Know Your Horse Before You Read Your Horse

A horse raises its head and looks into the trees. The rider feels a change in its stride. Is the horse alerting to something important?

Maybe. But the first question is simpler: Is this different for this horse?

Some horses travel with their heads low until something catches their attention. Others look into every opening in the woods. One horse may stop at unfamiliar footing; another may step across it without hesitation. If I don’t know what’s ordinary for the horse beneath me, I have little basis for interpreting what just changed.

Search horses are special. Not every horse is cut out to become a Search Horse. That’s why I want to know a search horse before I ask it to help me understand a search. I want to see how it travels in familiar and unfamiliar places. I really learned this in fox hunting. My horse Deja would follow the hunt on her own. I was merely a passenger along for the ride a lot of the time. My horse Fortissimo, same way, once he figured out how to fox hunt, he could practically do it on his own.

So ask yourself, how does my horse respond to wildlife, shifting shadows, machinery, people on foot, and other horses? Does it become quiet when tired? Does it move faster when anxious? Does it look toward a stimulus, turn away from it, or wait for the rider?

Those observations establish a baseline. They don’t turn the horse into a detector, and they don’t give the rider a way to read its mind. They give us context.

Imagine a horse that routinely stops at every creek crossing. A stop at the next creek is worth assessing, but it isn’t unusual on its own. Now imagine that same horse travelling steadily on an open trail, then abruptly slowing and repeatedly turning its attention toward a particular area. That change may warrant a pause and a closer look. It still doesn’t tell us why the horse changed.

In a homicide investigation, we examine behavior in context. What happened before the event? What happened during it? What happened afterward? A single action can be misleading when we remove it from the sequence. I apply that same discipline in the saddle.

Knowing the horse also means knowing the day lol (ain’t that the truth lol). For example, horse that is sore, overheated, unsettled by a new saddle, or distracted by another horse may behave differently from its usual self. The baseline is a starting point, not a permanent label.

The useful observation isn’t “My horse knew something was there.” It’s: “My horse had been traveling steadily. At this location, it slowed, raised its head, and repeatedly looked to the right. I stopped, checked the area, and recorded what I observed.” I recently had an experience on one of my horses where it was going along great, then exposed to another specific horse, my horse reacted to that horse and was not the same the rest of the ride afterward.

Learning the horse is important because it is the foundation of analysis. Analysis gives the search team something it can evaluate later down the road.

First, know the horse. Then describe the change. Only then investigate what may have caused it. Gotta love Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Series Note: This article is part of The Horse Knows Something, our fall 2026 blog series leading up to our inaugural NASAR Academy in part of Laura Pettler & Associates International Forensics Institute’s new Mounted Forensic Operations Program. The NASAR Academy will be held November 15-22, 2026 at Crossroads Ranch. Register now for our spring or fall 2027 NASAR SARTECH II + Wilderness First Aid academy today at LPAIFI.com.