Dr Shelley Appleton Calm Willing Confident Horses, Mundaring (2025)

16/11/2025

Pressure Training, Meaning Making, and Why Your Horse Is Not a Mind Reader 😎

Today’s public service announcement is about a phrase that has been tragically misunderstood: "release of pressure."

Mention it online and most people using it have no idea they are, a noble few actually do it well, and a very small but extremely noisy minority will announce that you are a horse-traumatising, ego-marinated capitalist with an IQ low enough to trip over a mounting block 😬.

Which is awkward, because release of pressure is simply one of the world’s oldest meaning making system. Horses, dogs, us, all living creatures! It predates language and is everywhere in our lives.

Horses do not arrive with a built in glossary that reads...
- Rope tight behind my ears means step forward
- Leg means trot
- Human wafting hand in the round yard means please move off in that direction

They have to be shown what things mean. Their reality is built through physical experience. That is training.

You present a cue. You set them up so the behaviour is easy to try. The moment they try the right thing, you remove the pressure. The release highlights the meaning. They connect what they did with the moment you went quiet 🤫.

There are two parts.
1️⃣Set up the behaviour so the horse can actually do it through instinct, balance, association, or a lucky guess.

2️⃣Teach them to recognise the cue so eventually you do not need any escalation at all.

This is the part the internet misses. Escalation exists as a way to inspire a try. Not as violence. Not as dominance. Just an increase in a stimulus delivered in a controlled, thoughtful way. Can it be labelled "aversive" pressure - yes, but that is a spectrum with sensation at one end and hurt at the other and you can control the scale.

Pick up the lead rope softly. Add a little feel. Step to the side so their balance invites a step forward. The moment they try, you go silent. Repeat until they follow the soft pick up alone.

Or liberty work. Raise your hand. Add a cluck. Then, inside the three second learning window, swing a stick with a string that makes generates movement and a whooshy noises a distance away from the horse. They will be triggered to move away. You drop your hand, quiet your voice, still the stick. Repeat until the horse recognises the hand signal alone means to move off.

Here is the bit people forget. There are many ways to escalate pressure and the good ones are subtle. They tap into instinct, sensory awareness and balance. They help horses work things out quickly.

If you think pressure training is all pain and domination, you either saw bad training or did not recognise what good training looked like.

Can people do it with force and pain? Yes. It is the slowest, crappest, most counterproductive road to Rome. It also builds tension into everything the horse learns. Pain produces braced bodies and scrambled brains. Yet at best you get performance minus trust and you can see it.

When escalation is done well, it sparks a thought. A shift. A step. A try. And the learning lives in that instant of quiet.

If you need to escalate every time you touch the horse, congratulations. You have done crap training. Your timing is off and the horse is enduring you. Reward based trainers get accused of bribery. Pressure based trainers get judged by the worst examples. Bad training is ugly in any flavour.

Now for the fun part. Once a horse learns a few cues with clarity and timing, something brilliant happens. They learn how to learn. They start spotting patterns. They realise that new scenarios are not traps but puzzles they already know how to solve. They search. They offer behaviours. They watch your body. They look for the release. Training becomes a dialogue between you and the horse.

Good pressure training teaches the meaning of touch, balance, movement, body language, sounds and simple words like whoa. Once meaning is established, escalation fades. If you are still escalating often, your technique has glitches.

Yes, some horses carry baggage. Yes, pressure training gets a terrible reputation because most people only see the disasters or we get the tough cases where horses have been left struggling or learnt dangerous behaviours. It is sorting through the baggage that presents more chaos.

But when done well it is elegant, fast, thoughtful and in harmony with how horses use their sensory systems, learn fast and solve problems. It builds clarity, confidence and a shared language they learn to focus on and follow.

So here is your line to remember.

Pressure release is simply teaching a horse to recognise a cue, try a behaviour and find meaning in the moment you let go. It is not violence or cruelty. It is communication. A touch language. A balance language. A clear, simple system of signals.

If anyone gets huffy about the terminology, let them know the scientific name is negative reinforcement. Negative meaning subtract. As in take the pressure away. I leave that to the end because nothing switches humans off faster than terminology that sounds like tax paperwork. Horses handle it fine.

