Is a high head the sign of a disobedient horse?

Is a horse, carrying its head high, a sign they are resisting you?

Is that resistance then disobedience?

For a long period of my riding career exactly that. I thought a horse flexed through the neck and soft in the mouth was submission and anything else was resistance.

A horse that worked with its head up or out was being disobedient.

And then I became a trainer and rode professionally…

And I quickly learnt that a horse could still work with its head up and have submission and that initially green horses and green broken horses do need to lift their head and work for periods of time with their head up.

Whether their head was in the air had nothing to do with how submissive they were.

A horse that works with its head up can still listen perfectly to the halt aid and the steering.

In fact in my experience I have found more horses with better submission working out of a frame then in a frame.

Think about it - how does a horse differentiate between the aid that asks it to tuck their nose and the aid that ask them to stop? The aid is essentially the same - (preferrably) a light, backwards pressure on the reins.

An experienced rider will say seat, of course.

But there are a lot of riders that don’t yet know how to ride with their seat, that can tuck their horses head into a false frame and then the horse has now lost its brakes. So they put on harsher bits and nose bands to try and get the brakes working but what is truly missing is the communication.

But its not just the rider, sometimes it’s the horse.

It can take a little bit even when using the seat for the horse to differentiate between a frame aid and a halt aid, especially if they have been trained without that differentiation previously. Even if they have had that differentiation trained in, with a different ride who doesn’t use their seat the same the horse can still get confused.

So the type of riding that is typically called resistance under saddle I would say is more closely akin to limited musculoskeletal development than actually resisting and challenging the aid.

My green horses on training these days have far better submission to the aids while working hollow than the horses I trained for frame equals submission in my younger years, because submission has to do with communication whereas frame has to do with musculoskeletal development.

And it isn’t easy to get there. It doesn’t happen over night.

I remember as a kid my idealised instructor got a new horse that was green and was not yet ready to work in a frame. I saw her riding it hollow and thought well maybe she isn’t as good of a rider as I thought. Maybe it was just the horse that was not good.

It takes a green broken horse with no injuries or trauma at least 6 months to 2 years to work steadily and consistently in a working frame that positively compliments the musculoskeletal system - and that’s something we don’t talk about enough.

It’s not an easy process to develop the forwardness, engagement, swing, elasticity, core, topline elasticity and postural skills for the horse to work in good self carriage AND understand its aids well that perfectly primes it for the balance needed for the career we are hoping to follow with our horse.

This is why we developed a whole course for it.

If you are not sure what a healthy working frame, self carriage and good aids should look like so that you are ready for collection, then check it out.

When the correct rising diagonal feels wrong...

Why does the correct rising trot diagonal sometimes feels wrong?

Maybe you sometimes think you’re on the correct rising trot diagonal and look down to check and its wrong?

Or do you find every time you swap over to the correct diagonal, your horse throws you back over to the incorrect diagonal?

I have a little secret for you…

What you are feeling when you are feeling for the correct rising trot diagonal is the inside hind coming through. When it comes through, it lifts your inside hip higher than the outside hind.

If your horse has dropped the inside hip and disengaged it, it actually makes it feel like you’ve got the incorrect rising trot diagonal when you actually have the correct rising trot diagonal.

This is because the outside hind is coming through and supporting your weight.

Furthermore, if your horse also has a weak back, they will be trying to balance you with their shoulders or the outside hind.

So you can be finding that every time you switch over to the correct rising trot diagonal it feels wrong or jarring or your horse itself gets uncomfortable and bounces you back onto the other diagonal (I’ve met a couple of these!)

These horses in particular will also most likely have trouble with getting one of their canter leads.

That’s why, sometimes, the correct rising diagonal feels wrong.

Want some more help with understanding what you’re feeling in the saddle?

Make sure you’re on our email list for our Riding with Heart Workshop, where we will be giving away a bunch of free tips on developing feel and connection in the saddle.

Can't learn feel? Watch me teach it!

Have you been told feel can’t be taught?

I have seen it said by instructors throughout my career that feel can’t be taught.

And its always made me query that comment, because that’s one of the most important things that I teach.

I think the biggest mistake an instructor can make when it comes to this comment is perceiving what they think what they are seeing feels like. And I think this confuses a lot of students and makes them lose confidence in themselves and their feel because it doesn’t match what the instructor says they should be feeling.

There are 2 things that need to happen for the eyes on the ground and the feel in the saddle to match:

1. The eyes on the ground actually need to have ridden the horse!! There are so many times where I’ve had to jump on the horse and figure out what I’m seeing feels like. I’ve also had a handful of horses that just are so awkward and difficult to ride that it allows for a little compassion towards my students.

2. As coaches and instructors we need to listen!! What our students are experiencing and feeling shouldn’t be dismissed. I find that the most common reason for an instructor dismissing what a student is feeling is they feel insecure in what they are teaching or that they’ve missed something. When an instructor is confident in the process and what they are doing, listening to the student becomes vital to their students growth and development so they can do the work in between without them.

An example of this: I was coaching Sarah on one of the school horses we both ride. She made a comment about him being “off” - just couldn’t pick it. On the ground, I was seeing a horse that was indicating he wanted to pee but wasn’t, and she was feeling a horse that didn’t seem to connect.

Hoped off, untacked and turned loose (and also had to turn our backs), one giant pee later and we had a sound horse! This is where it pays to now what the horse should feel like AND to listen to your student.

How confident are you with what you’re feeling in the saddle?

Join our free workshop “Riding With Heart”, where I will be teaching how to develop feel and connection in the saddle and build your confidence in interpreting your horses cues while being ridden.

What is Bridle Lameness and how do you avoid it?

Have you ever had a situation where your horse perfectly sound on the ground, but get in the saddle and their stride becomes irregular, short, choppy, hindquarters not tracking up and even lame?

This is possibly something known as Bridle Lameness. And it is becoming increasingly common in the equine world.

When we are working our horse through and into contact, part of the process is showing our horses how to move freely within the restraint of the aids.

If our horses feel contact and are not yet accepting or working into contact our contact can create restrictions in the range of movement. It grounds the movement as our horses brace into their body to balance against the bit pressure instead of feeling the bit pressure and lifting into it.

When we are getting our horses to work into contact, what we are doing is getting our horse to feel the freedom of movement within the restraints of the aids.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: bridle pressure, whether bitted or bitless, is not natural and inhibits our horses’ balance.

