'The Emotional Life of Horses: What They Feel, Remember and Carry Forward', and a little on 'Reading a Horse’s Body Language.'@ 🧘 Divya Gurnay 🐎

As a young girl of 10 years, once while riding a horse named Rustom, the instructor, an old irritable army veteran, got irritated with the horses, and started shouting at them. We kids were a bit scared, and even my ride spooked a bit. I instinctively held the neck of the horse with my palms as I held the reins  betwen my thumbs and index knuckles, and said loud in my heart alone, please don't worry Rustom, relax, I Iove you and I know you won't let me fall. Behold, Rustom  calmed down immediately, as if taking charge and  telling me, "Don't worry Divya, I will make sure you are fine", and he started moving very graceful and steady. That day onwards, I found a new riding instructor in Rustom and knew I have a true friend. All though it took me years to realise how emotion driven and feelings driven horses are, but I knew then, that horses listen to the voice of our heart, before our speech reaches them. 

For centuries, horses have been admired for their strength, speed, and beauty. Yet what binds humans to horses most deeply is not their physical power, but their emotional depth. Anyone who has spent real time with horses knows this truth intuitively, that horses feel, richly, vividly, and honestly. They remember and they carry their experiences forward in ways that shape every interaction we have with them. To understand horses well, we must move beyond training techniques and performance goals and begin listening to their emotional lives. Remember, horses live in a world of feeling long before they live in a world of performance. To truly understand a horse, we must stop asking “What is the horse doing?” and begin asking “What is the horse feeling?” Every movement, every hesitation, every softening or tightening of the body is an emotional sentence spoken in a language older than words. Horses are not mysterious. They are exquisitely honest — if we learn how to listen.

Horses Are Emotional Beings, Not Mechanical Beings Who Feel First, Then Think.

 Nervous systems of horses evolved for awareness, sensitivity, and rapid emotional response. This means they experience the world primarily through feelings,  not logic. Their emotional life revolves around, safety vs threat, comfort vs discomfort, connection vs isolation and clarity vs confusion. When these needs are met, horses are calm, curious, and cooperative. When they are not, fear, anxiety, resistance, or shutdown appears. Importantly, horses do not pretend. What you see in their body is what they are experiencing internally. Their nervous systems evolved not for dominance, but for survival. Emotion comes first; analysis comes later. This is not a weakness—it is an extraordinary evolutionary intelligence. A horse’s emotional system is finely tuned to safety and threat, connection and isolation, comfort and discomfort, predictability and chaos. When a horse startles, freezes, bolts, or refuses to obey,  it is rarely being “naughty” or “disobedient.” It is communicating an internal emotional state—often fear, confusion, or overwhelm. A relaxed horse tells the story clearly: soft eyes, rhythmic breathing, swinging back, relaxed jaw, and a willingness to engage. An anxious horse tells another story: tight lips, high head carriage, shallow breathing, rigid movement, and scanning eyes. These are not behaviors to be corrected; they are messages to be understood.

In Horses, even Pain Has an Emotional Signature.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of horse psychology is how pain manifests emotionally. Horses rarely scream out and announce pain,  instead, they withdraw, resist, dull down, or become reactive. Chronic discomfort, poor saddle fit, dental pain, gastric ulcers, joint strain, often shows up as irritability, sudden behavioral changes, loss of curiosity, attitude problems, or  just a shut-down to compliance.  What appears as laziness or defiance is often a horse saying, “Something doesn’t feel right, and I don’t know how to escape it.”    Pain in horses rarely looks dramatic. Instead, it whispers. A horse in pain becomes irritable or defensive. The horse may

lose enthusiasm for work,  refuse previously easy tasks, become lazy, dull, or “stubborn” or may become suddenly reactive or anxious.  Pain creates emotional distress long before obvious lameness appears. A key principle of horsemanship is to understand that behavior changes are information, not disobedience.The bottom line is, emotion and pain are inseparable. When pain persists, anxiety follows. When anxiety persists, trust erodes.

Horses Remember More Than We Think

Horses have excellent long-term memory, especially for emotionally charged experiences. They remember rough handling, traumatic transport, punishment delivered in confusion, moments when their boundaries were ignored, and Inconsistent cues by immature handlers. They also remember, kind and gentle handling, predictable routines, clear communication, being listened to, and feeling safe and good with a particular human. Horses do not live only in the present moment. The past walks quietly besides them . That's why a horse may react strongly to a place, a piece of equipment, or a tone of voice that seems insignificant to us. They are not “holding grudges.” They are holding information.

Fear and Anxiety in Horses

Fear in horses is not dramatic but it manifests itself as  anxiety.  A horse becomes anxious when, signals are unclear, pressure is without release, expectations exceed understanding, and escape from a situation feels impossible. An anxious horse may appear busy, distracted, tense, or overly alert. Others go the opposite way, shutting down, becoming dull and disconnected. Both are signs of an overwhelmed nervous system. Both hyper-reactivity and dullness are signs of emotional overload, and neither should be mistaken for temperament. True horsemanship does not suppress fear. It creates conditions where fear does not need to arise.

Pleasure and Joy in horses

Yes—horses experience pleasure and joy too.  A happy horse may stretch out to  contact you, choose to stay near you at liberty, willingly engage in work, greet a trusted human with soft interest. These moments are not accidental. They arise when a horse feels physically comfortable, emotionally safe,  understood rather than controlled. Overall pleasure in horses is the by-product of trust.

