How does natural horsemanship address a horse that rears?

Rearing is among the most dangerous horse behaviors and natural horsemanship treats it with particular seriousness, combining immediate physical management with systematic training corrections that address the underlying cause rather than only the surface behavior. Natural horsemanship diagnosis of rearing recognizes several distinct causes — pain from bit or dental issues that makes the horse rear to escape rein pressure; learned rearing that has been reinforced by riders who backed off when the horse reared; rearing that reflects excess energy and inadequate forward outlet; and rearing that reflects the horse's resistance to a specific demand — and the appropriate correction differs significantly based on which cause is dominant. Pain-based rearing requires veterinary evaluation first, because training interventions applied to a horse that is rearing in response to physical pain create additional trauma rather than resolving the problem. For learned rearing, the training priority is forward movement — a horse that is genuinely forward cannot rear simultaneously, because rearing requires the horse to shift its weight backward and upward while forward movement shifts weight forward and down. Clinton Anderson's approach involves asking aggressively for forward movement the moment the horse begins to shift its weight backward in preparation for the rear, interrupting the rearing motion before it is established rather than responding after the rear is complete. The immediate physical management during an actual rear involves the rider staying with the horse rather than leaning back — leaning back on a rearing horse shifts the rider's weight further backward and can pull the horse over — and preparing to slide off or dismount to one side if the horse goes past vertical. Preventing rearing through adequate forward development and addressing the specific training gaps that make rearing the horse's chosen response to pressure is the most effective long-term approach in the natural horsemanship tradition.