Add to that the human on the back which they have to carry, which isn’t necessarily always balanced itself and changes the horses center of gravity and how they have to carry themselves.

Our horses instinct isn’t to softly follow and accept the contact. Its instinct is to pull into and against the contact to balance itself. If a horse is working with unsteady hands it can also try and “find the quiet” by going above or behind the bit, or even pulling in to the bit to try and hold it steady in its mouth.

When our horses “balance against the bit”, they use parts of their body that impede their true balance from their core and center of gravity. They do this by twisting at the pole, dropping the shoulder or the hip or bracing their underneck. All these actions affect our horses ability to move functionally and “work over the back”. Ie work with good posture and freedom of movement.

So if you have had a horse in and out of work because them constantly seem to be coming up lame, it could be the way they are using themselves when working under saddle.

We have a couple of things at Equestrian Movement that we do for this:

• Rein back over a pole. Rein back over a pole - when done correctly - shows them how to lift through their legs while rein pressure is being applied (again, whether bitless or bitted) so that it encourages them to engage their core and not ground their their legs to balance

• In hand work. I like to do in hand work to show the horses how to work in to contact and find their own center of gravity and balance with bit pressure before adding the rider and asking them to also balance the human

• Timing and feel. The biggest inhibition to your horse moving freely under saddle in contact is the timing of your aid. If you can’t feel what their legs are doing you are potentially grounding the movement just by when you apply your leg and rein aid combination.

Are you having problems keeping your horse sound, working over their back and accepting contact?

Enrolments for our course Green to Self Carriage are opening shortly, where we address and go deep into detail on how to work your horse correctly for a working frame and self carriage so that it enhances their quality of pace and makes movement feel good.

How do you compare with other horse owners?

How do you compare with other horse riders?

Or owners?

Or trainers?

I have one statement for you:

You don’t.

Another’s journey isn’t the same that you are taking, so YOU shouldn’t be the same. It is also true for your horse.

Yet we often fall into the trap of comparing our progress to others, to help us bench mark our own progress.

Another person is going to differ from us in so many ways.

• mindset

• health

• training and experience

• ultimate desire

are just a few examples of significant differences. Then we add our horses to the mix too!

Instead of comparing yourself to others, why not spend some time considering your own true path. The path that will make you happiest. The path that you can fit into your lifestyle.

Once you know what that is, you can move forward, and then you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else, because there is noone else on this journey but you.

Would you like to talk to us about your path and how you can bring your horse on that journey? Send us an email!

Slowly. But Surely

When I wrote this installment, it had been 14 days since we started treating Stella for ulcers. 

If you remember from my last post, we were hoping to see a little improvement by day three, and real improvement by day five.

You can imagine my disappointment when, on day three, there was no improvement whatsoever.

Day four? About the same. 

Day five brought a pony who was still too sensitive to be groomed, and couldn't even tolerate being in the indoor arena, let alone doing any work (her first trip back into the arena began with a series of rears, and when I let her off the leadline to see if she would play a little bit, she stood dejectedly by the door with her head down).

I was just about to give up hope.

Then, on day six, something changed.

Nothing big.

Nothing that anyone else would even really notice.

On day six, when I went out to her paddock to bring her in, she came over to the gate to greet me.

Which she hadn't done in... well... ever.

After that, there were some signals (obvious and not-so-obvious) that she was on the mend. She was a little bit of a happier pony. She was a little less reactive to every. single. thing. (although she still had moments where she seems very nervous in her stall, or coming in from the paddock).

In the arena, she was coming along. We "worked" her about every second day (and by "work" I mean a combination of free lungeing, lungeing and ground work, in a halter or her bridle, without a saddle). She was pretty tricky to bring along in those early days. Her first instinct was still to go up on her hind legs, although that seemed to now only happen right at the beginning of a lungeing session, and I don't think it was necessarily pain related, because once she got going, she seemed pretty happy to keep going.

Her stride had improved, and was almost back to where it was when I first got her. She stretched her head and neck down a lot, and really started to relax after she'd been working for a few minutes.

If you didn't know something was wrong, well, you'd never have known something was wrong.

The only real left-over from the stilted, painful 'ulcer-trot' was that she never really relaxed her tail. During the worst of the ulcer pain, she held her tail out stiffly and cocked off to the right. Now it was straighter, but it took a while for her to relax it, and it didn’t really "swing" the way it used to.

Of course at this point it was still very early days. We were only at day fourteen of treatment, and it actually ended up taking over fifty days of Gastrogard to get this ulcer gone. Which makes me think it was a bad one, and that it had been there for awhile.

I wasn’t even thinking about riding her at this point. Heck, I wasn’t even thinking about putting a saddle on her. I refused to do that until I was relatively certain that the pain was gone.

The thing that mattered most (scratch that. The only thing that mattered) was getting this pony pain-free.

The difference in demeanour between ulcer-pony and non-ulcer-pony would break your heart. For her to go from a pony who was standing at the back of her stall shaking with nervousness, to the sweet, loving pony that she is now... well, like I said, the only thing that mattered was getting pain-free.

I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet with Stella. And even once the physical pain was gone, a whole lot of re-training had to happen to get her back on the right track. Once she was pain free, we went right back to the basics to begin the long, slow process of starting over. 

But I knew that we would get there. And this pony would lead a calm, happy life. That was my promise to her.

A couple of things I learned from this whole blasted experience:

1. You can have all the big plans you want, but in the end, you need to do what's best for the horse. Period. I will never allow this pony to be in a position ever again where she is stressed to the point that it threatens her well-being. Her entire life, and all of my plans for her will now revolve around her being happy and healthy. She is too important to me to have it any other way.

2. Always look for a physical problem before you assume something is behavioural. It really worries me to think of all the horses out there who have been labelled "bad", but are probably just in pain. Horses are very good at telling us that something is wrong. We just really need to learn how to listen.

3. Young horses need exposure. Babies need to be allowed (or sometimes taught) to be curious by being quietly introduced to everything under the sun, right from the start of their lives. They need to learn to go on trailers and walk over tarps and play games. They need to learn that going somewhere new is a normal part of life. That there's a nice, big, fun, beautiful world outside the pasture fence, and that it's really nothing to worry about.

Loved hearing Stella’s story?

Head over to the Horse & Human Wellness Project to keep up to date with her progress.

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

The U word

After Tuesday's bucking bronco debacle, I wasn't too keen on putting a saddle back on Stella anytime soon.

