Featured Articles

​May, 2025

Greater Ellicottville Living Magazine

The Path to Common Sense on the Back of a Horse

By: Istvan Hernek 

 

Stop. Watch. Listen.

 

Three simple yet powerful words—words we should never be without. This compelling mantra invites us to recapture the fundamental principles that brought us to where we are as human beings. More importantly, it re-blends our connection with the creatures we share this planet with.

 

As many of you know, I’m a passionate advocate for human-horse relations. We all have animals we love—pets whose gentle actions and instinctive reactions often seem like poetry in motion, as they respond to the conduits we become in their lives.

 

But before we really get rolling, let me pose a question:

 

Did anyone stop, watch, and listen when we transitioned away from using animals—especially horses, mules, and donkeys—for farming and transportation? These were not just tools, but living collaborators in our pursuit of survival, especially in growing the vegetation that sustains us and bringing us from one destination to another. 

 

Yes, we can live on what the Earth provides—plants, grains, fruits, and vegetables—without relying on carnate substances. But this isn’t a dietary manifesto. I’m not here to convert you to veganism or omnivorism.

 

This is something deeper.

 

Let’s take a look back to when our species, Homo sapiens, began to wander off course. We started to lose our intimate connection with other species—and by “intimate,” I mean we depended on them to survive. Not just for consumption. Not simply as anonymous meat packed and wrapped hundreds of miles away, tossed on a stove at a moment’s notice, without a single thought of hunting, planting, or nurturing.

 

“I believe this loss of connection is a major misstep in our cultural and intellectual evolution.”

 

Even as we’ve leaned into mechanical and digital solutions, we would have done well to preserve our working relationships with animals—not just as pets, but as partners in transportation, farming, and living.

 

Here’s the thing: keeping animals only as pets puts both species—human and animal—into a synthetic environment.

 

“I’ve spent my life around all kinds of animals, but my deepest insights have come from growing up with horses and working with farm animals.”

 

I’ve relied on horses to help me manage cattle, move them from one pasture to another, and maintain the health of the land in a cycle of rotation. This isn’t just quaint nostalgia—it’s practical genius rooted in natural law.

 

Now, to keep this short and sharp, let’s get right to the point:

 

We’ve lost our edge.

 

Over the last few generations, we’ve seen a steady erosion in our ability to creatively solve problems. And here comes the eye-opener: this decline is directly linked to our move away from animal partnership—especially in transportation and farming.

 

Science has shown that firing the synapses in our brain is like mental gymnastics—it keeps us sharp, adaptive, and capable of complex thought. So let’s examine where we may have strayed, using a simple but powerful comparison.

 

A motorcycle is a mechanical imitation of a horse.

 

A tractor? A mechanical imitation of a draft horse—or better yet, a team of them.

 

An automobile is simply a mechanical version of a horse-drawn carriage.

 

Teaching someone to ride a motorcycle and teaching someone to ride a horse share surface similarities: stop, start, steer—what I call the “SSS” method. But here’s where it diverges drastically.

 

“With a motorcycle, you twist the throttle, hit the brakes, lean into a turn—and the machine responds the same way every time. But with a horse, every input—the reins, the legs, the seat, even your energy—receives a unique response. Every. Single. Time.”

 

That’s the magic. That’s the challenge. That’s the brain-builder.

 

You don’t just operate a horse—you engage in an ongoing, moment-by-moment conversation. The horse reacts, and you must creatively interpret, adjust, recalculate. You’re solving problems in microseconds. It’s fluid, dynamic, and never the same twice.

 

And it doesn’t stop there.

 

“You also care for the horse. Feed it. Water it. Clean up after it. Maintain its health.”

 

This is not a one-button machine. It’s a partnership that builds layers of responsibility, intuition, and connection—skills that form the foundation of a strong, intelligent, and capable human being.

 

Now imagine the complexity of managing two or more horses pulling a carriage, or guiding a plow across a field. That takes mental agility and physical awareness on a level that today’s digital systems don’t even come close to tapping.

 

In losing this, we’ve short-circuited our own development.

 

Where children once rode horses before they could even tie their shoes, solving problems alongside animals from their earliest years, we now see a growing intellectual void. A creative deficit. A slide toward what I call the “primitive human state”—a segregated, disconnected way of living.

 

So, to sum it up:

 

Get a horse.

 

Seriously—park one in your garage if you can.

 

And if not, find a place where you can spend time with them. Ride them. Care for them. Learn from them.

 

“They will open up pathways in your mind and heart that you didn’t know were closed. They will make you wiser. Kinder. Smarter. Stronger.”

 

God bless you all—and go equestrian!