“there MUST be something physically WRONG with my horse” seems “in vogue” … the latest and greatest in excuses.” …

Yeah, certainly it is and has become a big excuse. That doesn’t negate the reality of it, though .. meaning many horses are reacting and behaving the way they do out of pain issues. And the more yanking and shanking and aggressive training without regard to the possibility that the horse really is in discomfort somewhere does nothing to help the situation; only makes the situation worse. I see it over and over again. Perhaps I see it alot only because I’m usually the one who gets called after the ‘training’ didn’t work or, the horse was deemed dangerous and ‘untrainable’ and the owner advised to ‘get rid of’ the horse. Then, upon closer examination we find there is an issue physically that preempted the reactive behavior of the horse and the horse really isn’t really ‘dangerous’but, instead, acting out of pain and fear (yeah – pain causes fear. –And yeah, the horse had been trying to tell *someone* that hey! I’m hurtin’ here! but no one was listening until finally the horse has had enough.) One can, if savvy and sensitive to it, “see” it upon first observation meaning, one can see the tenseness, the discomfort, the subtle cues of shortened strides, tense tail, worried eye, etc. that frequently go along with the ‘mis-behavior’. Other times one can simply say, “Oh, that guy’s got it ALL over you!” *LOL* and realize that it is the horse being a horse and the human perhaps doesn’t have as much knowledge as needed to recognize and deal with the situation. But I do like to make sure there are no physical issues before simply chalking it up to ‘bad leadership’.