Personalities, Horse-analities and Systems
Written by Hiddenhorse on 14/03/2010 – 12:21 pm -Many of the currently available systems of training horses propose the idea that horses have different personalities, or ‘horse-analities’, if you prefer. (Ho-Ho-Ho) In general this is a good thing as it helps people understand their horses as individuals. You may have heard terms such as: left brain or right brain, dominant or submissive, leaders or followers, introvert and extrovert or even in some of the more elaborate systems, terms such as, ‘the minister’ or ‘the unicorn’. All of these terms are useful ‘handles’ for us to help us identify and define more accurately, the collection of behaviors, energies, actions and reactions that go to make up the concept of our horse. Understanding horses in this way is a major step forward in our thinking. After all it was not that long ago when horses were only defined by their utility and use to us, that the idea that a horse should possess any sort of individual identity at all would have been laughed at, or at the very least considered irrelevant to the horses function. Of course in many utility environments today, such as racing yards, this is still the case. If a horse is considered to have any sort of personality, at best, it is a highly contrived and very anthropomorphic interpretation of what he ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ as part of his fictitious human persona.
So where did all this thinking come from and why do we need to understand our horse’s personality?
Well, contrary to popular belief these ideas were not invented in the good old U.S. of A., they were first proposed by the ancient Greeks. The Greek philosophers wanted a way of classifying and understanding human personalities and they came up with a simple system that broke human personality down into four different categories. They called this system the four humors, they based it on four different substances they believed appeared in the human body in different amounts, I won’t go into detail as it gets a bit messy (blood and phlegm etc. Yuk!), but just imagine, if a person had a bit more of substance A and a bit less of substance D, then they would be such and such a personality type. This is an odd way of arriving at an understanding and of course we know now that this was total hogwash but the idea of four basic personality types has remained weirdly accurate and persists to this day…. mostly because people can make a lot of money out of it!
Here are the four categories: Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic and Sanguine.
Although these character groupings were originally developed for humans they also hold true for horses, I believe this is because they describe personality in emotional terms, and as the basic emotions of happiness, anger, frustration, curiosity and so on, are as far as we can tell, the same in both animals and people therefore the four personality types can be applied to both species. If you are a scientist and are jumping up and down in disagreement, don’t worry, it’s only a theory.
So let’s look at the four types as they apply to horses.
The Choleric Horse
The choleric personality is usually a leader, so often alpha stallions in a herd will be this type. Choleric types are usually single minded and focused, if they can master their sometimes angry nature they are can become very good at projecting the assertive energy of a leader. Cholerics are totally ‘in it for themselves’ and highly achievement orientated, they don’t suffer fools gladly, in fact, they don’t suffer fools at all. Typically this type of horse is selected for utility functions such as the dressage ring. The powerful strength and energy of the choleric comes across as charisma or presence, just the sort of thing that can make all the difference in a dressage competition.
Beware though these are not easy horses to get through to, as they don’t suffer fools gladly, make sure they don’t think you are a fool!
Because these are horses with ‘attitude’ they often fall foul of their humans. Under negative circumstances these horses will react at first with flight, as all horses will, but as they are usually in highly controlled environments this is not an option, they will quickly resort to fight. Consequently these horses suffer most from mankind’s distorted genius for control. These are the horses that usually wear the most ‘equipment’, that are subjected to the most severe bits, these are the horses that fight their trainers all the way, if not physically then mentally.
The secret of these horses is not to fight them – ever, you will never win, the secret is… well I’ll tell you that next time but now let’s move on to the next category.
The Phlegmatic Horse
This horse is just about the opposite of the choleric horse, Phlegmatic horses are focused on one thing, efficiency of energy. Now the more anthropomorphic of you will probably interpret that as, these horses are lazy, they are not, they usually highly intelligent and will always try to do things in the most efficient way with the minimum expenditure of energy. Some of the heavy horses will tend to fall into this category, I have a shire horse cross, Molly, she is by far the most intelligent horse in the herd. She is a great problem solver and will often work away at a problem and keep returning to it until she gets what she wants, for example she worked out that by using her thick tail she could back into an electric fence and by walking backwards she could get to the grass she wanted! She will also use her heavy feet to scrape away at the bottom of an electric fencing stake until she pulls the stake out without ever having to touch to wire. These things take more than just emotion they demonstrate rational, reasoning thought about a problem.
Phlegmatic horses can be great, if you find the right way to motivate them. Under negative circumstances these horses however can be extremely frustrating. They quickly work out what is the minimal thing they have to do to survive and this reaction to coercion can become what I call compliant. This means they only do the minimum they need to to avoid the coercion. Training these horses conventionally is very hard work, because they quickly become robotic and switched off, consequently training them like this can take years.
