Empress Equine

31/05/2025

Yes. Absolutely all of this. There is so much joy in the slow road - please give it a go 🙏🏼

"In order for the body to heal, we have to take it out of the environment it became sick in"

I spend a lot of time telling people to stop riding their horses. And I really get that this can be down right inconvenient.

But I'm an optimiser.

And when I'm looking at helping a horse's posture to neutralise, quite frankly it can be quicker, easier and far more ethical to teach a horse to find postural neutral without a rider and then teach the rider to maintain that, than it is to teach a rider to fix the posture under saddle.

Particularly when the horses crappy posture developed because of unsympathetic riding, a saddle that wasn't designed to fit any horse, let alone that one, or an instructor who has no understanding that to safeguard a horse's performance, they might need to know how their bodies truly work rather than have committed to FEI rulebook to heart.

I'm totally not saying there aren't people skilled enough to rehabilitate horses whilst riding them, but I would really like to invite you to consider that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Because though you might enjoy it, doesn't mean your horse does.

And "it'll be good for you in the long run" doesn't mean it's fair on your horse in the moment.

So if we can do it more simply, in a way that sees the horse for more than just what we can do to their bodies and what they can do for us...

Why don't we?

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"Should I be riding my horse right now?"

Join Integrative Equine Podiatrist, Beccy Smith, and I as we discuss this topic through a variety of lenses: combining evidence-informed practice and research to give you practical skills to assess your own horse's wellbeing so you can answer the question for yourself.

30.06.2025 19:00 BST

Recording available if you can't make the live ❤️✨️

📸 Olivia Rose Photography .graphy

23/11/2024

A moment with Ally 🫧

I've been thinking alot about the concept of "training".

And the word itself has given me increasing pause.

Because, really, our value to horses is in our ability to facilitate their health and safety within our world.

We facilitate contexts in which they are able to be themselves, and explore their unbelievable power.

We are not "training" them to have power and prowess, we are facilitating situations in which they feel safe enough to REMEMBER and explore their innate capabilities.

This is why I love bodywork at liberty. It is on us to be attuned, regulated and congruent to a point at which they feel safe enough to allow us the vulnerability necessary for healing.

And without tack, the horse has the agency to go at its own pace and let us know where and how we can help.

We don't need to be "training" our horses to allow this work. We need to be examining how we can facilitate a context (both material and energetic) in which the horse feels safe enough to allow us in.

20/11/2024

Afternoons with Magic 🔮💜 my peaceful escape from the social media world, which I've had to limit due to anxiety - sorry for the radio silence.

The deeper I delve into my work, the more apparent it is that self-care does not involve comparison (which is a huge challengefor me on social media).

But I can't share the joy the work brings me without putting myself out there.

So now is the time for love and exploration without comparison, and growth without competition.

This work is more than an approach to horse-humanship. It provides an avenue into our exploring our perceptions. Our perceptions of horses, ourselves, and how we fit into the world.

This work has provided me with more safety, love and understanding than I could have imagined.

If you're looking to understand your horse, yourself and the relationship between you on a deeper level, please don't hesitate to get in touch 🍃✨️

28/01/2024

THIS! The hypocrisy in our industry is astounding. It is unbelievable how prevalent it is in our industry to teach young children to use punitive force (to put it mildly) to facilitate immediate obedience in the face of clear misunderstanding and pain. This is almost always done under the reason of "saftey". What are we teaching our children?! As soon as dominance and punishment based solutions are presented under the guise of satey, they betray a significant lack of knowledge on behalf of the trainer or coach. Learning theory has progressed, equine ethology has been widely studied, and the impact of learned helplessness is clear. And yet, so many people proliferate knowledge that is not only incredibly out of date, but also significantly abusive and unhelpful in the long run. Sure, you may scare the horse into submission and get to that event - but at what cost to the animal you are supposed to be protecting. The kids we teach are the next generation of equine caretakers - we have a responsibility to both them and the horses to create better outcomes than those we have grown up with. Our horses owe us nothing - but it is 100% our responsibility as equine caretakers to seek out SPECIES-APPROPRIATE knowledge and professionals who advocate for the horses themselves and not their commodification. The information is out there. We know better now. Now we need to do better.

Imagine a world where we said to children, we’re not going to force your beautiful pony with kicks and crops like those other people!! We are going to train them in a way that you BOTH have fun, by using Positive Reinforcement training, with clicker training, by training with food and scratches!

Imagine if we said to children, you’ll have more fun on the ground and get to know your pony better that way and build a friendship. You’ll build a real relationship, where your pony will truly love you back.

Imagine if we taught them how to have fun and laugh with their pony and the pony was laughing and having fun too.

Imagine children who learnt empathy for all creatures, not just how to use them and make them do what the child and adults want.

Imagine a generation of children growing into adults, who could ‘talk’ to their animals, by understanding how all creatures learn and that they feel emotions too.

Imagine children who didn’t have to cry in frustration or in pain, from falling off or being bucked off unwilling or scared ponies. Imagine a miserable and scared child, not having fun and not wanting to do things with their pony and being told to push through the fear and pain?

Instead, imagine children learning via Positive Reinforcement (clicker) training, how to build important life skills as humans, such as empathy, observation, problem solving, analysis, hand eye coordination, thinking on their feet, emotional regulation, developing reciprocal relationships and positive interactions with others.

With all that learning, we could set them up for life with amazing skills that build their confidence, self esteem and physical and mental wellbeing and their emotional maturity and regulation. As well as learning how to interact with others in a positive way, where both parties can ‘win’.

Imagine us being the adult heaping Positive Reinforcement on our children! Saying “well done!”, “you were awesome!”, “you worked that out so well!”, “you’ve made your pony so happy and well trained!” and “I’m so proud of you!”. WE adults enjoy the benefits as well, because it makes us feel good too!

Where do we get so lost, that we insist children hit and kick their pony for their own pleasure, who then grow into adults who do the same?

Worse, the child turned adult, who has doubts, fear and doesn’t enjoy what they are doing with their horse, who feels mounting pressures from the equestrian world and discontent with what they’re doing. Therefore they force the horse more and more to get results.

What hypocrisy are we teaching children?!