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In very high levels of competition, were a lot of money is concerned, some handlers may not care as you did tho, about what the horse likes and dislikes, they will MAKE them do it by whatever means it takes.

Well I think that we need to take the verb "like" right out of the picture, because we have no way of knowing it the horse "likes" anything. And that, I think, is what we're getting hung up on. When a baby pulls on a dog's ear and the dog sits there and an adult says "Look at him, he LIKES it" we know that isn't true. The dog just knows better than to bite the baby.

I know that you aren't trying to offend anyone, BUT the important thing that I want to tell you about dressage, even if it's just for the sake of discussion, (and believe me, I'm not upset) is that it involves the horse's brain, and horses without good brains can't advance nearly as high as the horses that we're watching in these videos. There's a reason why dressage is leveled, and it ain't for the rider's sake, it's for the horse's sake. If that horse didn't have the ability and more importantly, the brain to advance, then Helingrand wouldn't have taken her this far. Most importantly, he wouldn't have wasted the money.

Another thing is that you find very few horses with the ability to advance to the 4th level. It fries their brain, and if something fries their brain, they aren't going to it well, or even do it at all. It just ain't gonna happen! :-) We have one mare, the black mare that I've posted pictures of, who can't get past the leg yield. Push her any more and she goes to pieces.

I pretty much know what Cindy likes. She tells me.:’) If she sees a baby coming, they don’t get close to her ears. When I expect her to let the little ones learn to be gentle, she sits there and tolerates them, looking at me like, “the things I have to suffer thru” My horses let me know if they don’t like something either. I am just going to have to respectfully disagree with yall. I think you can get an idea if an animal likes something or not.
jc