If you mean rational, "figure-it-out" thinking, no. Their brains aren't built that way.
Horses are prey animals and survive by instinct. The instinctive fear of being caught by a predator and eaten alive is always number one, at the top of the list. In the wild, horses find protection by escaping the perceived predator, which is anything that they have not been trained to recognize as someone or something that's not going to eat them.
That's why you train horses but instruct their riders. But even with the best training, this fear can surface and totally control the horses’ reactions at very unpredictable times, because horses have survived by developing their abilities to both perceive and escape danger to a very high degree.
Three other closely related instincts horses live by are to survive, to eat and to reproduce. By making a colt into a gelding, we eliminate one of the instincts. A really confident rider on a well-trained horse can control most mares' instincts to reproduce, even in the height of her heat cycle. Good horse training and confident riding also can regulate the horse's desire to eat, and tell him through the rider’s body language that they will be protected from being eaten.
Another instinct is to stay with the group of horses to help ward off a predator. This is why it takes a very confident rider to ride the horse off away from its group of buddies, because you have to convince the horse that you have become the herd leader and will protect him from being eaten.
Copyright © 2008 The NW Horse Source, LLC
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