Horses by their very nature, excel at forgiveness.
Watch some herd dynamics and you’ll see that while there can be some very articulate discussions over herd dynamics or access to food, they are brief. Horses move on. They don’t hold a grudge. At least not much.
Under saddle, forgiveness in horses is also described as “being able to take a joke.” That’s the horse that doesn’t overreact when you catch them in the mouth over a fence, or get them to a wrong spot.
It’s a horse that puts up with you when you are having a bad day and get frustrated when your ride doesn’t go as planned. But it’s also important that we give horses that same type of forgiveness. We need to stop riding defensively, anticipating a problem, just because there was one the last time we rode.
We need to learn the concept of forgiveness from our horses and move on.
"Forgive and move on" as once my father has said.