It was very obvious to me that there was something about it that she couldn't tolerate, and I was really starting to second guess whether or not her new saddle really did fit her.

In my heart of hearts I really didn't believe that to be true. I'd been so careful about the fit, and had tried so many saddles that didn't fit, I felt certain this one did.

But the difference between "pony with saddle" and "pony without saddle" was so obvious, I started tentatively (and half-heartedly) thinking about another saddle shopping excursion.

My coach, Wylie hadn't been at the barn the last time I'd lunged Stella, so I went back out on Wednesday so I could show her how things were looking. While I groomed, Stella was definitely still showing signs of a sore stomach, swinging her head back with a stern look whenever I touched behind her elbows, or around her sternum. This gave me a little bit of hope about the saddle fit - there was still absolutely no pain anywhere along her back or loins.

I took her out without her saddle, and it was pretty obvious that the pain was not saddle-related. My poor pony, who had stunned me with her beautiful, forward, flowing trot the first time I met her, was now not even tracking up. She looked dejected, her eye seemed troubled, and she was short-strided and tight in front and behind. The way she was "holding" her belly (you could see her ab muscles working to try to keep the belly still) made it very clear. This was not saddle pain. This was a gut issue.

Wylie said, "she's getting weirder". And that was the truth.

I took her temperature, pulse & respiration (all normal). She was eating, drinking and pooping. This was not colic.

This could be... gulp... the dreaded U word.

I fed her a treat (yes, I know. No treats for Stella. But if there was any time for an exception to the rule, this was it) and tucked her in.

I felt horrible.

It was killing me to see my pony in such pain.

Friday afternoon, the vet came. He did a quick examination (during which she almost bit him when he touched her sternum area). Not surprisingly, the pain response seemed as bad as, if not worse than the last time he'd seen her almost a week and a half earlier. If you recall, at that point, we'd suspected ovary pain, or some sort of heat-related issue. Obviously that was not the case.

He asked to see her lunged first without the saddle, then with. I brought her out to the arena and sent her out on the end of the lunge line. She immediately exploded and started bucking. So things had gotten worse (last time I lunged her without tack she was definitely not bucking). She also demonstrated her short-stridedness, as well as a new tendency she'd developed of, post-explosion, lowering her head and shaking it as she trotted along.

We took her back to her stall to put her saddle on (which almost killed me. I couldn't believe I was doing the thing to her that hurt her most... again. But we had to get to the bottom of it, so I petted her, apologized, and did up the girth).

She was obviously not happy with the process.

I had a bad feeling about taking her back out into the arena tacked up. Nonetheless, off we went, me and my little trouper of a pony. As soon as I tried to move her out away from me, she spun to face me and started running backwards. This was not going to happen. I couldn't bear it any longer.

I looked at my vet and he said "Take the saddle off. I don't need to see any more."

When I took the saddle off, Stella seemed a little more comfortable, but she had a dull, pained look in her eye and she just seemed... tired. Like she was waaaaaay over this. I scratched her forehead and fussed with her forelock and ears and she leaned her head into me.

It was time to fix this.

We started her right away on Gastroguard, an orally-administered paste which should reduce the production of stomach acid. According to my vet, if the issue really is ulcers, she should start to feel relief in about three days, with peak-effectiveness at the five day mark.

As you can imagine, I'm counting down the hours until my pony starts to feel better. At this point, I'm actually hoping it is an ulcer, because at least then we can get to work on healing it. And if it's not, then we don't know what the heck it is, and I just need this pony's pain to stop.

It used to be that people thought only race horses got ulcers. Now, however, there is quite a bit of research to show that they can be caused by as little as the act of exposing horses to weekend show conditions. If I think of all of the changes Stella has been through since I got her last summer, it really wouldn't be surprising if she had developed one as well:

• For the first six years of her life she lived a low-stress life, mostly outside, with her herd

• Her first trip off her farm was a three hour trailer ride to a brand new barn, leaving her herd behind

• Three months later we moved to her current barn, including some fairly intense trailer loading training, another trailer ride, and another new herd of friends to get used to (plus, for the first time, being stabled at night and out in a paddock during the day)

• Her training started in earnest a month ago, when we finally found a saddle to fit her

• She moved to a new paddock a little over three weeks ago, with a new paddock mate and a new group of friends

This little mare has been through more changes in the past five months than many horses go through in years.  So if ulcers really can be brought on by stress and change, then it would be no surprise to find that she had one.

I think that some horses are much more capable of handling changes than others, and having spent six years of her life with very few changes to begin with probably made it all the more traumatic for Stella. She is a surprisingly sensitive little horse, and it's entirely possible that this was all just a little too much for her.

If ulcers are truly the problem, then it will become my mission in life to bring Stella along to her full potential with as little stress as possible. She will require constant, careful monitoring and some small adjustments to her lifestyle, but I know we'll be able to make it work.

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

Spring ahead, fall back part 2

I still didn’t know what was the matter with Stella.

But, to summarize from Part 1, the ways Stella tried to tell me something was wrong were vast and varied:

1. anxiety and nervousness on the cross ties, when she's normally very quiet;

2. biting while I was brushing her sides;

3. increasing fussiness when being tacked up;

4. getting "stuck" at the mounting block - not wanting to walk on after I had mounted;

5. not wanting to stand still while I tightened her girth from the saddle;

6. and finally, on the night of my last ride, anxiety escalating to "naughtiness" at the mounting block.

I told all of this to our vet, Trevor, when he came out to see Stella on the Monday night after the rearing incident.

As we stood in Stella's stall talking about it, she was sweet and loving toward Trevor (as usual. Like I said, she's the sweetest pony I know). But the moment he ran his hand over her girth area, she swung her head around, almost violently, as though to bite.

He felt every other inch of her body, palpating and manipulating her withers, spine, muscles along the back, her loins, her hindquarters, everywhere. There were no other places that caused her even to flinch. I was happy that we could rule out back pain, but as soon as he came back to the girth area, the violent head swing happened again.

At least we had been able to narrow it down to where she was hurting. Now we just had to figure out why.

Trevor had a couple of ideas off the top of his head as to what it could be. Looking back on the events leading up to the incident, the first thing that came to mind was that this was pain associated with Stella being in heat. Now, I don't know how many of you have mares, but those who do know that being in season can bring on some very odd behaviours in a mare, and some mares can have pretty painful heats.

