Settle Petal! The Nervous Horse
Managing the Nervous Horse with Angela Davison
Fighting Fear with Settle Petal
Long term client Joan reached out to Angela Davison and The Horse Herbalist as she was concerned about the escalating problems her daughter Amelia was having with her young horse, George. He had been started 12 months prior and had been brought along slowly and quietly. All was well until they went to their first small training day. He started the day a little nervous (understandably) but settled quite well as she rode him all round the showground and in between the rings in the company of a friend. She tied him to the float, which he’d experienced several times at home, with
The Nervous System
Today’s horse is the product of millions of years of evolution, during which survival depended on its ability to sense and respond to the environment in which it lived. This included escaping predators, being able to sense the temperature of its surroundings and identify food. While the need to escape predators may not be a requirement for the modern horse, their physiological response to fear is still to run. To achieve this the various systems and organs in the horse’s body must be linked so they work together. The adjustment of an animal’s response to changes in the environment and the complex linking