And yes, this one is longer than usual. Explaining pressure release in a short blog is like trying to summarise quantum physics with fridge magnets. Good pressure training needs timing, coordination, judgement and an understanding of horses.

The bottom line is very simple.

It is not violence or force. Anyone insisting otherwise has just announced how little they understand about how learning works. And if you want to debate escape, avoidance, moral superiority, ethics or anything in between, go ahead. I know those arguments better than the people who use them 😎.

This is Collectable Advice Entry 80/365 of challenge and this series on words and terms in the horse world. For you to hit SAVE, SHARE but not copy and pasting.

15/11/2025

Is It Behaviour or Soundness⁉️

A Practical Guide to Reading the Whole Horse📖

You know that moment when your horse spooks at a leaf, pins their ears at a saddle pad, snakes their head at you, or decides the mounting block is cursed and must be avoided at all costs?

Most people call it behaviour.

But sometimes it is actually your horse saying “I am struggling” in the only language they have.😕

Trouble is, horses do not come with subtitles.

And the horse world is full of confident people offering confident answers based on hope, habit, or the last guru video they watched while avoiding folding the laundry.

Meanwhile, the real clues are sitting quietly in front of you.
➡Etched in their muscles.
➡Hidden in how they move.
➡Shifted in their posture.
➡Expressed in their emotionality.
➡Revealed in changes of willingness.
➡Red flags masquerading as sass.

I used to miss these signs.

I was a training purist. Everything was behaviour until proven otherwise.

Then I learned the hard way that many behaviour problems are early warnings. And once you know how to read them, you cannot unsee them.

And here is an important truth.

Sometimes the answer is not more training.

Sometimes the most responsible thing an owner, coach, or trainer can do is recognise when a horse does not need a trainer at all. They need an equine vet or another expert professional. Early referral is not failure. It is how you protect horses and avoid bigger, more expensive problems later.

Which is why I created this workshop.

Because owners deserve better than guesswork.

And horses deserve better than being labelled difficult when they are trying to cope.

This is not a fluffy feelings class.

It is not a “learn your horse’s love language” afternoon.

It is a practical, evidence informed, eye sharpening session that will teach you how to actually read your horse so you can prevent problems, support them early, and stop spending money on the wrong solutions or waiting until symptoms become significant and management becomes unaffordable.

If you want clarity, confidence, and the ability to spot things long before they turn into big, expensive issues, you need to be in this room.

Seats are limited because I prefer quality learning environments.

Come along, to this non-horse event and sit down and learn without distraction, and finally learn how horses are trying to tell you what they need. This is real, tangible information and no spirit world communication required.

Is It Behaviour or Soundness?
A Practical Guide to Reading the Whole Horse
There are 4 workshops I am holding around Australia. The first is next Saturday 22 November 2025 near Canberra - see comments for link.

14/11/2025

❌Can We Stop Pretending Relationship Comes Before Partnership?

There is a funny habit in the horse world where people say the word relationship with the same confidence you would expect if they were ordering a latte. The assumption seems to be that simply wanting one sets the universe in motion and suddenly the horse will gaze at them like a co-participant in a grand destiny. Yet disappointment arrives quickly when the horse remains stubbornly literal and does not behave according to the human’s inspirational storyboard.

The trouble is simple. A relationship does not magically appear because you feel warm feelings in the paddock. Two beings can stand near each other quite happily without ever developing anything beyond mutual tolerance. And that is fine if your ambitions start and end with hanging out the paddock.

But if you want to ride the horse, go places together, and build something that exists outside the fence line, you do not need a relationship first. You need something much more concrete - you need a partnership.

A partnership is the structure that allows a relationship to exist in the first place. It is what lets you share experiences beyond the paddock in a way that is safe, coherent, and repeatable. It is the difference between “we hang out sometimes” and “we can load in a float at 6am without needing hopes and prays" because you are unsure it will even happen.

In a functional partnership:

1️⃣You make decisions and the horse learns to pay attention.

2️⃣The horse performs the actions and you keep out of their way and don't make it hard for them (i.e. be a good load to carry and not the equivalent of a lopsided backpack of rocks).