If Stella was experiencing some kind of ovarian pain, that could explain many of the symptoms she was showing - the increased anxiety/nervousness (which can accompany any kind of pain in a horse, really), the sensitivity in the belly/girth area, and the other, less obvious, symptoms, like making sour-puss faces at her best girlfriends.

Having said that, I hadn't really seen any other signs of Stella being in heat. But, to be fair, I had now had her for almost five months, and I honestly hadn't noticed so far when she had ever been in heat (and after all of my trials and tribulations with my other mare, Sunny, I had developed a pretty keen eye for a mare in season!).

Nonetheless, it was at least a place to start. We decided to put her on bute for four days. By the fifth day, one of two things will have happened - either the pain will have gone away on its own due to the fact that, if she started her heat the Thursday before (that's when the worst of the symptoms started), she should be out of season by the coming Thursday, or, if it was a temporary issue, the bute should have taken the pain away. 

I was to continue working her (ground work and lungeing only, no saddle) for the next four days, and then on day 5, which would be the Friday, I was to try tacking her up to gauge her reaction to having the saddle put on and the girth tightened.

We did as instructed. I also started keeping a journal for Stella, to track her symptoms, and jot down notes about how she seemed on each day. If this issue was, in fact, being caused by painful heats, then I was going to need to know when she was due to come into season, so I would be able to plan her work schedule and her pain management around it.

On day 5 (Friday), we put on her saddle. She seemed concerned, and a little anxious, but at least she didn't try to leap around as I put it on. I was not convinced the pain was gone, and in fact her sides still seemed a little sensitive whenever I touched them. I could even tell by the look on her face that she was not feeling comfortable about being tacked up.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at a groundwork and desensitization clinic (that's a whole 'nother blog post!), so it was Tuesday of week two before I tried tacking her up again. I actually started out without tack. I was itching to practice some things we'd learned over the weekend, and I wanted to gauge her demeanour in the ring without a saddle on first. So off we went with just a rope halter and lead. Stella was quiet, focused and attentive. No spooking, no shenanigans. It was a nice little schooling session, and had I left it there, I would have gone home thinking that there was some real improvement. But, of course, when you're trying to test a theory, you have to follow through.

I took Stella back to her stall and started tacking her up. She was about the same as she had been on Friday. A little ouchy on her sides right behind her elbows, and a little anxious about what I was doing. I figured I was never going to get to the bottom of things until I pushed the envelope a little bit, so I decided to see how she looked on the lunge line. 

It quickly became obvious to me that having the saddle on was the issue. After half a circle of calm walking, Stella exploded, running and bucking until I was worried she’d fall over. My concern was not so much that she was blowing off some steam (after all, she’ hadn’t been worked in days). My concern was the bucking. See, Stella doesn't buck. And by that, I don't mean Stella rarely bucks, or she doesn't buck much. I mean she doesn't buck. Ever.

The other thing that worried me was the difference in her temperament between when she was in the ring without the saddle, and when she was in the ring with the saddle. She was immediately a little more anxious in the saddle. She was expecting it to hurt (and obviously it did, judging by the bucks).

So. Back to square one. This tells me loud and clear that the pain is still there, even after almost a week off, and four days of bute.

Time to call the vet back out...

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

Spring Ahead, Fall Back - Part 1

Here's the thing. You have got to listen to your horse.

Stella had been telling me for two weeks that something wasn't right. I just wasn't listening.

We’d recently gone through some pretty major saddle fitting issues, but, once I finally found a saddle that worked for Stella, it was full steam ahead with her training. She was now going very nicely, trotting round quietly, reaching for the bit, using her hind quarters, turning and going straight like nobody's business.

She was quiet and correct at the mounting block (and if she did have a "moment" and get out of line, with a couple gentle reminders she would step back over to me and stand waiting for me to get on). She almost always stood quietly afterward, waiting for me to tell her when it was time to walk on.

Her lunging was coming along nicely, although she had reached the point where I didn't really need to lunge her before every ride. When we did lunge, we did fun stuff, like poles and low cavaletti, which she really seems to enjoy.

Even her spookiness seemed to be improving. I was doing a lot of just leading her around the property in her rope halter, introducing her to new things and spending quiet time together. She had a new paddock mate, a lovely horse named Dee, who is also six. They get along swimmingly, and the move to a new turnout area also allowed Stella to make friends with a couple of geldings in the adjoining paddocks. So she had a nice new group of buddies, and really started enjoying her turn out time.

Everything seemed to be going exactly as planned... up until about two weeks ago.

A little over 2 weeks ago…

It was a Friday afternoon. I was grooming Stella on the cross ties, and she happened to catch sight, out the window, of a horse coming down the driveway. I guess she hadn't really seen a horse from that view before and it startled her so much she spun around in the aisleway and was, in a split second, facing the wrong way. 

She had one crosstie over the top of her head and had pulled it so tight that she started to panic. I spoke to her softly, rubbed her forehead (her favourite thing), and got her to calm down enough that she relaxed her head and neck and I was able to undo the crossties and turn her around. I made a nice fuss over her and continued grooming. She never quite settled that day, and even during our ride she was very much on edge. I blamed it on the crosstie incident and put it out of my head.

15 days ago…

One evening the following week (Monday, I think), I had ridden and was now untacking and grooming Stella in her stall. She was munching on her hay and I was softly currying her left side when she suddenly reached back and bit me!

Now first of all let me say that this is very odd behaviour for Stella. She is, quite literally, one of the sweetest ponies I know.

But I also know that a lot of people at the barn like to feed treats to the horses (and as much as I gently scold them when they feed treats to my horse, well, it's hard to get them to stop). So I assumed that this was the result of a pony getting stuffed with too many tidbits, so I put up a nice little "NO TREATS PLEASE" sign on Stella's stall door, and didn't think twice about it.

14 days ago…

When I tacked up on Tuesday, Stella seemed much quieter, although she did get a little fussy when I threw the saddle pad over her back (I used to move very slowly and methodically when I tacked her up, because I remember when I first got her that she was always very antsy getting her saddle put on. So I chalked it up to me just being a little too devil-may-care with the tacking up, and made a mental note to go back to moving a little slower).  She was very, very good that night. I remember thinking that I wished someone was videoing her, because she was being such a lovely girl.

13 days ago…

On Wednesday, I was more careful tacking up. I didn't want her reverting to her old ways. The saddle pad & sheepskin half pad were fine, but when I put her saddle on, she literally jumped sideways (into me).

