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One of the things that Rashid teaches both in his clinics and in this story, is that horses are not "lazy".
When horses try to minimise their expenditure of energy (or ask the rider's permission to do as little work as possible) they are just being horses.
But both Rashid and Peace cite the puritan work ethic. In order to eat, people have to put in a day's work. We dont enjoy it, but it is a fact of life.
The same goes for the horse - the exchange between people and horses is that the horse works for us for its keep. We may decide to retire an old horse and let it stop working. That's fine. I dont want a string of angry posts.
The idea is with both trainers, that we train difficult horses and win their compliance in order to make them workable, give them a value to man, and save them from the canning factory.
Interesting that recent research shows people who work are ultimately happier than people who dont. Because I shared an old horse who several people thought should have been allowed to retire. I felt she hated the school but was always happy and interested to hack out with me. It had been her career, to work most days.
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Intelligent fascination with something is surely one of the keys to contentment - (Theodore Dalrymple)
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