A Perfect Storm of Outdated Theory, Ego, and Escalation being Normalized

“Time to get the whip out.” ~ “Whip or flag for sure next time!” ~ “I immediately went back in with flag and made her face me.” ~ “I’ve never had a yearling or mustang.” ~ “She sure made you move YOUR feet.” ~ “…you will not find trainers using treats, I actually discourage it…” ~ “Also a big percentage of horses that bite were hand fed treats.” ~ “The only thing the horse showed was what a brat she is.” ~ “That one wouldn’t get feed until it changed its attitude.” ~ “She’s a wild mustang. I’ve only had a few weeks. She came straight from the corrals.” ~ “You’re a prime example of people that should not own horses.” ~ “I didnt have my flag with me to stop her from backing her butt up to me.” ~ “Mares are way spicier than geldings sometimes.” ~ “I went back in with a flag after… to let her know its not tolerated.” ~ “Don’t run stand your ground!… Milk jugs on the side on a string! Scariest thing ever to them! Makes noise too!” ~ “I only ran out because I had nothing to scare her with.” ~ “Don’t run from that, throw that bucket at his rump and show him the fear of god.” ~ “Never let a horse move your feet.” ~ “If you chase them off in the right moments, you’ll gain respect.” ~ “By running away you showed her that she’s higher on the pecking order than you are.” ~ “I would’ve grabbed that lead rope on the fence and sent her running loud, crazy, and fast.” ~ “Chase that little shit and mean it.” ~ “This brat is testing the boundaries like a spoiled brat.” ~ “That needed a good smack across the ass with a rope soon as she went to turn her ass to you.” ~ “Work her in that pen for respect get a whip.” ~ “Sorry but a naughty baby needs nipped in the bud immediately.” ~ “Spoiled brat…”

I came across a video recently of a very young mustang filly, only a couple of weeks removed from the holding corrals, still untouched and unfamiliar with human handling. In the video, she is in a small, confined paddock. There are other animals pressed up along the outside of the panel, all of them focused on a scoop of “treats” being held by the handler inside the space. The environment is crowded, tight, and overstimulating. The handler is standing close to the filly’s body, holding the feed near herself, asking for a level of proximity and understanding that this horse simply does not yet have.

The filly stands alert, tense, unsure. You can see it in her posture. Every part of her is trying to process what is happening, but there is nowhere for her to go. When the pressure builds past what she can tolerate, she does what horses do when they need space and don’t have it. She turns her hind end and kicks out as the handler retreats.

Then come the comments.

People calling her a brat.

People saying she needs to be chased, corrected, smacked, intimidated.

People insisting that the handler should have stood her ground, should have shown dominance, should have made the horse “respect” her.

It’s exhausting to read, not because the opinions are new, but because they are so deeply disconnected from the reality of what this horse has just been through.

This moment did not begin in that pen.

That filly did not arrive as a blank slate waiting to be shaped. She arrived carrying the full weight of her experience, and for a mustang, especially a young one, that experience is often intense, abrupt, and deeply destabilizing.

She likely grew up on open range, where space was abundant and movement made sense. Herd dynamics were clear. Pressure came from other horses in ways that were predictable and readable. If she needed to leave, she could leave. If she needed distance, she could create it. Her nervous system developed in an environment where her instincts worked for her.

Then she was gathered.

Driven, pushed, separated from everything familiar. The noise, the speed, the confusion of it all is something most domestic horse owners never truly stop to consider. Horses run because they have to, not because they choose to, and they run until they are exhausted because there is no other option being presented to them.

Then comes confinement.

Pens filled with other stressed, unfamiliar horses. Limited space. Constant pressure. Competition for food and footing. Horses biting, kicking, pushing each other away, not out of malice, but because they are trying to cope in an environment that no longer allows for normal regulation. The quiet, ordered rhythm of herd life is replaced with tension and unpredictability.

Then transport.

Loaded into trailers, often tightly packed, forced to balance through motion they don’t understand, unable to see where they are going or what is coming next. There is no control in that experience. No ability to predict or prepare.

And then, finally, they arrive.

A new place. New smells. New people. New expectations. No familiar herd. No established safety. Just a completely foreign environment layered on top of an already overwhelmed nervous system.

And within a couple of weeks—sometimes days—they are expected to behave as if they understand any of it.

They are expected to tolerate human proximity, navigate confined spaces, regulate around food, interpret pressure correctly, and make decisions that align with what we want from them, all while still trying to recover from everything they have just experienced.

So when I watch that filly turn her hind end and kick, I don’t see disrespect. I don’t see a “spoiled brat.” I don’t see a horse trying to dominate a human.

I see a horse that has run out of options.

I see a nervous system that has reached its limit.

I see an animal asking for space in the only language it has available.

And what troubles me most is not the behavior itself, but how quickly people move to punish it without ever questioning the setup that created it. Because the setup is everything.

A tight space. Multiple animals. Food involved. A handler positioned too close to a horse that has not yet learned to feel safe in that proximity. Every element in that situation adds pressure, and when pressure stacks without release, something has to give.

In this case, it was the horse.

And instead of stepping back and asking what could have been done differently, the overwhelming response is to add more pressure. To get bigger, louder, more forceful. To chase the horse, to hit it, to “move its feet,” to make sure it never feels like it has the upper hand.

But escalation does not create understanding. It does not teach a horse how to feel safe, how to process, or how to make better choices. It simply pushes the horse further into survival.

Yes, you may stop the behavior in the moment. You may force a different response. But stopping a behavior is not the same as resolving it, and compliance under pressure is not the same as learning.

What the horse learns in those moments is not clarity. It is not trust. It is not partnership. It is that pressure comes fast, that humans are unpredictable, and that the safest option is to either shut down or escalate faster next time.

There is also this persistent idea that if a horse causes you to move your feet, you have somehow lost a battle. That you have given up your position in some imaginary hierarchy. But horses do not operate within the kind of dominance framework that humans project onto them in these situations. Stepping away from a horse that is overwhelmed is not submission. It is awareness. It is timing. It is recognizing when the situation has moved beyond a place where learning can occur.

If anything, the real failure is not in stepping away. It is in setting up a situation where the horse feels it has no other choice but to react that way in the first place.

This filly did not need to be corrected more harshly. She needed less.

Less pressure.

Less confinement.

Less expectation too soon.

She needed time to decompress. Time to observe. Time to learn in an environment where she could succeed without being pushed past her threshold.

Because you do not build a thinking horse by forcing it through moments it cannot yet handle. You build a thinking horse by keeping it in a state where it is able to process, to understand, and to choose.

And that requires patience. It requires restraint. It requires a willingness to step back and see the horse not as a problem to be fixed, but as an animal trying to make sense of a world that has changed faster than it can adapt.

When we ignore that, when we rush the process and then punish the reaction, it is not the horse that is failing.

It is us.

This was never about a “bratty” horse.

This was a young mustang filly, only weeks removed from everything she has ever known, placed into a situation she could not yet understand, and responding the only way she knew how.

And instead of meeting her there, we demanded that she meet us.

That is the part that needs to change.