Some horses love the mental stimulation of a job. They are all so different in their personalities! I’ve seen some dull horses, some sharp horses, some goofy, some thoughtful, etc. I feel like the ones with “work ethic” are the ones that are curious and like figuring things out! It’s probably something they are born with, but handling and management can affect it too—positively and negatively.
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I have a big problem with the claim that a horse should have a “work ethic.”
Right now I ride lesson horses only. Several years ago my riding teacher asked me to take on a sort of hopeless case, an elderly QH croup high sway back low neck set horse with the worse neck/head connection of any horse I’ve even known.
This gelding, Bingo, had the direct opposite of a “work ethic”. He literally scowled the whole time anyone handled him, he did not believe in any type of cooperation with humans for any reason, he dragged himself around under a rider until he had enough, then he had this bad habit of going into reverse and keeping on backing up. This horse, in his early 20s, had NO IDEA of what a rider’s aids meant.
It took me around 2 years of being patient at 30 minutes a week. I finally got him going forward 90% of the time without problems, then my health interfered for a while and when I got better I asked for him back (my riding teacher has MANY lesson horses.)
After initially trying the super backing-up, inverted evasions I put on the double bridle because my riding teacher and I were pretty sure that he had never had such a set up in his mouth. This was to avoid triggering rather deep seated behaviors. I had taught him turns on the forehand and after a few weeks of doing TOFs when he balked or backed up he gave up these evasions.
He started relaxing his head/neck/back. He started reaching for the bits in response to my light leg aids with relaxed poll, neck and head. He started LEARNING how to relax himself when he got confused temporarily. He started asking for clarifications from me when he got confused (he was not a brainiac by any means).
This horse never developed a “work ethic”. He did relax, he did start to get interested in what I asked for (basic ABCs plus gentle development of his riding muscles enabled this), and this balking resistant badly conformed horribly dispositioned rebel without a cause became a rather sweet, pleasant, obedient riding horse. Then he started showing us what he could do with his badly conformed body and together he went a lot further than either me or my riding teacher had ever expected. It ended up so that I picked up the sense that he considered some of the stuff I asked for as “rather neat”, he got interested, and from then on he participated in his training intelligently.
He went from dead pulls on the reins and flailing of heels to a horse who responded to my fingers twitching and light pressure from my legs. No “work ethic” but he became a true pleasure to ride so long as I kept within his limitations, striding forth calmly, developing true impulse, and giving me rather good rides.
I do not care if a horse has a “work ethic”. With good basic training, clear aids, basic Forward Seat riding and training any horse that is not in horrible pain can end up, over time, LOOKING AS IF he has a “work ethic”. This is not a FAST process, but it sure does last and makes carrying a rider much more pleasant.
Of course if I had tortured this horse with harsh contact and harsher hand aids combined with ever more severe spurring he would never had looked like he ever would work and cooperate with his rider. “Come to Jesus” explosions from his rider would have destroyed any cooperation permanently.
He ended up being such a sweet and cooperative riding horse, one who I looked forward to riding.
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Interesting but I think you are oversimplifying things. We don’t manage our horses like wild herds. Their behavior is shaped in breeding and captivity and they are very very different than wild horses.
Domestic horses are motivated by more than fear or pain or food. If that weren’t the case they’d all be content to be potatoes in a field with friends as long as nothing hurt too bad. But that’s clearly not reality. My horse would absolutely lose her mind without the extra stimulation of a job—some need a job, because it’s how they were bred and raised. It’s not anthropomorphic to say so. Just look at dog breeding to see how different behavior traits can be selected for.
Figuring out what motivates your particular horse is really the key.
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I do think they go hand in hand and if you look at how horses interact with each other you can see that respect for the “alpha” ( or the one in charge) is definitely something each horse learns and it is something they must learn with every new horse they live closely with.
This is why I think that some of OP’s problems are from the horse testing him/ her. It happens more often than you think for someone to buy a well trained, safe horse with seemingly no vices and have a completely unruly and seemingly unridable horse in an alarming amount of time.
A horse learns to respect the one who teaches them to but the next handler must establish themselves in that role as well. It isn’t transferred with the bill of sale.
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I looked up a definition:
- the principle that hard work is [intrinsically, virtuous ] or worthy of reward.
