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FEBRUARY 2007 • VOLUME 18 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Predator/Prey Conflict
Many of the problems humans have with horses are due to the simple fact
that horses are prey animals, and humans think and act like
predators. It would seem logical to think this conflict relates
strictly to the predator killing and eating his prey – i.e. that it
directly relates to death – but I think it actually has to do with the
conflict between restraint and flight. Being killed and eaten is
the outcome of the predator/prey conflict, but the conflict itself
revolves around the prey’s desire to flee and the predator’s desire to
restrain him or stop his flight.
Many of the problems we have with our horses become
what I think of as civilized versions of this predator/prey
conflict. Most horses don’t actually run away (take flight), but
they do exhibit the civilized version of flight mode when they tighten
their back and/or push against the bit while being ridden, or they try
to barge ahead of their handler when being led, etc. So even
though we have no desire to kill or eat our horses, when we restrain
them we trigger that age-old conflict between predator and prey.
There are literally hundreds of examples in human/horse interactions
where the horse’s flight response kicks in, for whatever reason, and
that triggers the human’s desire to tighten his hold on the horse to
prevent his escape.
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