3️⃣Because #1 carries a lot of power over the horse - every decision you make is shaped by the horse’s physical and emotional welfare.

Some people like the idea of giving the horse choices. It sounds lovely in theory, but inconsistent choice granting creates confusion. If sometimes the horse decides and sometimes you decide, nobody knows what game is being played. Instead, you stay observant and responsive, you interpret the horse’s feedback, and you make decisions that are in their best interest. This removes conflict rather than creating it.

Once the partnership is established, the relationship forms naturally. A real one. One built through shared experiences, consistent communication, and the steady knowledge that you can each rely on the other to do their job in the arrangement.

Partnership builds relationship. Not feelings alone.

Not paddock proximity.

And definitely not whispering big hopes into the wind.

When you work together with clarity and purpose, the bond you want actually shows up. Not because a guru promised it, but because you created it through skill, awareness, and thoughtful decision making.❤

This is my Collectable Advice Entry 79/365 of my self imposed challenge to post good ideas. At the moment I am running a series on words and terms used in the horse world (as some have got mangled along the way).

Please hit SHARE or SAVE to keep these coming back in your memories to keep you grounded...and entertained 😆. For the curious details of my work below.

13/11/2025

Empathy: An Important Word That Can Turn Human Discomfort Into Horse Problems

Empathy is the capacity to recognise, understand, and respond to the emotional states of others. It has multiple dimensions that include cognitive empathy, which is the ability to interpret another’s feelings or intentions, and affective empathy, which is the emotional resonance you experience in response. There is also empathic concern which is the motivation to act. So empathy is not just feeling sorry for a horse.

It is a blend of perception, interpretation, emotional regulation, and behaviour.

Which brings us to the real issue in the horse world...

➡️When Empathy Backfires for Horses

Humans can empathise with horses, but only up to the limit of their own imagination, their own emotional comfort, and their own understanding of how horses actually perceive the world. Horses do not think like us. They do not interpret pressure, learning, novelty, or social cues like us. Which means our empathy is a translation exercise and sometimes our translations are as inaccurate as a Google maps 10 years ago...

A distressed horse can stir up a wave of discomfort in a person that is harder to settle than the horse itself. So the human often shifts to soothing themselves and not the horse. This is where empathy loses the plot.

The horse might show stress while learning something new because it is confused or needs the task to be simplified or presented with more clarity and skill. The solution is usually better training, not a spiritual intermission.

But if the person feels uncomfortable watching the horse be confused, they may stop altogether. They may avoid the situation next time. They may proclaim that the horse does not like groundwork, or finds training sticks traumatic, or cannot be caught, or fears the mounting block, or hates being ridden. They make these declarations from the throne of empathy, as if being empathetic means never checking whether the horse can learn something new with good guidance.

They justify their avoidance by claiming they are being sensitive to the horse’s needs. Meanwhile the horse remains stuck with a problem it could have easily learned to navigate if only the person had sought knowledge, stayed consistent, or asked for help.

➡️What Real Empathy Requires

Practising empathy with horses is not about emotional purity. It is not about announcing your feelings and calling it care. It requires knowledge of equine behaviour and learning. It requires skill and the ability to regulate your own emotional discomfort so you do not project it onto the horse. It requires accepting that your feelings are not diagnostic tools.

Empathy becomes useful when combined with observation, strategy, and willingness to improve. Without these, empathy can collapse into avoidance and self soothing, while the horse quietly struggles with something it could have mastered.

If we want empathy to lift horses rather than trap them, then we can never stop learning. We need to pair empathy with competence, because the horse does not benefit from our discomfort. The horse benefits from our clarity.

➡️And what is clarity?

Clarity is the ability to present information to a horse in a way that is consistent, comprehensible, and free of mixed cues. It means your signals are clean, your timing makes sense, and your intentions are easy for the horse to interpret. Clarity is the opposite of emotional projection. It is the opposite of hesitation or avoidance. It is the steady, understandable guidance that allows a horse to feel secure enough to learn.