While I agree that horses don’t think as we do and this definition doesn’t apply to them mentally, they do learn to work hard and in most cases willingly for us, when we do as you did for this lesson horse gelding you took on.
It takes training on our part that enables the horse to learn what we are asking. It takes us listening to the horse, being patient and kind when they resist but also to keep on trying to find a way to train that the horse can understand. The reward for the horse is a release of pressure and something they can all relate to .
Sounds like that gelding did indeed develop a work ethic.
Thought-provoking comments. Thank you for posting. i’m not going to take sides you or candyappy on this; I will just say that you’ve made a good argument here against the theory of evolution. Considering that horses have been being domesticated by humans for millennia in order to be used by humans for millennia, if one believed in evolution one could suppose that after all this time horses would have lost some of their instinctive needs “to be horses” and started displaying a good work ethic or a bad one based on their breeding.
Or can’t a good work ethic be bred for along with, say, speed and the “will to win”?
Just right off the top of my head re: work ethic: Hastings - Fair Play (x Mahubah) - Man o’ War.
Or was Hastings’ “meanness” due to pain or poor saddle fit, I wonder?
Completely off topic, but we haven’t domesticated horses for “millennia”, rather for (only) a few thousand years. And evolution is, as a rule, much slower than that 
Edited because I am too picky about punctuation
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Lots of horses would lose their mind without a job - if they are kept in a stall most of the time, and a small turnout the rest of the time.
I think 99.9% of horses would be absolutely content to never work again - so long as they have ample turnout in safe, balanced herds, and enough to eat and drink.
Being “bored” isn’t really a horse trait. Being confined is obviously not going to suit most of them.
Any updates @Ridethroughit23
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Domestic horses didn’t evolve naturally.
They were selectively bred.
Change can happen rapidly with selective breeding.
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So, I agree that in theory all horses should have 24/7 turnout with appropriate friends in enriching settings as possible… 99% of horses do not have access to that. We do the best we can. And our horses are mostly not blank slates when we get them— they do not always do best in so called “ideal” situations because of their breeding and training. My horse gets 16-20 hours a day on good pasture with a few quiet friends. She still gets bored and displays undesirable behavior and unsoundness if she doesn’t get enough work. She was bred for racing and later performed for years as a show jumper. You don’t just undo that with turnout. I worry about her soundness and happiness in retirement because she has all of that baggage plus some physical baggage that requires she stay pretty fit to stay comfortable. What I’m saying is that you work with what you have, and sometimes (most times) that means you have a horse with special needs and desires that aren’t the same as feral horses. So, the suggestions to OP about keeping her horse working to engage its brain are not coming from a bad place. Her horse may need and like the routine and work.
Anyway, in OP’s case I think I suggested shoes, and to check teeth. Wonder how OP’s horse is doing!
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My palomino Half Arab mare lives out in a herd on acreage. When she gets what she deems to be “too much” time off, she starts amusing herself by destroying anything within reach. A short list of examples includes: pulling a gutter down off the barn, disassembling a window air conditioning unit I never would have believed she could reach, digging down 3’+ to pull the underground electric wire for my fence up, dragging a solid oak 4’x8’ sliding door off the tracks, and climbing on the run-in wall to chew through the ropes I used to hang fly traps.
Being “bored” is absolutely a thing for very smart horses with excellent work ethics. These horses, however, are much less common than the “eff you and the horse you rode in on - I’m not gonna” types, sadly.
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Again, I don’t think this has anything to do with “work ethic.” It’s breed type, temperament, and intelligence, and environment.
Yes, of course horses that are limited in their activities might become curious, annoying or destructive. That’s normal, even if it’s not desirable. And it’s likely to be something that we see in young and adolescent animals more than older ones, but even still, there are likely to be those rambunctious individuals. We might see it more in athletic breeds than in plow horses. We might see it more in intelligent horses than in less intelligent.
But they would probably be like that even if never handled or ridden their entire lives.
Training becomes a routine for horses, but it doesn’t define their temperament, and it’s not entirely about the horse - it’s about the trainer too. It’s possible (and hopefully occurs often) to select for breeding in part because of the temperament of the animal.
