A great characteristic that horses have is definitely vigilance. It is something that we barely discuss about but it is one of the most important things that an animal should have, especially when they are put in front of dangerous situations so they would know how to avoid it. Vigilance is connected to how careful you are when you are put in front of a dangerous situation that you need to find a way out but not only, even avoiding this dangerous situation without being included on it makes you a vigilant person.
All the animals who are between the chain of food need to have a high level of vigilance so they would be able to survive from animals who are above in their chain of food. Well, this is the most critical point of vigilance, however, it can appear when a horse and rider are competing and they need to avoid any possible collision with other contestants.
In other world, vigilance is always associated with horses and it is something that they have developed because they are usually exposed to situation when they need to use it and the situation in the video below is one of those situations. Martin Boyd, the Olympian and horse trainer, has been working with a horse and a rider over a ditch at the Texas Rose Horse Park, during a clinic.
For most of the horses ditches can be scary! Have a closer look at the following video and see what happened when Jill, the rider wanted to run over a ditch while Martin tried to help her. As a trainer, Martin stood next to the ditch leaving no choice to the young mare- she had to jump over the ditch just to avoid running into him, because in general horses don’t run into humans.
Well, in the moment that Martin was sure that this mare would jump over the ditch, it turned out not to be true as she collided with him as soon as she avoided that ditch. At first the scene looked bad, because Martin has been laying on the ground. But, shortly after the crash he has been back on his feet and Jill and Zoe managed to jump over the ditch. Watch the video below to understand better what happened during this training session.