Getting in Ttouch with Your Horse: How to Assess and Influence Personality, Potential, and Performance

Helping riders develop a deeper understanding of their animals, this newly revised guide reveals how horses' physical traits—from the muzzle, mouth, lips, and nostrils to the eyes, ears, chin, and facial swirls—can influence their behavior and personalities. Offering new profiles, personality evaluations, and helpful photographs to aid the process, the first of three sections teaches owners how to evaluate their horse's character and equine personality based on more than a dozen physical traits. A second section focuses on how health helps determine if the horse's personality has been adversely affected by stress or pain caused by poor nutrition, inadequate living conditions, or a mismatched riding discipline. The final section teaches how to bring out the best in one's equine friends, explaining techniques known as the Clouded Leopard, the Raccoon, and the Flick of the Bear's Paw, among others—all of which encourage bonding with horses to influence their personalities in a positive way for both horse and rider.