes time and miles with wet saddle pads to develop. Sometimes it takes days and sometimes it takes months to develop, both ways. But once you find it and put it to use you will discover a whole new world on horse back. I am writing this article as I sit by my evening fire alone in the wilderness with my 3 dogs and a horse, far away from civilization. We did many miles today (all 5 of us) in a country full of bears and other predators and crossed some fairly fast rivers due to a week of steady rain in the area. Even tho our dogs are excellent swimmers and are very used to river crossings, this time I had to pull them across with my rope off of my saddle because they weren't physically able to swim across this time on their own. It wasn't a simple task for the horse alone, as this is a common spot for white water rafting even on non rainy days.
I have a green horse that is here to learn to trust me and I am learning to trust him and today was the day when we both found it, I think. We already came upon a grizzly bear about 3 weeks ago, but we had another horse with us and they were able to find safety and comfort in each other. This horse never learnt to trust his human partner and his previous owner never trusted him. They both lived in a grey zone and they both somewhat tolerated each other with a "tiny" bit of "dislike". Today, and in the past few days here, this horse proved to me that he will save my life if he has the ability to do so and I proved to him (I believe) that I would do the same. See I mentioned in my other article that I specifically look for challenge when it comes to training as I believe we should keep improving our selves and our animals and keep bettering our and their abilities. That is what I call training and development of Trust.
So, will he still argue with me tomorrow after his rest tonight? You bet, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love opinionated horses and women.