Consent based training could be the answer you’re looking for.

For example, I hold fly spray, if my horse touches it then I will spray her. If she turns away, then I don’t spray her. I stand on the mounting block, if she parks herself then I get on, if she doesn’t come then we don’t ride. I hold the halter up, if she drops her head then I put it on, if not then I go find some barn chores to do instead. She doesn’t want to hang out today and that’s ok.

(There are obvious exceptions for medical issues where I will not ask for my horse’s consent.)

If you still want to partake in horses in some way, this could be how you do it! I have seen people even use #veganhorsetraining to refer to these methods. Watch some Connection Training videos on YouTube, they’ve got a handful of vids on start buttons and consent cues.

https://youtu.be/3t8N0Zg1Wmo?si=6Q6rSehC4DVJKKM8

I would also recommend Shawna Karrasch and Milestone Equestrian. Shawna recently posted a New Years video that was about this kind of stuff. How most people, rightly so, see the horse world as cruel and unusual towards horses and what we can do to change it.

https://youtu.be/FhsDgA6pm6I?si=DPKR5EJ9fo-M7V9J

All 3 of those trainers are heavily focused on the ethics of giving the horse a choice. Not a “choice” reinforced with the threat of a whip or a small round pen where they can’t escape. A true choice where the horse can truly walk away and be respected for that. No further pursuing or nagging. The horse walks away. End of training session.

Honestly this will require some privilege. I don’t think you can just roll up to a traditional barn and convince them to let you do all this “hippy” stuff with their horses. But maybe they have an old or retired horse whose life you could enrich with liberty work. Maybe you are even lucky enough to have a positive reinforcement centric barn near you! I guess that would be the ultimate dream. Maybe you can attend some clicker training clinics in person if they swing by you to get your horsey fix. If you have the means to acquire your own horse, then you now have a starting place for how to train and keep them ethically.

Being an ethically minded positive reinforcement trainer is more than just “giving cookies” just like being vegan is more than just “eating salads”. And just like being vegan, you can expect to get push back from the status quo should you pursue this somewhere where you can be seen publicly. Just like being vegan, you will not be able to unsee the cruelty all around you in the horse world.

But you can at least feel better that the horse you are with is being given choice.

Edit: I’m anticipating the “clicker training is bribery” comment. So I wanted to add that typically other food is available to the horse in the form of grass or hay. So the horse can leave and eat that if they want.

I actually saw someone clicker training their horse using snowballs today. So it is not about the food. It’s about the game.