For a moment, my heart sank. She was behaving like a pony who didn't like her saddle (and trust me, I know exactly how a pony who doesn't like her saddle behaves). But because she had been going so much happier in this saddle than she ever had in any other, I really felt in my heart that this wasn't the problem. 

But I nonetheless took the saddle off, and felt all along her back, along her withers, spine, loins, everywhere. Not a flinch, not an ear back, nothing. I gently sat the saddle back on her (this time, she didn't seem to mind), and loosely did up the girth. I remember her swinging her head around at that point. It was almost like she was going to nip me, but then changed her mind. I thought at the time that the no-treats rule must be working, since she was going to nip but then thought better of it...

That night, I had what I would say was my best ride yet on her.

Great at the mounting block (My coach, Wylie, was teaching a lesson in the arena while I was riding, and she even commented on how nicely Stella stood during mounting), and then a super quiet, nicely forward ride, no head tossing, no turning issues, just a happy pony and a very happy rider.

And even after the ride, she had some stellar moments. For example, since day one she's been very silly about having her bridle taken off. She shakes her head like she thinks that'll make the bridle come off faster. It's something we always work on, and this night, she stood quietly and let the bit softly drop out of her mouth. She had finally figured it out, and I was so very proud of her.

That was the last good ride I had.

12 days ago…

On Thursday, she was a little antsy coming in from her paddock.

I remember thinking that she must be in heat (especially considering she peed twice while being groomed). She was even making sour-puss faces at her best friend, Emmy, who lives in the stall next to her. I know that some mares' heats manifest themselves in unfocused, unsettled behaviour, so I assumed that was the issue, and carried on.

She never really settled as I groomed and tacked up, and then, the weirdest thing happened. I took her to the mounting block, she stood quietly, but then once I'd mounted, she wouldn't move. Like she was... stuck, or something. She seemed to literally be holding her breath. I clucked and gave her a little nudge, and finally she moved off.

Everything seemed fine then, but I do recall that she was pretty tightly wound the whole ride. She was spooky and seemed to have a hard time focusing. Wylie also commented that she looked a little F-A-T (don't tell Stella!), so we decided to decrease her grain a little. Not that she gets much to start with, but she does get plenty of nice, good quality hay, so I figured could probably have her pellets reduced.

11 days ago…

On Friday, she once again felt frisky and scattered. Grooming and tacking up was a chore. She was literally all over the place. 

Because she was being so silly and unfocused, I decided to lunge her for a few minutes first. She pulled a couple of really big spook-and-runs on the lunge line, but finally she calmed down and seemed like she was settled enough to do some work.

Now, I've always been very careful not to tighten the girth up all at once. Not just with Stella, but with any horse. So I start out just tight enough to keep the saddle on. I'll tighten another hole when I get to the ring, then another hole just before I get on. Then I'll do the rest of the tightening from the saddle, in a couple of goes.

And I remember thinking how much easier it was to tighten my girth while mounted when I got my current saddle, because it has short billets, so I can just reach down to tighten it, rather than leaning over so far. Stella's always been very good about standing while I tighten the girth, but on this night, she would not stand still. It took me three tries to tighten my girth one hole because little miss Fussy Pants was shaking her head and trying to trot off every time I reached down. I finally got it done, and carried on with the ride.

9 days ago…

On Saturday, I gave her the day off. We did some ground work in the ring instead. She was quiet, happy, and focused. Then on Sunday, we did some more of the same. She started off a little less focused than she was the day before, but we worked through it and she ended up being fairly quiet so I decided to go get her tacked up for a quick ride. When I brought her back into the ring in her saddle and bridle, it was like we hadn't even done any ground work. She was spooky, unsettled and even a little bit naughty.

I gave the girth a tighten, and took her to the mounting block, where she behaved very oddly, getting really close to the block, making it very difficult for me to get on. We worked on it for a bit, and then she seemed okay.

But the moment I put my foot in the stirrup, she was obviously very much not okay. She reared, pretty much straight up. Three times. With lunges and spins in between.

Total rodeo horse.

Totally out of character for my sweet little mare.

Totally frightening.

I was surprised, and immediately very worried. What had happened to my sweet pony? My pony who had been steadily improving every day? Obviously something was very, very wrong. I was devastated.

Wylie was away teaching a clinic, but I texted her first thing in the following morning to tell her what had happened. She agreed that this was extremely out of character for Stella, and we made the decision to call our vet (who, as luck would have it, was going to be at our barn that evening to float another horse's teeth). I spent the day making a mental list of all the signs Stella had given me that something was wrong. Something had to have happened to bring this on. I refused to believe that this was Stella being naughty. This was Stella in pain, and I had to find out what was causing it before I could get back on my pony.

To be continued...

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

Is forced consent still a yes?

Is forced consent still consent?

We were having a discussion in our stronger bond community about how I ask Fitty if he wants his rug on and I let him tell me yes or no.

This flies in the face of everything we are taught in the horse industry. The horse must do as its told otherwise it will be the boss!!

I admit it was initially an uncomfortable conversation for me. It went against everything I have been taught to let my horse say no to me!!

This is where we have started to tier our yeses to find out truly if they are a yes or if they are a yes because they have no other option. In certain scenarios we can give the horse a choice. One scenario is whether or not they want a rug. If he were old, underweight or clipped I would tell him he had no choice but as it is, I'm happy for him to tell me what he wants.

So here's a little break down as I see it:

• Submission, your horse is saying yes because it has no other option

• Disobedience, your horse is saying no because they are challenging you

• Willingness, your horse is saying yes because they are actively engaged in the exercise and you're building their yes muscle

• Consent, your horse has the option to say no and sometimes does but you are asking for permission to do something with them and they are consenting the ask.

• Choice, you are giving the horse a choice of 2 options and they are allowed to pick.

There are certain times and places for all these forms of yeses. The deeper the connection and the better you open the lines of communication the clearer you and your horse will work through these conversations without their behaviour escalating.

Need help understanding how you can work consent into your training? Join the Training Trainability Membership Program to learn this and so much more!

Breaking News: Nipping isn't necessarily naughty...

Did you know that nipping is a way your horse can be seeking to connect with you?

While we are looking for more subtle cues, your horse nipping at you can be their efforts to get your attention and focus on them because they want you to be with them and present. Our nippers commonly are the larrikin type, confident and mischievous and they are enticing us to play back. (Ie does it sometimes feel like a game to your horse when they nip and you smack?)