This is Collectable Advice entry 78/365 of my challenge focusing on words used in the horse world. Hit SAVE or Hit SHARE and spread the word - literally ❤😆

IMAGE📸: My good friend Isabelle and OTTB Dash. This is a heads up to all the OTTB and STB fans to Join our Racehorse Reboot 8 Week Challenge Event from the 3 January - 28 February 2026. Everyone already enrolled is welcome. If you haven't enrolled, do so now and follow our advice to support and prepare your Off-the-Tracker to be ready commencing re-training in January💪❤ More info below.

12/11/2025

“It Depends” (A Love Letter to Ambiguity)🐴📝

People hate those two words. “It depends.” They want certainty.

They want clean answers, clear rules, and a nice little box to shove the truth into so they can stop thinking about it.

They want the world to make sense in neat bullet points, preferably numbered, colour-coded, and narrated by someone with perfect teeth.

But life with horses laughs at that sort of thing. Life with horses is a life that comes with a lot of lessons.😎

Ask me any question about a horse and I’ll probably start with “it depends.” Not because I can’t decide, but because reality isn’t a multiple-choice test. My advice depends on who’s holding the lead rope, how the horse feels today, what was learned yesterday, and what might happen tomorrow. Context matters. Always.

When you’re new to horses, “it depends” sounds like an insult. You want someone to tell you The Right Way - capital T, capital R, capital W - so you can do it, feel safe, and get a gold star.

Then, once you start learning a bit, you go through your evangelical phase. You’ve found the light. There is a right way, and everyone else is doing it wrong. Until, inevitably, the horse gods (because they exist) decide it’s time to teach you humility. Usually involving a near-death experience. Usually in public.🫣

Horses are ruthless in their ability to humble - and make the lesson stick.

“It depends” is not indecision. It’s intelligence in motion. It’s the ability to stay creative, curious, and adaptable when everything around you is unpredictable. It’s the quiet confidence of someone who’s seen enough to know there’s more to learn - and why anyone who gets on their high horse clearly hasn’t met many.

So next time you hear “it depends,” don’t roll your eyes. Celebrate it. It’s not an excuse - it’s evolution. You’ve just met someone who’s paying attention. Someone who respects the complexity of horses - and of life. Someone who knows that real progress only begins once you stop pretending there’s one right way to do everything.❤

Share this to honour those two words - "it depends" and the horse gods that make us humble and wise!

This is my Collectable Advice Entry 77/365 of my challenge and series on words and terms used in the horse world. Hit SAVE, SHARE but please don't copy and paste!

11/11/2025

Confidence Connection Workshop – Kicking Off This Friday🙌❤

I’ve been packing the event bags for my first Confidence Connection Workshop this Friday in Tahmoor (South-West Sydney) - and I am really going to enjoy sharing my unique insights into this subject.

This workshop is for anyone who’s lost their confidence around horses, feels stuck or unsure, or wants to help others rebuild theirs.

You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of yourself, a clear framework for regaining confidence, and the inspiration to see that there is a reliable, evidence-based path to enjoying your horse again.

Next workshop stop will be in Perth in November..then on around the country in 2026❤

11/11/2025

🔥THE PROBLEM WHEN BOTH HIND FEET ARE SORE‼
⛔️If you are scrolling - please stop - because you need to hear this horse's story - so focus up and read this⬇️

"Not Quite Right Horses" are horses that typically have difficult behaviour that have vague symptoms of something being physically wrong with them but any investigation cannot pin point an issue.

Harvey, was one of these horses and I wrote an article questioning what is considered "clinically significant" symptoms to determine a possible diagnosis and course of treatment or management.

When I met Harvey he was reluctant to go forward and explosive on the lunge. He had a history of being difficult to get forward under saddle and had threatened to buck. His owner, Eileen had been told he was "lazy" and it was a "behaviour" issue.

When I worked with Harvey he had red flags that his behaviour was not just "behavioural" but there was something physically wrong with him.

The red flags I observed were:

🚩A lovely friendly horse standing still, but resistant and overwhelmed when asked to go forward in groundwork.

🚩His gait was choppy and was also difficult to back up.

🚩Even with application of my training skills he showed only marginal improvement in back up and remained explosive on the lunge.

