"Phaeton, a twelve-year-old Breton stallion, hasn't been worked for months because he has become completely uncontrollable outside his box."
Working with a horse can be a dangerous business. When the horse reacts in kind to the human beings way of behaving, when he recognizes and sees if and when the human being is not acting in the interested of horse, but in fact, against it. When the human being uses force or has to exercise pressure almost in the end, the horse does certain things that the human being wishes it to do.
"What appears to many people to be a miracle is the transformation from a fighting animal to a co-operative horse that takes place from one moment to the next."
For me, it was quite clear at the beginning, when I was working with a horse that I wanted to reach this point, that I wanted to achieve the aim of at least communicating with the horse and to gain his confidence and of course to acquire the sense of security that I can really move the horse in all situations without any form of brutality, without any form of punishment, without any of these things.
If I don't replace the power of the whip with something else, then the situation with the horse will end in chaos. In other words, at that moment, when I try to dominate the horse without a whip and without hurting him, without all these things which you normally recognize is the destructive behavior of the human being. When I am trying to do this, it's absolutely essential that I use something else in place of those methods. Again, this can only be clear, definite, and very precise by the events.