Another time our horses nip at us is when they are trying to communicate something. An example of this is when we rug them and they are having problems with the rug fit, girthing them if they have ulcers or the saddle/girth is uncomfortable, nipping at us when we try to pick their hooves up because they have a sore back etc.

Big problem is, we are taught that nipping is naughty and we should stop it. But it is how our horses fill their emotional cup and how they communicate.

Rather than reprimanding the action, why not teach them to lick instead?

Learn how to turn nippers into lickers by joining our Training Trainability membership - just $45AUD/month until June 19th.

Riding your horse doesn't have to be the crux of your training

Some of you might know that recently we had to retire Custard from riding. It’s the downside of loving an older horse - eventually it’s not suitable, viable or sensible to continue to ride.

So Custard is a happy gentleman of leisure, doted on with plenty of love and treats.

This did leave me without a horse of my own to ride. Luckily, I was able to start working with another of my friends boys - Stormy.

Stormy is an 17 year old OTT Thoroughbred with poor conformation - sway back, club foot, and pigeon toed. He had been out of work for a while, loves to run and really thrives on that one-on-one interaction.

Due to that conformation, he has some issues with discomfort around the shoulders, and is also anxious about being touched and groomed around the withers, or even being tacked up. While he isn’t nasty, he did have a tendency to hold his breath until he couldn’t cope.

He was literally saying

“I ‘m a good boy. This is scary but I’m a good boy. BAAAHHHH I can’t do this it’s too much!!!”,

albiet in body language, not words.

So the last 2 months has been spent:

• Gaining consent to work (hey buddy, you have the chance to tell me when you aren’t coping)

• Professional body work

• Focusing on relaxing and giving him new tools to de-escalate his panic

• In-hand work - even advancing to working in-hand with flexion! (We developed this as a lesson plan for our Training Trainability students to work on through May, because Stormy was doing so well with it).

• Lunging to improve some strength and fitness

• Getting a yes to be bridled (we went back and forward on that, and I began to understand that when he was feeling a bit more pinched or cold in the back, he would give bigger no’s)

• Getting yes to being saddled

In just this short time, Stormy has gone from being frightened (in a good boy way) and unfit to developing softness and roundness to his back, confident with his requests (yes, no, give me a moment), and comes running from the back of the paddock to come play with us.

Last weekend we actually tacked up, mounted and had a tiny plod. Just to let him know it isn’t all bad.

The thing is, for 8 weeks we didn’t ride. Yet we still achieved so much and have a happier horse under saddle for the effort. I didn’t need to cave to the expectations of others by putting my horse second.

That is what we stand for.

Want to learn how to use these skills with your own horse? Training Trainability enrolments close on the 19th of June.

Are you your horse's human?

There are a lot of different training methods out there. So many varying opinions.

I wont say our Training Trainability method is perfect, because no single training method is perfect without adaptation (and we aim to provide that flexibility and adaptation within the membership).

But I will say ours gives something most others don’t - connection.

And connection is a vital part of what our horses desire, with the added bonus of providing forgiveness when we don’t get something right.

Horses, by nature, live in herds. They need a community, a dynamic of relationship, to provide them protection, friendship and even - ocassionally - to put them back in their place. The herd confidence in their alpha sets them up for the best harmony. They have spent centuries evolving this way.

With that in mind, we can’t expect our horse to behave any differently with us. The path of domestication hasn’t taken out that particular need - so that means we must tailor our own interactions to be more herd-like.

Cue funny picture of humans grazing… maybe not.

We should, however, be considering how we can become a part of the herd - in a way that is managable, allows our horse to easily slip into a process with us, knowing they are protected, have a companion, and know their boundaries. Even if they do test them sometimes.

That level of interaction takes us from just being their leader to creating a deeper connection. It means that you will have a horse that wants to spend time with you, just quietly hanging together, just within breathing space or even slightly touching.

Connection is what makes us our horse’s human.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

When your inner critic is not helping

“I’m too fat to ride”

“I will never ride well enough to canter”

“I am not smart enough to support people training their horse”

“I’ll never be as good as those riders”

“I’ll never know enough to look after my own horse”

Hey guys, it’s Sarah here. At one point or another, those exact words have filtered through my head.

And let’s be honest, I’m sure you have had your own version of inner critiques that have, at some stage, plagued you with doubt.

Here’s the hard truth: our inner critic is there to protect us. They are voices that are designed, in some way, to help us avoid pain, mostly the pain of failure.

Here’s another hard truth: the inner critic isn’t always right. In fact, it often isn’t. But that deep seated doubt that we can’t escape can have us believing different, so it becomes our reality.

So what can we do when our inner critic is in full swing and inhibiting our ability to move forward?

The best thing when can do is acknowledge it, understand it, and then refute it. Think of it as an internal debate, where your desires are keyed to win each and every time.

I’m too fat to ride?

Ok, I am overweight, I acknoweledge that. But there are some horses that can handle my weight with no problem, so I will look for those horses to ride while I get assistance to lose that excess weight (and yes, when I was asked by my coach why I wanted to lose weight, I told her I wanted to put less weight on my horses back).

And I did.

I’ll never ride well enough to canter?

How do you know - I’ve never tried! But I know that I have a fear of injuring myself falling off the horse (and the risk is higher due to a long term back issue). So, I will understand what it feels like to canter. I will work on having good balance and seat in the other paces - then I will try. And when I try, it is ok if it is not perfect - I can practice a little bit at a time.

And I did.

I am not smart enough to support people training their horses

Well, I certainly don’t have that background. I’m not an instructor. BUT, I have spent the last 6 years training horses with Katie, and I have picked up more than a thing or two. I wont always have the answer but I am willing to support other people by providing insight from my own experiences, while supporting Katie as she supports others. While doing that, I will learn, and then I can share more.

And I do.

Do you see how that works? The desire has become your own personal internal cheerleader. GO YOU!

Acknowledge the statement, understand the fear, and counter it with logic driven by desire.

Let me know how that works for you.

Need help with your internal cheer squad? Join our free Facebook Community, where we can be your external cheer squad until you master your internal one!

When we give our horse a voice, we might not always like what they say

One of the flow on affects that comes up as a result of working with me is that it becomes very difficult for us to work with a horse if it gives us anything other than an enthusiastic yes.

What I mean by difficult is that we become uncomfortable forcing or pushing them to do anything unless we know they are definitely challenging us and don’t have any underlying reason for that no.

