132 SIDELINES JANUARY 2013
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
By Dani Moritz
T
his year, researcher Kerry Thomas published his frst
book, “Horse Profling: The Secret to Motivating Equine
Athletes.” The book is based upon the business he
founded in 2008 - Thomas Herding Techniques (THT).
Although his concept of horse profling is relatively new, it’s
already taken hold in parts of the industry such as Thoroughbred
racing and Kerry is confdent more and more horse owners will
take advantage of its benefts.
Kerry developed horse profling after studying the behavior
and social structures of wild horses in the lands of Wyoming and
Montana. Because he is color blind, Kerry had to pay particularly
close attention to them to be able to identify members of the herd.
In the end, his handicap became his strength by helping him
develop a keen awareness of the horses’ behavior and their
relationship to the herd. “I thought, wow, there’s a lot of complex
things going on here,” he said. “I wonder how much we can learn
from this living laboratory that can be applied that we aren’t
applying?”
Hence, he developed an understanding for horses’ emotional
confrmation - or psyche. In studying herd behavior, Kerry learned
that horse’s emotional presence or emotional conformation
governs their place in the herd, not the physical presence that
humans tend to notice.
With this information, he created a profling technique that
seeks to understand a horse’s natural strengths and weaknesses,
mental capacity and perception of stimulus. With this information,
or profle, he can then fnd innovative ways to create environments
and training that will help that horse succeed in their feld or
identify disciplines young horses will excel in. “I’m trying to provide
additional tools for riders and trainers’ toolbox by helping them to
identify the pieces of the puzzle that makes up who the horse is
and to try and offer an outside the box view,” he said.
After getting his start by volunteering for therapeutic riding
and wellness programs, Kerry now predominantly works in the
thoroughbred racing industry; but has worked in other disciplines
as well, including dressage, eventing and polo. He even has
an international presence and has worked with Princess Alia of
Amman, Jordan at the Royal Stables.
Understanding
Our Horses
Kerry offers basic equine profling and the option of a
recommendation for the horses’ training based on their profle.
He has a farm base and training facility outside of Lexington,
Kentucky where clients can bring their horses to him and he also
travels to clients’ farms.
He recently introduced micro-facial expression analysis from
flm footage and videos. “Myself and my team will analyze in a
frame by frame analysis to look for anomalies in motion, look for
interpretation issues and stimulus, the push and pull while they’re
moving - all these things that you can’t identify by the naked eye
in real time,” he said.
Kerry has found this method particularly successful when
profling dressage horses. “Dressage horses have a very unique
psychological make up,” he said. “They have to be able to feel
everything in a very large spectrum around them with their ears;
but not typically react to any one of those things.” Through micro-
facial analysis, Thomas is able to pick up on the subtle clues
dressage horses give out.
Kerry has profled dressage horses along side trainer, coach
and USEF S judge Tom Poulin and has become fascinated by
the skill, talent and beauty of ‘the dance.’ “I am now beginning
to quantify the study of the equine conformation best suited for
dressage to continue to build a database of information that will
greatly assist pre-purchase evaluations and investment decisions
for our clients.”
He is also beginning to dig deeper in eventing and polo sports;
Kerry says require extremely effcient communication qualities
and a high mental capacity. “Identifying these core ingredients of
communication that your horse has is going to help you understand
the spectrum of your horse in how far you think your horse can go
and if that horse is right for you,” he said.
One horse at a time, Kerry looks forward to helping people
better understand horses.
About the writer: Dani Moritz is a senior at William Woods
University and is a writer/producer and creative director
for RateMyRiding.com. She is also the 2012 American Horse
Publications Student Award Winner and a staff writer for Sidelines
Magazine.
Thomas works with a horse
owned by Lester Buckley, of
Buckley Sport Horses.
Photo by Mary Buckley Photography