If Horses Spoke English, You'd Lose What You're Seeking

The Wish Every Frustrated Rider Makes

"I wish he just spoke English. Then I could understand him and figure out what's going on."

I hear this all the time from clients.

Their horse has been lame for months. They've spent thousands on vets, bodyworkers, tack adjustments. Nothing helps.

Or their horse is consistently stiff to one rein. Every trainer, every technique, every piece of equipment—tried it all. Still stuck.

The frustration is real. I understand it completely.

So they wish: if my horse could just tell me in words what's wrong, I could fix it.

I used to agree with this. It made perfect sense.

Now I don't agree at all.

And understanding why this wish would destroy the very thing riders are seeking changed how I work with horses and riders entirely.

The Problem With English Speakers

Even when someone speaks English and is in pain, do you really listen?

Like really take time to understand them?

Most people nowadays struggle to stay present with themselves. We struggle to truly listen to anyone, even when they're speaking our language clearly.

We're developing very short attention spans. Scrolling, multitasking, half-listening while our minds race ahead to what we'll say next.

When someone tells you they're in pain, how often do you stop everything, become fully present, and truly hear them?

Or do you jump to solutions, offer quick fixes, try to make it better so you can move on?

We treat English speakers from our heads. From our wired patterns. From what we think we already know.

Not from true presence. Not from our bodies. Not from our nervous systems.

So if your horse spoke English, you'd treat them exactly the same way.

What Riding Actually Is

Riding is an in-body experience.

Movement. Your body and your horse's body moving together in space.

It involves every cell in your body. Every breath. Every micro-adjustment in your posture, your tension, your balance.

It's not a conversation. It's a dance.

And the moment you try to turn that dance into words, you leave the body and enter the head.

The trick to understanding your horse is the opposite of speaking English.

The Silence Experiment

Try this: spend an entire day not speaking at all.

You'd communicate through your body. Your behaviors. Your facial expressions. Your posture. Your energy.

You'd become acutely aware of how much communication happens without words.

How a slight tension in your shoulders sends a message. How your breathing affects the people around you. How your presence speaks louder than any explanation.

That's how horses communicate. All the time. It's their only language.

Body. Behavior. Nervous system. Presence.

What Language Does To Us

If your horse spoke English, you'd treat them like you treat other English speakers.

From your head. Not your body.

From your wired patterns of behavior instead of from your nervous system.

You wouldn't be present.

Language takes us out of the body and into the head. This happens automatically. We don't even notice it.

When someone talks to you, you stop feeling and start thinking. You analyze their words. Form responses. Plan what you'll say next.

Your awareness moves from your body (where you feel tension, breathing, energy) into your thoughts (where you interpret, judge, problem-solve).

This is useful for many things. But disastrous for riding.

The Gift of Body-To-Body Communication

When you communicate body-to-body with your horse, nervous system to nervous system, you're forced to be present.

You can't fake it. You can't think your way through it. You have to feel.

Being present in your body removes judgment. Removes fear. Removes anxiety.

Because judgment, fear, and anxiety all live in the head. In thoughts. In stories about what should or shouldn't be happening.

When you drop into your body, those stories quiet.

That's when real communication happens.

Not despite the lack of words. Because of it.

What Your Horse Has Been Telling You

Your horse has been telling you all along. Through their body.

The stiffness to one rein might be mirroring where you hold tension.

The lameness might appear when you're anxious or bracing.

The resistance during transitions might reflect your own hesitation.

But you've been looking outside yourself for the answer.

Trying different tack. Hiring trainers. Calling bodyworkers. Spending thousands on external solutions.

When the answer lives in body-to-body communication.

How To Actually Listen

Feel where you're holding tension that your horse mirrors.

Notice your own breathing, bracing, nervous system state.

Sense when you tense up before your horse braces.

Your horse can show you through body response in real time.

When I breathe here, you soften there.

When I release this tension, you release that stiffness.

When I drop my anxiety, you drop your resistance.

Feel what's happening between two bodies.

This isn't mystical or vague. It's practical and immediate.

Your horse responds to your nervous system state before you even give a cue. They feel your tension before you squeeze. They sense your hesitation before you ask for the transition.

Body-to-body communication is faster, clearer, and more honest than any verbal conversation could ever be.

What Becomes Possible

That's where partnership lives.

The partnership we crave as human beings. To be heard, seen, felt, understood.

Trust. Love. Connection.

Not through words and explanations. Through presence and feeling.

When you communicate body-to-body with your horse, something shifts in the relationship. It becomes reciprocal. Mutual. A true dialogue without words.

Your horse shows you where you're holding tension.

You release it.

Your horse softens.

You feel that softening.

You relax more.

Your horse relaxes more.

This feedback loop creates partnership. Each of you responding to the other. Each of you present with what is.

No judgment about what should be. No fear about what might happen. No anxiety about getting it right.

Just two nervous systems communicating clearly.

The Paradox

If your horse spoke English, you'd lose the very thing you're seeking.

Body-to-body presence that removes judgment and creates real partnership.

Your horse not speaking English is the gift.

It forces you out of your head and into body-to-body communication that creates real connection.

The inability to use words is what makes the relationship so pure.

There's no miscommunication through language. No saying one thing while meaning another. No words that promise what the body doesn't deliver.

Just truth. Body to body. Nervous system to nervous system.

This is why horses are such powerful teachers. They won't accept your words. They only respond to what you actually are in that moment.

What You Actually Need

You don't need your horse to speak English.

You need to stop speaking from your head and start listening with your body.

This is a complete reversal of what most riders think they need.

They think they need more information. More understanding. More explanation of what's wrong.

What they actually need is less thinking and more feeling.

Less analyzing and more sensing.

Less figuring out and more being present.

The horses have been showing them this all along. But they've been too busy wishing for words to notice the body speaking.

The Practice

Next time you catch yourself wishing your horse could speak English, try this instead:

Spend five minutes in silence with them.

No words. Not even in your head.

Just body.

Notice where you're tense. Breathe there.

Notice where they're tense. Wait.

See what they tell you when you stop trying to translate everything into language.

The conversation might surprise you.

Not because it's complex or mysterious. But because it's so direct.

Body speaks to body. Nervous system speaks to nervous system.

Present. Clear. True.

That's the language horses speak fluently. And it's the language that creates the partnership you're seeking.

The Transformation Available

When riders stop wishing their horses could speak English and start learning to listen with their bodies, everything changes.

The lameness that wouldn't resolve through external solutions resolves when the rider releases their own bracing.

The stiffness to one rein disappears when the rider notices their own asymmetry.

The resistance in transitions dissolves when the rider stops hesitating.

The rider finally heard what the horse was saying all along.

Through body. Through presence. Through nervous system communication that doesn't need words.

This is what The Horse Listener teaches.

How to communicate body-to-body. How to be present in your nervous system so your horse can be present in theirs.

Six weeks to stop wishing for English and start listening with your body.

Because the conversation you're seeking is already happening. You just need to learn the language.

And the language isn't words. It's presence.

The Horse Listener goes live November 17th, 2025. If you want to learn how to communicate with your horse body-to-body instead of head-to-head, email [email protected] for more information.

Nika Vorster is an equine chiropractor with 30 years of experience working with horses and riders. After representing Great Britain as an equestrian and winning races as a flat jockey, she now helps riders develop the body awareness and presence that transforms both horse and rider. She splits her time between the UK and Dubai.