What are the signs that a horse is about to kick on the ground and how do you respond safely?

Reading the signs that a horse is preparing to kick is a critical ground safety skill, and Clinton Anderson and Pat Parelli both teach it as essential knowledge for anyone working around horses' hindquarters — which is most grooming, tacking, farrier work, and veterinary care. The most reliable warning signs that a kick is being considered include: pinned ears, a fixed, hard eye directed back at the handler, a swishing tail that is not fly-related in frequency and force, a clamped tail pulled down against the buttocks, a hip shift toward the handler, a tensing of the gluteal muscles visible through the hindquarters, and a slight shifting of weight onto one foreleg in preparation for lifting the hind. These signs rarely all appear simultaneously — the sequence is the warning, and handlers who watch for the first sign have time to respond before the kick is delivered. Clinton Anderson teaches that the correct response to these warning signs is not to move away from the horse — which teaches the horse that threat posture moves humans — but to immediately send the horse's hindquarters away with energy directed at the hip. This is the disengaging movement: the handler steps toward the horse's hip, uses the lead rope or stick to drive the hip away, and the horse is instantly required to move its hindquarters in the opposite direction from a kick. Anderson practices this regularly so that it is automatic — both for the handler and for the horse, which learns that its hindquarters are always subject to the handler's direction. Warwick Schiller adds an important diagnostic distinction: a horse that threatens to kick because its pain response is triggered — when a girth is tightened, when a sore leg is touched — is not being disrespectful but is communicating pain. Correcting a pain response without addressing the pain source creates a horse that suppresses the warning signal but remains in pain and may escalate to a more explosive response without warning later.