The aim of this study is to explore how experienced horse riders describe their communication with the horse in order to understand that the horse is in self-carriage, and how to achieve it. Self-carriage in a horse means that the horse is moving in an optimal and balanced way, not putting unnecessary strain on their body (McGreevy et al., 2011). Communication between riders and their horses has been investigated extensively, especially in connection to training horses (Brandt, 2004; Dashper, 2016; Despret, 2004; Game, 2001; Jackman et al., 2017; Maurstad et al., 2013; Smith, 2015; Tufton & Jowett, 2021; Wipper, 2000; Zetterqvist Blokhuis, 2019). Yet there is little research on what types of communication between horse and rider could promote riders’ understanding of whether the horse is in self-carriage, nor how to achieve it.

Horses as well as humans develop ways to communicate their subjectivity, as thinking, emotional, decision-making beings. The two need to create a system of language that both can understand. However, horse-rider communication has a specific character, as the horse is much bigger than humans, and because of the high level of body-to-body contact (Brandt, 2004). This communication is two-way, and takes place when both are well trained, with the rider using their body correctly to give understandable signals to the horse’s sensitive body, resulting in a collaborative practice. The rider and the horse as two individuals intra-act in a growing relation, adapt and attune to one another, where the rider understands how to have a talking body (Maurstad et al., 2013). In this manner, they both can become full participants in a cyclical and dynamic process, co-creating a system of language through their bodies (Brandt, 2004).

The roles of the horse and rider in the communication are different, and the rider has to adapt to the horse, a skill that varies a lot among riders (Wipper, 2000). Riders need to give clear messages to the horse. Mixed messages, such as giving the horse two contradictory cues, will decrease the clarity of response (McGreevy et, al., 2011). The horse’s self-confidence is fragile, and the rider must also reassure the horse when the response is correct (Tufton & Jowett, 2021). This demands both control of the rider’s own body and mind and to be able to deal with the character of the specific horse (Hausberger et al., 2008).

Horses pick up on human emotions and the cues given by the rider’s minor muscle reactions (Despret 2004; Wipper, 2000). Horse-rider communication is constantly ongoing through embodied intra-action; even unintentionally, as the cues are sensory, and horses are sensitive to changes in the rider’s balance, bodily tension and stress (Dashper, 2016). Horses can feel the unintentional movements of the rider, occurring as the rider thinks of movements for the horse to carry out (Despret, 2004).  Despret believes that this embodiment is primarily driven by affects, and is founded on mutual trust. Mutuality and trust are components for good intra-acting (Wipper, 2000).

As it is the rider’s responsibility to develop a common language with the horse (Wipper, 2000), this study investigates riders’ perceptions of horse-rider communication, guided by the following research questions:

Which types of communication do experienced riders believe help them recognize and enhance self-carriage in the horse?

Which conditions do they feel are required to achieve such communication?

Eight female experienced riders were interviewed between December 21 to July 22. All the participants had been educated within the Swedish system for riding teachers and/or trainers, and had between 36 and 61 years’ experience of riding. The participants were informed that they were free to interrupt their participation at any moment of the research in accordance with the principles for research ethics of the Swedish Research Council (2024), and for the purpose of their anonymity, respondents were given numbers (R1-R8). The interviews were semi-structured, with open-ended questions, in part while watching videos of riding cases selected by the participants, where the horse was in and not in self-carriage. Participants were practitioners of different riding disciplines and therefore the content of the videos could vary, from a showjumping competition, a dressage training session or from trying out a horse the rider had never ridden before. The questions covered the areas of the riders’ conception and bodily perception of the horse being in and not being in self-carriage as well as the ways of communication with the horse to achieve self-carriage. The same type of questions applied when watching the videos together, while going into more detail for specific relevant moments. The element of watching and discuss these videos helped the riders recall how the moments felt. Several of the participants mentioned how interesting it was to try to capture in words and express the details of self-carriage in the videos while watching them repeatedly. The interviews took about 30 minutes and were carried out and recorded over Zoom. The recordings were transcribed verbatim, and have been translated into English by the authors. Contextual analysis (Svensson & Doumas, 2013) was used for the analysis of the interview transcripts. Contextual analysis is an exploratory approach, without the use of predefined categories. In the analytical process, limitations are made from the research material as a whole through contextual interpretation, identifying main aspects and their relations to the investigated phenomenon. Through comparisons between the interviews, similarities were discerned against the background of differences in riding activity between the various cases.

Two main types of communication were discerned from the analysis of the interviews: a Technical communication, which signifies a one-way technical character of instructions from the rider to the horse requiring instructions from the rider to the horse of specific clear character as well as the preparation of the horse’ s and rider’s body for riding in self-carriage; and a mutual Bodily and holistic communication between the rider and the horse as intra-action which recognizes the position of the horse as an active agent having the ability to communicate equally with the rider. Both co-create a common system of language through their bodies as full participants of a dynamic communication process. The role of the horse in communication with the rider is still frequently overlooked in training practices, even though the horse as an active partner would improve both outcomes and the experience for rider and horse. To improve the performance of the horse as an advanced mutual movement in a shared rhythm, there is thus a need for both the improvement of riders’ technical communication skills, training of the rider’s and horse’s bodies, as well as dialogue, trust and partnership between horse and rider so that the horse could have a desire to help the rider. This study highlights the importance of combining technical and bodily holistic forms of communication with the horse to achieve self-carriage.

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