Horses are naturally willing, generous, and forgiving to those that they trust.  We could learn alot from our horse's "forgive and forget" behavior; how many times have you accidentally spooked your horse, or moved your hand without realizing your horse was right behind you?  I don't know about you but I know I've done it several times.  I feel bad about it and I try to let my horse know that I'm sorry, and wouldn't you know...he just looks at me like "ok, I'm over it, what are we going to do now?"

When you have a good relationship with a horse and suddenly they do something that you perceive as bad behavior, chances are your horse knows something you don't.  I'm sure many horse owners know what I mean when I say horses seem to have a sixth sense...and no, I don't mean they see dead people.  However, horses can easily detect our moods or shifts in the weather that suggest a storm is coming.

Whether horses are just very good at picking up on human behavior, or they really can sense our emotions, it can make them react in many different ways.  For instance, horseback riders are always told to get right back up on the horse after they fall off.  This is because if they do not get right back on chances are they will feel fear next time they get on that horse, or maybe even any horse.  Fear and nervousness are the emotions that can make a horse react in a spooky - or even dangerous -  manner when they pick up on it.  The horse will react in a way that will scare the already fearful rider even more and often times riders who do not understand the horse will assume that the horse is the problem. 

This would be the wrong assumption of course, because the horse is only reacting to the rider's fear.  The horse has no idea that the rider's fear is either of falling again or of the horse itself and the horse assumes that the rider's fear is caused by some unseen predator.  If you assumed that Godzilla was going to suddenly appear, snatch you up, and eat you...wouldn't you act a lil' crazy too? 

Never forget that horses in the wild are prey animals, because that fight or flight response will always be there.  Whether our emotions are the culprit or the scary horse-eating broom, even horses that are raised in captivity have this survival response.

Many horses learn to ignore the many sounds they hear every day, such as traffic, planes, leafblowers, etc.  But there are also many horses that pay a great amount of attention to every sound they hear.  Did you know that when your horse spooks or stops in his tracks and stares intently in a certain direction at...well, nothing as far as we're concerned, that they aren't crazy?  I have a mare who is particularly aware of everything around her and I've had people ask me why my mare is suddenly staring intently at nothing.  Well, I knew she wasn't picking up on alien chatter, but I didn't know how well horses can hear. 

Horses can hear higher frequencies than we can and not only hear low frequences, but also detect even lower frequencies through their hooves or teeth while grazing.  They can also hear sounds from farther away than people can.  Part of a horse's survival training (really it's just instinct) is to be aware and suspicious of sounds.  If horses in the wild did not listen intently at all times they would never hear the mountain lion preparing to attack and, therefore, since horses do not breed like rabbits, they would be extinct by now.  Did you know that your horse can hear sounds from several miles away, depending on the wind?

Vision can also make a horse do something you may not expect.  Humans have binocular vision, meaning that unless we close one eye, we always see things with both eyes at the same time.  Horses, however, have both binocular and monocular vision due to their eyes being on either side of their head.  Depth perception is only possible through binocular vision, or in other words, when the horse can see an object with both eyes.  This depth perception issue and blind spots, which are directly behind, in front of, above and below the horse, can easily explain away many instances where a horse spooks and we (with our full binocular vision) don't understand why.

Horse eyes also take longer to adapt from light to dark, or dark to light, than human eyes do.  Think of that the next time your horse takes a moment to enter a building or trailer.  Give them a moment so that their eyes can adjust and they don't have to walk in blind.

A horse's "sixth sense" hearing or vision are just a few possibilities of why your horse did something you did not expect.  If your horse is generally a good horse who always listens and behaves, then you should think before you react to their reaction.  There have been times when horses have saved a person's life because they knew, or heard something we didn't.