Buying a Horse

Lesson 1: The Initial Considerations

Assessing His Body Language Part Two

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions can be a bit more difficult to fathom, but you'll soon grasp them if you interact with your horse often. When horses get scared their mouth often becomes tight. You can see this when you work with your horse on something new. Once he realizes what you're trying to teach, you'll see his mouth start to soften and he'll begin to lick and chew. That's his way of saying, "Ahh, I get it."

Horses can also wrinkle their noses signifying their annoyance at something and when a horse is particularly concerned he can even get worry wrinkles above his eyes. It's almost the same as when we frown about something that concerns us.

Combination stances

When we can discern what individual expressions and posture means, then we can look at the horse as a whole and get a pretty good idea of what he's feeling from both his facial expressions and posture combined.

A flat back, low head and a cocked hoof means your horse is relaxed. If his neck is arched and his ears locked onto something then whatever that something is has tweaked his attention. A horse that is about to bite will probably have a swishing tail, his ears pinned and his teeth bared. A nervous or scared horse will have his ears partially pinned, perhaps his tail tucked, worry wrinkles and a tight mouth.

Assessing your prospective buy

The first thing you should do when assessing a horse to purchase is to approach that horse and see how he reacts. How was he before you approached him? Was he relaxed? Is he still relaxed now that he has people moving towards him? As you approach him does he welcome you? Or does he back away and try to evade you? Does he seem genuinely interested in people or would he rather keep his distance? If he welcomes your contact, where does he welcome your contact? Can you for instance pet him all over and not have him concerned? Can you rest an arm over his back, pick up his feet, play with his mane and tail without him becoming alarmed? Can you rest your arm across his withers and jump up and down beside him (as if to mount) without him moving off?

These are things that you need to watch for when you first interact with him. It's also helpful if he's kept in the same pasture with other horses to ask the owner to move him to a separate area so that you can assess him away from others horses and outside of his comfort area. Also if they have him haltered and restrained, ask them to turn him loose and see if you can approach him now that he is loose and again assess his reactions to you while he's at liberty.

Body language will also come into play when we watch a horse saddled/ridden, we'll look at that in later section. First, let's move onto Lesson Two and have a look at where you might buy a good horse.

Further Reading

Translating Equine Body Language

A Horse's Body Language

  1  2  3  4  5  6