The trust between horse and human can shatter in a second, but building it takes years of patience. When a foal begins training to become a top-level trotter, every gesture and every touch matters. Experienced trainer Raimo Hyvärinen knows that fear cannot be forced away – it must be faced with calm. When a horse’s gaze turns restless and an old racehorse loses its spark, the trainer is forced to look in the mirror. Covering up problems is of no help when what is at stake is the animal’s complete trust and sense of safety.
The balancing act between demanding and gentleness hangs by a hair. The horse must be taken into its discomfort zone in order to develop, yet a single wrong move can destroy everything that has been achieved. More than fifty years of experience have taught humility: mistakes happen, but what matters is how one learns from them. Can a human truly read a horse’s body language and earn its respect again every single day? Or is the ultimate obstacle after all the human’s own limitations?