Along with our leadership exercises, one of our first training tools is a cue that our horse can use to consent our asking something of them. We do this so that our horse can tell us no if they want to. '

Giving our horse the opportunity to say no:

• Lets us address any legitimate reason they have for saying no. ie pain, discomfort, tack not fitting, not understanding or not being able to do what we ask.

• Lets them have a say in what happens to them. Gives them some control over what we do to them and therefore can deescalate naughty or dangerous behaviour.

• Help us decide if they are directly challenging us and need to be “worked through” or if there is something we are missing that they are trying to communicate to us.

For most of the horses we’ve worked with they have had a very “because I say so” approach to their training, which can work to a point but isn’t helpful if the horse is having a problem or if the rider can’t actually follow through on their “because I say so” and gets nervous or scared.

What we do is give them the opportunity to say no and use our other training tools to encourage a yes.

When we first give these horses the option to say no, they say no - A LOT!!!! To everything!!!

And this is why they haven’t been given the option to say no before. Because most riders don’t know what to do with a no and are told their horse is just taking the piss or being naughty, even when the horse legitimately isn’t coping with its' training.

It doesn’t mean that we let our horse walk all over us and get away with everything.

We have a couple of very simple exercises that we use with our horse as a way of establishing manners and discipline. We then work with our horses on establishing consent for each ask. And then we try to making learning and the training environment positive and enjoyable to the horse.

And then - TA DA - we have true willingness and not just submission and forced yeses.

Would you like to communicate for effectively and create more willingness with your horse? Have a look at our Training Trainability membership, which takes you through how to develop respect and consent from your horse, and can get you on your way to having wins in as little as a single session!

Pony Guilt - "Neglecting" your horse to prioritise adulting

Are you feeling the guilt’s because you are adult life is getting in the way of your pony play?

Ok, so its not true neglect but you know you should be spending more time with your horse. Their needs are met. They are well fed and cared for.

But you’re on a time budget and most days you only seem to be able to run in, feed them and race out again.

The older we get the more responsibilities we seem to accumulate, the more our energy is pulled in more and different directions, the less time we seem to have for ourselves and our horses.

While you may not be kicking goals with 5 x 1 hour training sessions every week, we can still bring our horses along nicely if we know what we are working towards.

Here are my top tips of making the most of your spare time with your horse:

Be realistic about where you are going with how much time you have.

If you are dreaming of the Olympics but only have 20minutes a week to spend with your horse, you may have to shift that goal out to a time when you can prioritise your horses. If however, you just want to take your horse out to local shows and even low level state events you can achieve that quality with just 2 – 3 ridden training sessions a week.

Quality over quantity.

This is not only in your time spent riding your horse but also time spend being with your horse. If you can spare an extra 10 minutes with your horse when you’re feeding them just hang with them quietly. Give them a pat if they ask for it otherwise just be with them. And leave the phone behind!!!

A good session doesn’t have to be a long session.

We can do a good quality training session in as little as 30 minutes (need help? Check out our lesson plans on pinterest). For prelim, novice and even elementary level dressage, this only needs to be done twice a week with some cross training like hacking out, poles or grids.

Block out a mental health break.

Horses are great for our mental health and just pottering around the yard can lift even the worst moods. It can be helpful to explain to your family you just need this time to be a better human. And then spend that time not putting pressure on yourself to do rush in, rush through your training and rush but actually do some relaxing with your horse. This can help with your overall all connection and therefore willingness with your horse.

Play games with your horse.

Another way to improve your horses willingness - and therefore resulting in less time needing to discipline your horse - is engaging them in games and positive reinforcement activities

Need help making more of the little amount of time you get to spend with your horse? Get on the waitlist for the Green to Self carriage Course. We lay out the ridden process so you know where you’re heading and where you’ve been so you spend less time going round and round in circles…. Literally!

Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Feel the fear and do it anyway -

aka cowgirl up.

Have you hit a road block with your horse because you have gotten nervous handling them?

Maybe you have got a legitimate reason to be nervous of your horse.

Maybe they have gotten nervy, spooky and unpredictable or maybe they have gotten aggressive and started lashing out at you.

Maybe you had a bad accident and it was noones fault (which somehow seems to make it worse because you don’t know how to prevent it happening again)

Either way your riding and your handling has come to a stand still. You so wish you had your nerve and confidence back but your finding every excuse under the sun to avoid going and doing anything with your horse. I hear you. I’ve been there time and time again and I’m sure it won’t be long before I’m back there

So here are some of my best tips:

• Knowing why goes a long way to alleviating fear. If you can figure why your horse acted a certain way, you know how to address it and prevent it happening again. This puts you in a place of power and confidence that you know how to not put yourself in that position again.

• Developing the skills to manage the behaviour that is scaring you. Once you know what to do with your horse if they are doing something that scares you it can be less scary. And then you can give yourself props and motivate yourself to work through it when it comes up.

• Positive self talk. If you have worked through the behaviour and developed the skills needed to handle the behaviour talk yourself up. “I’ve got this, I’ve done it before, I can do it again”. Often our head goes to what it was like when it was at its worst but we can have come a long way with our horse and even though the behaviour is still there (because its actually your horses personality) its not as bad as it was at its worse and is a lot easier to work with.

• Breathing. Being able to slow your heart rate and breathing rate not only goes a long way to dealing with your nerves but also helps your horse bring their emotional state down

• Your riding environment. Having a safe riding environment is ideal for working with difficult behaviour. This includes suitable fencing and a good surface.

If you need more support with managing your nerves and your horses behaviour, join our free group. Our members have had some big wins in developing their confidence and their relationship with their horses just from the advice we share in there - and it’s free!

Are you setting your horse up to fail?

One of the things we talk a lot about at Equestrian Movement is having adjustable goal posts.

One of our students has actually said that we make it impossible to fail and to finish up without a win.

We call it setting our horses up for success.

As riders and handlers we can expect a lot of our horses. We want each training session to go perfectly to what we had in mind. We want it to not only go as well as our last but also improve on our last. We don’t want our horses to be in a bad mood or temperamental even if they have a good excuse to do so. We don’t want to have to revisit any of our “simple” exercises. If we don’t meet all these prerequisites in each training session we can come away from it feeling disappointed in ourselves and our horses.

These expectations however are completely unrealistic.

