I’VE done a few stupid things with horses in my time, but I’ve never head-butted one. Mind you, there have been times when I’ve felt like it. Paul O’Neill, jump jockey, acted where others only dream on Sunday, when, after being dumped by City Affair, he caught the horse and head-butted it on the nose, helmet and all. Bloody fool.

Horses can be infuriating all right. That’s because — and it’s a point many people have failed to recognise — they are a different species from human beings. It is extraordinary that we understand each other as well as we do.

This is not a pure welfare issue. Certainly, racing will be embarrassed by the incident because it “looks bad”, and image matters — far more than substance — to public bodies. There is the possibility that O’Neill will be the subject of a private prosecution by the RSPCA. But I’ll tell you what the real problem is. It is bad horsemanship: of the kind that is all too deeply engrained in traditional horsemanship.

City Affair spooked and unseated O’Neill. He did so not because he was evil or vicious or bad-tempered or fractious. He did so because he was over-excited, anticipating the race that lay ahead, and a little frightened. To say that he spooked because he was “dishonest” is anthropomorphic and unhelpful.

When I first started riding, it was accepted that whacking the odd horse was a sign of confidence. You “take no nonsense”. So when a horse “misbehaves” you are encouraged to punish. Frequently, that involves punishing a horse for the crime of being frightened. This makes a horse frightened of being frightened: and voila. An endless belt of tensions.

Horse-beating is about as helpful as wife-beating. It can work in the making of a slave: but it is unhelpful in the making of a companion. Alas, many people who go into the horsey life professionally are taught that being soft with a horse is counter-productive.

But — and here’s the crucial point — you don’t find this with the best. There is a legend about the cripplingly shy Aidan O’Brien’s first and only speech to his staff at Ballydoyle: “We’ll all work very hard together and if I catch any one hitting a horse, he’s out.”

I have hit horses in the past, and I wish now that I hadn’t. It was the way I was shown: and it is not only unnecessary but actively unhelpful. My turning-point came when a horse of mine — difficult, strong-minded, worry-prone — had his trust in humans shattered by a vengeful beating performed behind my back by a female groom at a livery stable.

These days, there are all sorts of “new” methods for dealing with horses, all based around an attempt to understand the horse, rather than dictate to him. For the most part, professional horsepeople in general and racing people in particular scorn them: they are seen as sentimental and girly and inappropriate to the demands of professional life. It is a revolution spearheaded by the amateurs.

Me, I don’t see that understanding a horse is counter-productive to the idea of getting him to do his best. Punishing a horse for being frightened is not going to get you very far. With horses, far more unwanted behaviour comes from a lack of confidence than from an excess of it. That was certainly the case with City Affair. The best riders, the best trainers give, rather than take confidence.

But horses still infuriate. There is not a horseman, not a horsewoman born who has not felt the urge to head-butt. But those who rise above such urges have the better results. And those who have horses for mere pleasure (mere?) find a far more satisfactory horsey life if they don’t seek a relationship based on dominance and fear.

It is not a cruelty issue, this one, not really. It is about a fundamental error in the thinking of certain types of horsey people. A master-slave relationship seldom brings the best out of either party.

Horses don’t respond well to ill-tempered bullying. They prefer quiet people who behave with consistency and understanding. Let me tell you of a quiet miracle I once witnessed. A horse had been herded in from a tinker’s marsh into a stable. It had never been handled, it attacked anyone who tried with teeth and hooves. In the old days, you would send in three men and a gate and pin it into a corner.

My friend Juliet Isaacs walked into the box alone and within an hour, she had him in a head-collar. The following day, she was leading the horse around the yard: and then I was doing the same thing. Trust had been won. Moral: gentleness is the way of the strong-minded horseman. Head-butting is the way of the wimp.