That being the case, how do people get horses to do these remarkable things they do?

     There are many factors.  They are time, patience, careful planning, knowledge, and more.  It's not due to any one thing.

     Ultimately, the key is getting the horse's obedience.  To get a horse's obedience you must first get his confidence.  Getting a horse's confidence is the first thing you do.

     Why is confidence important?  Because you need the horse to depend on you for leadership.  Once you're the established leader he'll follow you and more willingly do what you ask.  There are no doubt times he'll test your leadership, but being the leader is the title you must have.

     How do you get your horse's confidence?

     To understand that, we must first take a look at horse behavior.

     When God created horses he put fear in their nervous system.  That's how we're able to manipulate their behavior.  It's a good thing too because if this 1600 pound animal could reason like a human instead of reacting from fear, we'd never get anything out of him.

     The interesting thing about a horse and his built-in fear is his imagination.  A horse's imagination magnifies his fear.  In other words, a horse is far more fearful of things than he really needs to be.  It's our job to understand that and handle it with kid gloves.  Although we need to be firm with our horses we also need an abundance of kindness.

     There's a flip side to the horse's fear.  You can't "over use" it.  There are bounds you must stay in when using this fear.  The trick is to inspire just enough fear in the horse where he moves out of a healthy respect for you.  As long as you don't overstep this boundary, you're on your way to having a horse that'll be responsive to your requests.

     Here's a good example of how this works in the human world. 

     When I was in high school, there was a student named Patrick who was a fairly popular kid.  He was big for his age.  He played football and wrestled.  Just about everyone looked up to him.  I never saw anyone challenge him.  There was no question he was a leader in our class.

     As near as I could tell he treated everyone well.  I never saw him pick on people.  But I've seen people cross him and he stopped them in their tracks.

     One time me, Patrick, and about three other friends went on a ski trip.  We were having a good time laughing and carrying on when one of my friends made an "off the wall" comment to Patrick.  The laughter ceased immediately.  Patrick grabbed his shirt just below his neck, twisted his wrist to draw the shirt tighter, pulled the kid towards him and in a threatening tone of voice said, "If you ever say that to me again I'll tear you apart!"

     Amazing how everyone's mood went from jocularity to fear of repercussion.  After a few minutes passed, everything went back to laughter and fun.  No one crossed Patrick after that.  That one incident instantly communicated where the boundries were.  We knew we could have fun with him and we knew where NOT to go.

    Looking back, although Patrick may have been a bit overzealous to protect his ego, he was fun and fair.  But you also knew not to push him.

    And that's how you want your horses to perceive you.  You want to be fun and fair but they have to know they can't push you around.  That's the kind of leadership to establish with a horse.

    There are ways to establish you're the leader of the horse.  One is getting them to move.  When you cause a horse to move you are doing one of the things the head of the pecking order does.  But when you get your horse to move keep in mind his fear and how it gets magnified.  Don't terrorize the horse. 

     Thus, when your horse does what you ask then reward him with kindness via caressing, soothing voice, and/or rest.  As you work with your horse inspire him to action with just enough pressure. 

     You must be aware of how much pressure inspires him to do what you want.  If you pressure him too much you risk your leadership position and thus his confidence.  For example, you could overexcite a nervous horse with too much pressure.  If you went too far on a nervous horse it could be hard if not impossible to settle him down. 

     The good news is if a horse doesn't move as you wish then you know you haven't pressured him enough so you only need to increase the pressure until you get the response you want.

      Keep this delicate position in the front of your mind and you'll establish yourself as the leader and you will get your horse's confidence.  And when you have his confidence, you start to have willing obedience and therefore control over him.