We can’t even expect it of ourselves let alone our horse and here’s some reasons why:

• If our horse knows how to learn, process pressure and confidently seek the correct answer without fear of getting into trouble it can still take up to 4 training sessions or more to consolidate the answer (and that is if you thoroughly and confidently know what you’re doing)

• From introducing a new exercise it takes 6 – 8 weeks for balance (nerves to innervate the muscle group required for that movement), 3 – 4 months for muscle growth (building the muscle to be able to execute the movement and initially this is only a stride or 2) and 6 – 12 months for bone and ligament density (for you to be able to get on your horse and they can just do it and hold it for extended periods of time). All this is also as long as your horse doesn’t injure itself, doesn’t have extended periods of time of for one reason or another and doesn’t have old injuries flare up.

• Environment, season, feed, weather, herd conditions will all affect how your horse is working in each training session.

• Shifting emotional baggage. The biggest different between riding horses and riding motorbikes is that they have the capacity to think for themselves and feel. Working with past trauma and emotional reactions to our asks means that some days our horses can be super willing and keen and other days that don’t want a bar of us.

So to deal with all these variables to each training session we have laid out some rules to hold us a little more accountable to what we are doing with our horse and make it easier for them to succeed.

• Try and stick to a maximum of 3 repetitions of an ask and then change exercises, especially if it’s a new exercise.

• Finish on a positive note feeling like you could’ve done more

• Provide your horse with a tool to consent each ask and a way to tell you if they are done.

• Get comfortable knowing where your prerequisites are. If you and your horse are really struggling with an exercise and you can see the training session deteriorating into a fit, know what exercise to move on to that you can shift the dynamics to finish on a win showing your horse you truly are a good leader.

• Know how to bring your horses energy levels down into a state of relaxation and then back up again into work and do it lots. You want your horse to confidently flex their relaxation muscle.

What more support creating a positive working environment with your horse? Have a look at our Training Trainability membership.

Our biggest take away from the Stronger Bond Workshop

One of our biggest take aways from our stronger bond workshop is having permission to get quiet, get still and wait longer.

When we are working on connection with our horses we need to start from a place of relaxation.

When we push, rush or force our horses into something that’s where we start to disrupt that connection and trigger our horses emotional resistance.

Maybe they need to take a moment to deal with their fear. Or maybe then need a moment to deal with their resentment or frustration of being made to do something they don’t want to do.

Whatever the reason is we have found that giving the horse the space to process that emotional resistance and return to the state of relaxation and then choose to do what we ask of their own accord then we deepen our connection and our relationship with our horse.

This does require an extreme amount of patience. And letting go of the idea that all nos are our horses being naughty. Some nos are our horse legitimately trying to tell us something. Ie they have a problem like pain or discomfort or not understanding or not being able to do what we’re asking. For a lot of the horses I get called out to work with, the most important thing the are looking for to deescalating behaviour deemed naughty and dangerous is just that we listen to their nos.

Once we figure and remove all reasons for a no then we can start working on our yes. Part of how we get our horses to say yes is to bring them back to that state of relaxation by focusing on their breathing and allow them the option to say yes or no. We teach this with our consent cue. When our horses have the option to say yes I’m ready for the next ask, this is where true willingness is and we are working on a level of mutual cooperation. To get there we as their trainer need to take a deep breath, have some patience, be quiet, be still and wait a little or a lot longer.

Want to know more we have a free training in our free facebook group of getting quiet and still both on the ground and in the saddle with our horse.

Biggest Take Aways From The First Do No Harm Summit

We are very excited (and still somewhat recovering) from an epic weekend.

That’s right - the First Do No Harm Summit concluded on Sunday just past, with an awesome attendance and presentations from some amazing fellow equestrian professionals.

So we thought we would sum up some of our biggest take aways from the event - just to get you thinking as well!

(Missed the summit? Click here to binge watch until May 18th 2020, or join the Facebook Group to access them after!)

The Key to a Stronger Bond

Equestrian Movement

This is one we discuss often, and the condenced version of the Equestrian Movement Stronger Bond Workshop revealed there are 3 key things we need to be providing our horses: consistency, confidence, and consent.

Thinking Business In A Changing World

Full Strides Solution

Even the smallest ‘extra income’ solution, whether it is agisting (boarding) friends horses or making horse hair jewellery should be approached with a business mentality. Simply having an outline of what happens in case of an event has the capability of staving off exorbitant legal fees - and loss of relationships!

Bit Fitting - Avoiding Wounds

The Bit Fitter

Well, besides having everything I was ever taught about a bit thrown out as myth, I learnt that I seriously need to look at my horse’s mouth more closely! However, there are a few great tips to getting a bit to fit correctly and comfortably.

Owner’s Hoof Care Checklist

The Glorious Hoof

There is so much about the anatomy of the hoof that can change so quickly, and impact our horse’s posture and movement - but there are many things we can pick up early if we know what to look for. Also, the well known 6-8 week cycle we tend to use is too long for most horses.

The Fundamentals of Aromatherapy

Evoke Aromatic

Aromatherapy can help us create a connection with our horses by working on both their and our emotional states. So, so loved her breakdown of the horses olfactory system and how it has direct access to their emotions and trainability.

3 Secrets to Improve Your Dressage Riding

Equestrian Movement

Katie shared so many free tips, but I definitely resonated with the idea that more forward does not equal faster - in fact, the way to create more forward in your horse is to create more slow!

Boundaries for Better Horsemanship

Savvy Horsewoman

Treat your horse like every day with them is the first day with them. No expectations, just work with what you are given.

The Importance of Correct Halter Training

Stokers Ridge Ranch

A horse can be trained to have a “default” - their reaction to a particular stimulus. By creating more positive neurons than negative, focusing on softness, and breaking down the training to the very basics - all the way down to halter training - gives them the best chance to change that response.

Rider’s Posture & Fitness

@PhysioZane

“Perfect” posture is not always possible, because bodies are made differently. The focus should be on your optimal posture, and how you can tailor that to your riding. I have a new trick to try on my next ride as well!

Strengthen & Supple Your Horse

Equine Muscle Matters

Helping to create balance in your horse can be as easy as one small pole exercise, that can be done on the ground! Also, the correct way to apply carrot stretches.

Worm Your Way Into Your Horses Heart

Equestrian Movement

Ok, so I presented this one. But I did learn that when you refer to tapeworm segments as mini ravioli sacs, people never want to eat ravioli again…

The biggest take away, though, is that all our horses should be treated as individuals. Just because it works one way for one horse doesn’t mean it will work perfectly for all horses. Tailoring your work to your own horse, and to yourself, will result in the best success.