Trust is the last thing we receive from our horses, and possibly the last thing we may notice. Most people think they have their horses' trust, but the fact of the matter is, horses have learned to tolerate our everyday dealings with them.  You can't train trust into them, even doing the exercise of JOIN UP. The horse only becomes conditioned to our presences, requests, and techniques thru our training patterns. The horse only displays to us the response he thinks you wanted with that request or cue. He could have guessed right only by luck or chance. When the cue of join up is repeated over and over again, the horse learns the proper response you want by doing the same thing, approaching us when we have our backs turned, us ignoring the horses' presence. Don't mistake it for bonding or a trusting relationship. It is a conditioned response to a certain cue. 

    In order to gain trust from our horses, we must show trust. How can a human show trust to a horse?. Your trust is shown by displaying calm confidence, knowledge and clarity in skills with handling. Over years with our consistent routine, the horse will feel secure with us and our instructions, care, judgement and leadership. This is when trust is found. Because the horses' survival is their main concern, they learn to trust us when we show them that we will not jepordize their safety or cause them any harm, now you have that trust factor. Once the horse has developed trust with us, now the horse is concerned with our wellbeing, and is more likely to risk injury to himself than cause us harm. An example of trust I witnessed was when my younger daughter's horse was galloping in the corral, she unknowingly stepped into his path, and rather than run her over, the horse threw himself out of her direction, causing him to fall. He had a choice, to run her over or risk his own safety. Thankfully, he choose to protect her. Needless to say, this horse has a good home with us until the end of his days. This horse and my daughter have a very strong bond of trust. This was not the only incident. During a parade on a rainy day, the horse fell wilth her, and rather than freak out, as expected, this horse waited until she was able to free herself before he attempted to get up. I have experienced this with other horses of mine where they have had a choice in potentially dangerous situations, where they choose my safety over theirs. If you have been in a simuliar situation, and your horse did the unexpected to insure your safety over his, then you can probably say your horse has trust in you. You can have multiple horses, but trust is what makes you feel that a particular horse is special.