Pushing Through Fear

Why Hiding Uncertainty Makes Horses Feel Unsafe

By: Paulette Clark

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This book brings you into a moment many people recognise with their horse — the moment where nothing obvious is wrong, yet something inside you tightens. Your body becomes alert. Your attention sharpens. You carry on, whether you call it fear or not, because you believe you’re being sensible, responsible, and doing the right thing.

Pushing Through Fear explores a pattern that is deeply normalised in the horse world.

Sometimes it shows up as fear. Sometimes it shows up as vigilance, control, or determination. Often it looks like good horsemanship — staying steady, pushing on, not letting uncertainty get in the way. And just as often, the same logic is applied to the horse: encouraging them forward, asking them to cope, expecting them to push through discomfort in the name of progress or training.

Rather than focusing on dramatic reactions or obvious anxiety, this book examines the everyday habit of overriding — overriding tension, hesitation, or unease in yourself, and asking the horse to do the same. It shows how this well-intentioned approach shapes the horse’s experience long before any behaviour becomes a problem, and why improvement or compliance doesn’t mean the tension is gone.

Through grounded, real-life examples, Pushing Through Fear reveals why insight alone doesn’t undo this pattern, why trying harder often deepens it, and why both humans and horses can appear to cope while still carrying unresolved stress.

This book is for people who care deeply about their horses and sense that something in the relationship never truly settles — even when things seem to be going well. It offers a clear, honest way of seeing what’s been shaping the relationship beneath the surface, and why meaningful change begins not with more effort, but with recognising the cost of pushing through — for both of you.

Great insight!!

I’ve always been a “push it down and carry on” kind of person with my feelings. I had no idea how much that confuses my horse and can lead to trouble.