Horse Training: Start Right! Safely Mounting a Totally Green Horse for the First Time

Many of the problems humans have with horses stem, in my opinion, from the fact that humans (even the vegetarians) see and react to the world through the eyes of a predator while horses see and react to the world through the eyes of a prey animal.

If you have ever watched predators (even your house cat) you will note they have their eyes on the front rather than the sides of their head and they tend to take a direct route toward where they are going - particularly so if they have locked onto some target. By contrast prey animals spend much of their time grazing or browsing perhaps with some destination in mind but with a lot less direct route involved getting there OR even if they take a direct route it often includes lots of starts and stops to sample tasty food items along the way. So what does that have to do with getting on your green horse safely the very first time? Well if you want to avoid having problems with horses you need to first realize you move like a predator - you home in on your target and take the most direct route between you and that target. So what? Well the horse, being a prey animal, reads your movement as "a predator is coming" and its first line of defense is to put distance between itself and any predatory threat.