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My horse is not “limited in her activities”. Nor is she rambunctious.
I guess you have to experience these very smart, genuinely want to work horses to understand them. It’s far more than temperament.
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But you are saying that her “willingness to work” is something she was born with - I call that temperament. You can call it ‘work ethic’ but I don’t think that makes sense. If she were trained by an abusive trainer, she might not be “willing to work.” She would still be as intelligent, curious, and as likely to get into trouble in turnout.
She sounds like a Border Collie, which people warn against getting unless you can “give them a job.” But whether you give them a job or not, or train them to do a specific job, they will find ways to keep busy. Just not necessarily in the way you would like them to be. You can shape that by training them, but it doesn’t go away if you don’t shape it. My hunting dogs will hunt whether I want them to or not.
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Willingness to work is completely separate from temperament.
There are plenty of horses that are very willing to work but hot/reactive or spooky. Take your stereotypical Thoroughbred or some of the intensely competitively bred Arabians. I’d liken these to the Border Collie types.
There are horses that are hot/reactive AND lack work ethic.
There are horses that are very quiet and easy-going but lack work ethic. They are easy to train but will never give you one iota of effort they don’t have to. These types make great lesson horses, beginner trail horses, etc.
And then there are horses like my girl, who are both very quiet and a strong willingness to work. These types will spoil you for all the others. 
I call her an 1,100 pound Golden Retriever (the good kind - lol - not the backyard poorly bred kind).
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Ok. I will continue to disagree. “Work ethic” implies that they understand the value of work, which they don’t.
I think you’re describing “biddable” which is a temperament trait. Golden Retrievers are supposed to be biddable - which makes them good at obedience, even though they are not the most intelligent breed. They were bred as companion hunters, and thrive on positive reinforcement/reward. But the same dog could be just as biddable at being your snuggly pet, with or without a job.
Other breeds, let’s say Siberian Husky - are bred to be independent and willful. That doesn’t give them a poor work ethic, they are actually really hard workers when trained and on a schedule. But they are bred to have that temperament, for obvious reasons - and then it is either maximized or not through appropriate training.
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It’s more than biddability.
As I have said multiple times, the equine version of “work ethic” is not identical to the human emotion. It’s more than being good natured and obedient. It’s a desire to do something, especially to do something with/for their humans. Call it whatever you want, but it does exist.
And on that note, I’m off to take advantage of this characteristic. My golden pony has taught herself to push the wheelbarrow so she can “help” me pick the run-ins and dry lot. I don’t really care WHY she chose to learn this trick, but I sure appreciate the help! 
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I have a horse that I would say doesn’t have a strong “work ethic.” He wasn’t started until he was 6, through no fault of his own…was just on a pro’s back burner.
I have been very careful to manage his training such that I take advantage of his natural desire to not work hard. When he is good, his schools are short…not afraid to put him away after 20 minutes if he does everything I request promptly. When he is more sullen/uncooperative, he works hard.
I am very careful not to drill him, because he resents being asked to do the same thing over and over if he has done it correctly. He gets easily frustrated learning new things, but genuinely wants to try.
He also has a strong sense of Justice…if I touch him with whip or spurs and he feels it wasn’t necessary, he will kick out. If he knows he deserved it, no reaction.
He is a very good boy and is doing really well in his career, but he could be fried/ruined quite easily in the wrong hands.
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This was my experience almost to a T. I had a footsore, NPA horse who in turn became ulcery and backsore. He tossed me so hard I ended up unconscious in the hospital about a month after I got him, which started us down the path to find all of these issues. We treated the ulcers and addressed his feet, but there were still some lingering behavioral issues and a lot of fear on my part. With our vet’s blessing, I handed him off to my trainer for 3 months and she worked with him 3-4x a week and gave me a lesson each week. I got back a totally different horse - the one I’d tried and fallen in love with. He’d lost so much muscle and fitness while we contended with his pain issues that it presented another uphill battle to reestablish his conditioning and my confidence.
A good vet workup should almost always be the first step, but don’t count out the value of a good trainer in combination with that.
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Thank you for saying it so much better than I did!! That is it.
I really believe if you are lucky enough to consistently ride and train enough horses in your lifetime you will have a few of these gems. I have and there is nothing like it.
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