The Personalities of Horses

Klaus is working here with his stallion yunque in what he calls stallion training. Yunque is according to Klaus, one of the most untamable stallions with the strongest stallion instincts he knows. With only a rope hanging loosely from its neck, the stallion is let very close to a mare and heat. "I didn't want to take the take away the slightest bit of the horse's wildness not one spark of his power and personality", Klaus says. Just the opposite, I want to preserve and encourage it in such a way as to gain a certain control for the horse's own good, so that his freedom is as unrestricted and possible. The excited stallion learns to step back again and again without physical influence by the man. The enormous power, Klaus has over this horse can only be fully appreciated by riders who have experience with stallions, which are high ranking in the herd. A stallion has given me the control over him, I could never take it. He has given it to me because he has learned, but I only use it in his own interests. The stallion training finishes today in the riding area. The pair is approaching the mare and heat, with nothing but a simple halter. If the horse doesn't react to my thigh and weight shift signals, Klaus says, or to the clear signals of my body language, I would be lost even with the most severe bit. With the bridle hanging loosely, the stallion is standing near the mare. He calmly lets himself be turned away and ridden. How much and how subtly horses can be held by this kind of relationship is illustrated by the example of this 14 year old stallion. What we already should help us to have a deeper understanding of how things happen. The owner of the studfarm invited Klaus to come with a group of pupils from his school. They were shown an extremely shy stallion which wouldn't let himself touched or lead. York, a pupil can't calm down his hectic course. It sighs away moving in a constant circle to make things work its lane. Just like every other one, this case is special. Klaus must approach the lame horse without making it continue to move. So first he is keeping it motionless in a corner of the riding area with only the help of his body language. If you were to come nearer to the horse right away, he would risk being overrun by it. He therefore has to convince the horse of his strength but also of his harmlessness. It takes a few minutes before the horse trusts Klaus enough that he can get closer. But the stallion's enormous tension becomes evident as soon as Klaus leaves the corner in the way the horse takes off. The work has just begun to Klaus. He wants to win the stallion's entire confidence. Everything that creates trust must be used in such meetings, and so Klaus once again directs the stallion into the corner where he has already experienced trust and closeness, but his goal is to able to stop him at any point in the riding area and touch him. A lot have been achieved but Klaus still can't crawl back very far if he wants to keep the stallion calmly in the corner. The next step will be to use body language, the next time he leaves the corner and so to slow him down and guide him. Klaus therefore walks in a small curve to the left, just far enough so that he can keep the horse walking at a slow pace and can accompany it. Now it is only a question of time and the stallion will determine how things continue. Male Speaker: What I want from a horse is that I understand it, that it understands me, and that we can create something in common, and take the same path together. Everything I finally get from the horse is simply a gift. It's a fact that a horse because of the sensitivity it has, and even the most tortured and bitten horse is still very, very sensitive, can through its sensitivity used to bridge in the other direction and give something back to me. Body language isn't a one way street where only I send something. Body language means that two beings meet on and because of this bridge. What I get from the horse is an immense offering. Everything I have and experienced is like a present. I simply open doors and when the horse then comes through such an open door, then many things come to me. To sense the inner being of the horse and feel it, is a wonderful gift. Female Speaker: It was one of the most subtle and deeply moving moments that I had ever been allowed to experience with horses. The way the horse opened up to me was so full, so spontaneous, so wide, and complete because what people give to a horse is returned a thousand times over. The way I try to be together with horses is a constant self denial, always holding back, this makes it a school of life in which traces of an ancient wealth shine through. If we follow eternity back to the edge of non existence, we can find a gate which is nothing more than the first trace of space and time. This is the transition point when nothingness already contains the endless and eternal creation of the visible. The first division can be found here, to come from one here, light and darkness, heaven and earth, man and women. Time creates rhythm, rhythm creates the path, the path creates the number, and the number creates the speech. Speech creates the symbol, and the symbol finally reveals the whole wealth, and so all manifestations are nothing more than the symbolic expression of another unseen reality of spirit, soul, and emotion.