Ethics and Emotional responsibility 

Every interaction leaves an emotional trace. A rushed grooming session teaches a horse impatience. A calm one teaches safety. A forced exercise teaches endurance of discomfort. A thoughtful one teaches cooperation. Horses carry forward not the task, but the feeling associated with the task. This is why ethical horsemanship is not about perfection, but it is about emotional responsibility. Every interaction leaves an emotional imprint. A rushed moment teaches a horse urgency or fear, and a patient  moment teaches safety and trust. 

Listening Is the Highest Skill for good Horsemanship

The most skilled horse-people are not those with the strongest aids or the flashiest results. They are the ones who can notice subtle changes, pause instead of push, adjust instead of dominate, ask instead of demand.

Horses are always speaking via their subtle body language. The question is not whether they communicate, but whether we are quiet enough and humble enough to listen. When we truly understand the emotional life of horses, training becomes a dialogue, leadership becomes guidance, and performance becomes partnership.

Reading a Horse’s Body Language

Horses carry with them their  'Emotional Map'.

A horse’s body tells the truth. Learning to read the truth as  being told by our equine friends, via their body language is one of the most important skills in horsemanship. Let's go through some basics as I shall sooner than later, present detailed writeup on it.

1.  The Eyes:  Soft, blinking eyes communicate relaxation, trust, and curiosity. Wide eyes with visible white communicate fear, anxiety and vigilance.  Hard, fixed stares communicate tension, discomfort and emotional bracing. The eyes are windows to the nervous system.

2.  The Ears:  Softly moving, attentive ears  are a sign of engagement and interest. Ears pinned flat backwards convey anger, pain, and defensive emotion. Ears locked forward or frozen back are a sign of high alert, or high tension. Ears that stop moving often indicate emotional freeze. One year forward, thd other backwards, portrays a state of relaxed awareness.  It is a neutral-to-positive signal, indicating curiosity or alertness, as opposed to ears pinned flat back (anger/aggression) or ears completely locked forward (high intensity/focus). 

3.  The Mouth and Jaw: Relaxed lips, occasional chewing is a sign of processing and release of information. Tight lips and clenched jaw is a sign of sress, pain and resistance. Excessive chomping or tongue issues are signatures of anxiety or discomfort. A tense mouth often mirrors a tense mind.

4.  The Neck and Head: Lowered neck with soft poll convey calm, safe and a relaxed state. High head carriage,  is again a sign of fear, vigilance and imbalance. Rigid neck is result of emotional bracing and lack of trust. A horse cannot relax mentally if it cannot relax through the neck.

5.  The Back and Body: Swinging back, fluid movement portrays comfort and emotional ease. Hollow or rigid back portrays pain, anxiety, and self-protection. Short, tight steps portray fear or physical discomfort. Movement quality  of a horse reveals emotional state more honestly than obedience ever will.

6.  The Tail:  A soft, rhythmic movement of tail is a sign of relaxation. A clamped tail portrays fear or pain, an aggressive swishing is a sign of Irritation, overload, discomfort. The tail is often the last place horses can hide emotion — and even then, not well.

7.  Stillness vs Shutdown: As a simple formula, 'True calmness is alive. Shutdown is empty.' A shut-down horse may appear quiet and compliant but lacks curiosity, expression, and softness. This is not peace, it is emotional resignation. Good horsemanship seeks relaxation with presence, not silence.

To conclude, horses remember how we made them feel far longer than they remember what we asked them to do. This is why ethical horsemanship is not about control, dominance, or perfection, but about emotional stewardship. To read a horse well does not come  via mastering some technique, but it is cultivated  via empathy, patience, and responsibility. And when we do, horses give us something extraordinary in return, 

their 'TRUST'. When we truly understand the emotional life of horses, training becomes conversation, leadership becomes partnership, and performance becomes a shared expression rather than a forced outcome. In honoring what horses feel, remember, and carry forward, we not only create better horses, but we become better humans too. 

©️ @ 🧘 DG🐎

Advocate at Indian High Courts. 

Academics:- LL.M, LL.B., PG Human Rights, MA. Mass Communication and Journalism, B.A. Honours Psychology.

Special Skills Certifications :-

1. Film-direction and audio-visual story-telling certification from FTII, Pune, 

2. MOI. Qualified Mountaineering instructor from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, India.

Equine Education and Skill sets:-

- 'Stud Management and Sales Consignment Graduate with honours' from National Stud England.

Certifications from the online campus of International Federation for Equestrian Sports, Switzerland (FEI): -

1. Handling Horses.

2. Handling horses in challenging situations. 

3. Equine Behaviour.

4. How Horses Learn.

5. General Conformation.

Certifications from the online campus of Michigan State University (USA): -

1. Normal Horse Behaviour.

2. Horse Handling.

3. Horse Manners.

4. Horse Hygiene/ Grooming.

5. Basic Horse Keeping.

6. Training and Exercising horses.

7. Machinery and Chemical Safety

8. Traveling with Horses.

9. Biosecurity for Horse Farms.

10. Healthy Horses.

11. Employer/ Employee Relations.      

        (in Equine Industry)