The Melancholic Horse
Melancholics are usually the most emotionally intelligent horses of all. Under good circumstances they happily accept training because they frequently are able to come up with creative solutions to problems, these horses are knowledgeable and intuitive, alpha mares in a herd are often melancholics. Their creativity and intelligence is recognised by other horses as ‘a good bet’, that will ensure the herd is kept safe. As the name suggests melancholics have one drawback, under negative or coercive circumstances they will soon react by becoming depressed, they will constantly try to escape this by flight, fight or compliance and will also get a reputation for being ‘moody’. They will have good days and bad days, on a good day they can be fantastic on a bad day they are best left alone. These horses are hard work to train consistently using traditional coercive methods such as teaching by correction, they will never see criticism as a positive thing. The secret with these horses is always work to their strengths, these horses respond really well to positive reinforcement training and will use their talents of intelligence and creativity so much they end up training you!… In a good way of course.
The last personality type is the sanguine horse.
The Sanguine Horse
If you have a horse like this you will know all about it. These horses are highly gregarious animals, to be very anthropomorphic for a minute, (please forgive me). If these horses were people they would work in a people-orientated job, they would probably a salesman or a social worker or a party organizer. They love the company of other people, – sorry horses. These horses are not great rational thinkers but neither are they stupid, these are the horses that are closest to their emotions, consequently these horses are always sensitive, they will respond on the turn of a whisker. Of all the types, these horses I think have the potential for greatness. Two things that typify these horses is their sensitivity and movement. Unfortunately, a breed that has a reputation for being this kind of horse is the thoroughbred. Ironically this breed, more than any other, is most likely to be isolated from other horses in a stable as a result they are the most likely to exhibit disturbed abnormal behaviors such as stable vices or more correctly stereotypical behaviors; crib biting, box walking and wind sucking etc. The sanguine horse craves the company, and thus the safety, of other horses. On the positive side sanguines have a playfulness and curiosity that no other personality type can match. With the correct understanding these horses can be more than just good they can be great.
So those are the four personality types and I admit, it is a broad over-simplification, Not all horses will be absolutely definable as one type or the other, many will show characteristics and blends of personality types but this way of classifying personality has stood the test of time and many human concepts such as psychometric testing, are descended from these ancient ideas.
So why do we need to know about this?
A popular modern idea is to buy into a ‘system’ of horse training, these can range from the traditional to the alternative. Methods such as natural horsemanship are often taught (and sold to us), as a complete system. There is nothing wrong with this except that we must realize that different horses will react to the various exercises and stages in different ways. A good parallel to consider is something we all know about, our own educational system. Governments increasingly try to control what is taught in schools, in the UK we have something called the National Curriculum. In theory young children are input at one end and well educated socially adjusted adults, ready to join society, are output, some years later, at the other end. Sorry if that sounds like a sausage machine but it is just an example of a system. Some children that pass through this process do indeed turn out exactly as intended and unfortunately many do not. This is a matter of public record not just my personal gripe. What has happened? In theory each child is treated equally each child undergoes the same processes and each child should have the same opportunities so each child should turn out the same, right? Wrong. What has happened and is happening more and more, is that the system works really hard to force the children to adapt to it. What should happen is that the system should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of the individual and not the other way round.
In the horse world we also have these same ideas and guess where they come from? You guessed it, our old friend, the Army. In the days of the former cavalry regiments, raw recruits and raw horses were input into the army system and perfectly drilled cavalry horses and troopers were output at the other end, or at least that was the idea, but these systems were deeply coercive, they focused on the absolute suppression of individual characteristics and on the total subjugation of individuality to the idealized end product. The only way you can achieve this level of control is through sustained, intensive and unavoidable coercion. In short, the horses and the recruits were forced to adapt to the system, the system never adapted to them.
This does not mean that if you buy into a system of horse training that you must coerce your horse into doing it. Most enlightened teachers and trainers have realized this, and so focus a great deal on understanding your horse as an individual, which means you must adapt the stages and exercises to your horse. For example, in the Parelli system there is a well known exercise called the friendly game, this means you gradually get your horse to allow you to touch it all over it’s body. For some horses, like the phlegmatic types, this is really no big deal, for others like a choleric horse this could be huge, so you would have to devote a lot of time to this exercise alone.
One last thing, don’t forget personality types were originally for humans and like it or not you probably fit into one of the categories, and there is a further complication that you and your horse when working together you are a combination of personalities so ‘you’ as a partnership, will react differently to the system. If you have the opportunity, try to work with multiple horses and multiple character types, in this way you can plan how to adapt the system you choose to you and your horse so that with a bit of luck you will emerge from the other end of the sausage machine having had a brilliant experience, not a bad one.
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Tags: Choleric, Horse-analaties, Melancholic, Phlegmatic, Sanguine, TrainingPosted in Horse-analaties, Natural Horsemanship, Training | No Comments »
