if you talk to them do they understand?

I believe that all animals can hear us talking to them they just can answer back in English they answer in there own way. I have always talked to my animals and they let me know there listening.

Jockeys are hirelings, most only ride the horse a couple of times, maybe, before racing the animal. Most of the horses do have regular exercise boys, groomers and trainers. I really don't know how much most "working" racehorses get talked to. I do know that if you own a horse, you probably talk to it, to calm it, to have a sholder to cry on, for what ever you need the horse for. I think most horses will respond to the "aides" given by any rider, but my riding instructor realized that some horses responded better to one rider than another. That didn't mean that she didn't mix up the horses so that people could get practice riding different animals rather than getting used to riding one all the time. I really think that she was on to something and the worse thing you could do to a new rider is get them used to one animal only. It doesn't hurt to have the horse get used to different riders too. When I taught in college there was a horse that had been getting away with lazy behavior for so long, no one thought he could be trained out of it. I didn't know this, and, you guessed it, trained him out of it enough that he wasn't the problem he used to be for riders.

Horses can't and will never be able to understand what we say to them, as they will never speak our language. The best way to communicate is through body language and it's the only way to calm a horse down. You can speak but it's the tone of your voice rather than the words spoken. I used to talk absolute rubbish to the horse I was riding to make it calm down as I knew it didn't matter what I said. There are some people who can ride any horse. They are usually the ones who sit quiet and calmly, giving the horse the correct aids at the correct time. There isn't any mystery about horse riding.

Horses can hear the sounds that you make, but they cannot understand them unless they are trained to do so. For instance, if you train a horse to respond to voice commands, it may trot when you say "trot," canter when you say "canter," etc. They can hear this and memorize the command and what to do when they hear it, but they do not know the actual meaning of the word "trot" like we do. They just understand to move into that gait. However, if you started a conversation about your day or such, they would have no idea what you were talking about. Some people, can, in fact, "communicate" with horses through watching their body language and noises they make. Some say that they can get horses to understand what they are telling them through giving them looks or movements, but if this is really true one cannot know. In short, horses may be able to understand some things we do or say, but they cannot comprehend our language.

horses can learn to understand some words... BUT in nature horses primarily use body language to communicate and only use sound as a secondary or for when they cant see each other...