One of the most valuable lessons I learned was the importance of paying attention to the little things around a horse that makes a world of difference with everything you do with him. For example, people often brush and saddle their horse without ever communicating they were aware of the horse the entire time. This might be a change in his eye, his ears, his head, etc. - just his overall body language in general. I refer to this as reading a horse, and it’s something a good horseman never stops doing from the moment he steps foot into a horse’s pen. The more you communicate to a horse you are aware, the more respect you earn. It’s just that simple. Horseman, Warwick Schiller, puts it very well. He said, “There's an old (glib) horse saying that says ‘They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.’ I feel that yes, it's true on a basic level, but knowing that you care is not really what they require. What they require is they need to know how aware you are and I believe that saying could be better put as ‘They don't care how much you care, they care how aware you are.’ “
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