Can a Horse Smell Your AT TITUDE? By Glenn Stewart
Our annual Extreme Horsemanship competition and clinic was held one summer years back at the end of June. It was well-attended with the 4-H club joining us and trying out a junior course for the first time in the morning before lunch. The more advanced course was in the afternoon followed by a tug of war and an egg and spoon race done by standing on the back of a wagon pulled by a team of Percherons. After that, we had a potluck supper, chili cook-off and a dance.
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he day before was what we call the Competition Clinic where I explained to the participants how the competition works, how to get points, and help them prepare a bit for the competition the following day. This year I managed to get Mark Grafton, a wellknown horseman, to do the judging of both competitions. Mark and his wife Laura joined us at the ranch a few days before the competition. He brought two young horses he wanted to get started and to be able to ride together before the event started. I was really looking forward to having them join me at the Horse Ranch. While I hadn’t known them long or very well, I had a feeling they might be my type of people and had a lot of horse experience and knowledge to share with me and my students. My radar was right on track. Mark and Laura have been cattle ranchers for 30 some years. Mark has been starting colts and dealing with all the tough horses his father could find since he was a kid. I believe he was working with the tough ones when he was 9 years old. His father would bring home any horse that other people couldn’t deal with and give it to his two boys and tell them to get to work. Mark’s father was a trainer for the cavalry and trained the last cavalry horses that actually went into battle. Amazing really to stop and think about. Getting people and horses ready to go into battle. The training had to be incredible to train horses to go into that type of situation. That’s another story in itself. I asked Mark if he would mind sharing some of his thoughts about horses and horsemanship as he worked with his colts in the 8 • AUGUST 2022
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round pen. I was enjoying each day watching someone that was comfortable, skilled and efficient at their job. I’ve started over two thousand colts myself and I really appreciated this rare opportunity to hear and watch someone of Mark’s experience share his thoughts and techniques. I’m guessing that Mark has started that many or more horses and having Mark here was an incredible opportunity to learn something that you may never learn on your own. As the round pen session went on, Mark shared his thoughts and one in particular I had not heard before and had not thought about myself. It was like looking in a creek and seeing a big nugget of gold. I have since spent much time thinking about it. I guess before hitting the cowboy trail, Mark had spent time at University studying something to do with science and animals, smells, hormones and their ability to smell and how smells affected animals. I have long preached that a horse can sense our attitude and that a good attitude will go a long way with a horse. Mark added that he believes that they can smell our attitude or what we are feeling. He went on to say that horses have a keen sense of smell and I would definitely agree with that. They are always smelling the grass, the air, each other, objects and then there is always some kind of response after they have done their smelling. I’ve watched a gelding put his nose under the flank of a stallion and smell; watched them smell each other; watched stallions smell mares and walk away and, other times, stay right there. Mark believes, and I’m leaning strongly with him, that our attitude or thoughts which creates our attitude can be smelled by a horse. I have definitely seen the immediate difference in behaviour of a horse from one person to another at the same moment. We give off different smells if we are scared, mad, happy, angry, and so on. I was thinking about how, over the last 10 years or so, I have been getting more and more horses that seem to want to have their muzzles close to my face. Mark mentioned he also has horses that do the same thing and he believes they are smelling something they like. I had noticed a change over the years but just thought I was spending so much time with horses I was starting to smell like them. I hadn’t given it much thought until he brought it up.