This last point is an important observation for me because I am highly competent at influencing the behaviour of horses. I trust my skills and precision so when I target a simple behaviour to teach a horse and there is struggle that puts evidence on the table that there might be a physical issue that is interfering in the horses motivation to perform and learn.

I referred Harvey to the vet for his soundness to be investigated.

Eventually after many months and 5 consultations with specialist equine vets and extensive diagnostics, the mystery of what was wrong with Harvey was revealed.

🩻His diagnosis: Damage to the medial and lateral collateral ligaments in both hind feet.

The vets were shocked by the extent of the damage as this is a serious and significant issue for which Harvey underwent extensive management in an effort to help him.

However, I wish to point out why this diagnosis was so hard and why Harvey remained a "not quite right horse" for so long. And why many thought he was just "lazy" or "fresh" or were not overly concerned as he just had a bit of a "choppy gait".

⚠️ It was BILATERAL - meaning it was in BOTH his back feet. When a horse has bilateral lameness they are harder to pick as being lame because normally if one foot is sore they will adjust their weight to the other foot to feel more comfortable. When they do this you can SEE the horse stepping short. But when it is BOTH feet they cannot make themselves feel more comfortable by doing this as both feet are sore.

This creates two problems:
1️⃣Their lameness is very hard to visually observe; and,
2️⃣They are more uncomfortable as they cannot avoid the pain by shifting it and compensating with the other foot. So, they are more prone to having difficult behaviour as a symptom‼

⚠️He was suffering from ligament damage and this was only detected by MRI!! This is a very expensive💵 diagnostic method that not many people have access too. Without MRI this problem would have never been identified and Harvey would still be a "Not Quite Right Horse"!

It is testament to Eileen for trusting Harvey and her determination to persistence to solve the mystery of what was troubling him.

Eileen understands that not everyone has the opportunity to go to the extent she has been able to with Harvey, but she hopes his story can help you believe their horse when they let you know they can't do something.

Or get anxious, reactive, easily overwhelmed, can't cope and don't respond to good training. They might just have something like Harvey, not every problem can be easily observed or be x-rayed.

I will say it again and again - I have not yet met a difficult horse that has not turned out to have something wrong with them...and many of these horses I turned around to be good citizens but there issues revealed in time.

Harvey's story ended in retirement and I hope his story can help people remain open minded about difficult horses. I will be the first to tell you that MOST issues people have with horses are due to training and handling issues. However, good training and handling can provide you a wealth of evidence that you might be dealing with a horse that is struggling to perform due to pain, restriction, balance, force transfer, coordination or energy reserves.

AND that means good training and handling are key to the well-being of horses beyond how it can benefit their health as it can also help clarify their struggles.

On the 22 November 2025 in Canberra, and throughout 2026 around Australia, I will be presenting a one day workshop I have called "The Whole Horse - Raising Awareness of all the Dimension that Shape Your Horse". Where I will present what I have learned about the interplay between behaviour, soundness, management and training. Information I wish someone had told me 20 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of frustration, broken horses and wasted time and money.

Most importantly, it would have helped me better consider the horse.

Consider this if you are new to horse ownership, getting back into horse ownership, frustrated with a paddock full of broken horses; or want to help people with good guidance.❤

See below for further details⬇️

10/11/2025

So… What Does “Lift Your Energy” Actually Mean?🤔

“Lift your energy!” they say, usually with the same tone people use when telling you to “manifest abundance” or “just relax.” It sounds profound, but it’s about as clear as “be more sparkly” - which, if you’ve ever tried, you’ll know is not a measurable unit of anything.

But alright, let’s break it down. I’ve spent two decades standing at the front of lecture theatres full of university students, delivering thrilling topics like health economics, drug laws, and the mathematics of drug dissolution. Let me tell you - if you don’t lift your energy, you die. Not literally, but spiritually. You evaporate. You become that droning background noise between lunch and freedom. And university students are ruthless.🫣

So you learn to command attention. You walk out there like you’ve got something worth saying, even if you secretly find the topic as exciting as wet cardboard. You fill the room, not with noise, but with presence. You have to light yourself on fire (metaphorically, of course) so people sit up and think, “Huh, she’s alive and important.”

