Horse Brain, Human Brain: The Neuroscience of Horsemanship

Janet Jones

syys 2020 · Trafalgar Square Books

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An eye-opening game-changer of a book that sheds new light on how horses learn, think, perceive, and perform, and explains how to work with the horse’s brain instead of against it.

In this illuminating book, brain scientist and horsewoman Janet Jones describes human and equine brains working together. Using plain language, she explores the differences and similarities between equine and human ways of negotiating the world. Mental abilities—like seeing, learning, fearing, trusting, and focusing—are discussed from both human and horse perspectives. Throughout, true stories of horses and handlers attempting to understand each other—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—help to illustrate the principles.

Horsemanship of every kind depends on mutual interaction between equine and human brains. When we understand the function of both, we can learn to communicate with horses on their terms instead of ours. By meeting horses halfway, we achieve many goals.

• We improve performance.
• We save valuable training time.
• We develop much deeper bonds with our horses.
• We handle them with insight and kindness instead of force or command.
• We comprehend their misbehavior in ways that allow solutions.
• We reduce the human mistakes we often make while working with them.

Instead of working against the horse’s brain, expecting him to function in unnatural and counterproductive ways, this book provides the information needed to ride with the horse’s brain. Each principle is applied to real everyday issues in the arena or on the trail, often illustrated with true stories from the author’s horse training experience. Horse Brain, Human Brain offers revolutionary ideas that should be considered by anyone who works with horses.

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Janet Jones, PhD, applies brain research to the training of horses and riders. She earned her Ph.D. from UCLA and taught the neuroscience of perception, language, memory, and thought for 23 years. Janet trained horses at a large stable for many years, and later ran a successful horse training business of her own. She has schooled hundreds of green or difficult horses and competed in hunter, jumper, halter, reining, and western pleasure disciplines.