Now, with horses, it’s exactly the same. “Lift your energy” means stop disappearing. Stop moving like you’re apologising for existing. Horses don’t follow half-hearted energy. They either take over, ignore you, or find your presence vaguely irritating - like an annoying fly.😬

Here’s the catch: lots of people have never had to be seen. They’ve spent decades trying to be small, safe, and unnoticeable. So when they’re told to “lift their energy,” they either freeze like deer in headlights or swing too far and turn into slightly terrifying drill sergeants.

One of my clients nailed it. After I’d tried explaining the idea a few different ways, she looked at me and said, “Shelley, honestly, what you’re describing sounds like trying to hold in a fart.”🤭 And she’s right - that’s what it feels like for a lot of people. They clench, brace, and strain to do something. But that kind of energy doesn’t lift. It implodes. Horses feel that and think, “No thanks, weird human.”🤨

Real lifted energy is presence without panic. It’s standing tall, breathing, and letting yourself exist loudly enough that the horse goes, “Oh, hello, you matter.”

So no, you don’t have to sparkle like a disco ball. But if you’re vanishing into the background while your horse looks for someone more interesting, it’s time to glow a little brighter. You’re not tensing and retaining farts😕. You’re just showing up like you mean it.💪🙌

This is Collectable Advice Entry 76 of my challenge and series on words and terms in the horse world. Please hit SHARE or SAVE but please do not copy and paste (but just enough to miss this particular line) as that is uncool. ❤

PS. I dedicate this post to my friend Kas 😆

09/11/2025

So much confidence advice sounds good… but leaves riders stuck😣

In this reel I unpack the most common myths about building confidence with horses, and why they can quietly keep you feeling uncertain, overthinking, and dependent on hope instead of skill.

If you want to understand confidence in a holistic, realistic, evidence based way that actually translates into feeling safe, capable, and effective with your horse, come join in on one of my Confidence and Connection Workshop.

No fluff. No hype.

Just clarity, competence, and confidence that is built, not borrowed.

Then first workshop is in Tahmoor (near Sydney), NSW on Friday 14 November. Then onto Perth on the 12 December 2025. Then in 2026 you will find workshops near Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane.

👉 Workshops & dates:
https://www.calmwillingconfidenthorses.com.au/clinics

09/11/2025

Official Book Release – The Gift of a Horse 🐴❤

Some horses change us forever.

This beautiful collection brings together true stories from people who have worked with me through my Teaching People How to Work with Horses course and our Society Membership community. Each story captures the wisdom, courage, heartbreak, and transformation that horses gift us - and the remarkable humans who choose to learn from them.

I want to celebrate the incredible authors who shared their hearts in this book. Writing about your horse and what they’ve taught you is one of the most meaningful things you can do. It keeps their legacy alive and allows others to feel the love, lessons, and life you’ve lived with them.

PS. If you are interested in how to access the other books, I will pop the links in the comments.
We all have stories inside us - stories that deserve to be told. You don’t need to be a writer to begin; you just need to care enough to put into words what lives within you. Horses teach us presence, honesty, and connection - and writing helps us honour that.

📚 How to read or listen:
• Apple Books – Free eBook for iPhone/iPad users: https://books2read.com/u/3kyplN

• Kobo Books – Free eBook for Android devices: https://books2read.com/u/3kyplN

• Audiobook & Downloadable Manuscript – Available on my course site (Simon brings these stories beautifully to life!): https://calmwillingandconfidenthorses.thinkific.com/courses/the-gift-of-a-horse

• Hard Copies – Available from my website shop at cost price for printing and postage only. These books are not for profit — they’re shared to celebrate our horses, our wisdom, and the way they shape our lives: https://www.calmwillingconfidenthorses.com.au/shop-2

This is the third book I’ve published capturing the stories and wisdom of my incredible community. I do this because storytelling gives life back to these special horses, shares knowledge across generations, and shows others how to create something meaningful of their own. It’s my way of honouring my teachers - by carrying the baton forward.

Because when a horse enters your life, it’s never by accident - it’s a gift.❤

PS. Links for the previous books below⬇️

Dr Shelley Appleton Calm Willing Confident Horses

16/11/2025

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14/11/2025

13/11/2025

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