Hamilton Acres Equestrian Centre

17/06/2024

A horse can tell you a lot about his/her gut health by their coat. 🧐 Belle was treated for ulcers this year and has been on appropriate gut supplements to support her health journey. Comparing her winter coat this year to last year certainly tells a story! ✨️

Prepping a horse for an ulcer scope can be tricky sometimes but it is well worth the outcome if you suspect your horse may have them. We offer short-term stays in our comfy stables if you need assistance with this or any other vet stays/holiday care. 🤗 Feel free to chat to us about pricing!

19/05/2024

Congratulations Izzy! 👏💐

We're very proud of this young lady today. She's spent the past couple of months with Tylah being started under saddle and steadily being exposed to more as her confidence increases.

Izzy's wonderful owner trusted us to give her the best possible start to her riding career and today she really blew Tylah away with her willingness and ability to process her surroundings. Izzy attended her first pony club muster this morning, and it was a little busier than Tylah first expected it to be! So there was a looot of new sights, smells, sounds and feelings going on today for Izzy to think about. But Tylah did what she does best and allowed Izzy to process what was going on in a way that by the end of the morning she was happily going around the obstacles on a loose rein with other horses trotting and cantering passed her. She even received a "well done" ribbon as recognition for her coming in this morning as a green horse and really giving it her best. 🩷💜 We couldn't be more excited for her and as her training wraps up with us, we wish Izzy all the best for her very bright future. 🥰

17/12/2023

✨POLICY CHANGE UPDATE✨
We've been umming and ahhing about this one for awhile as it's not necessarily something we wanted to have but as things grow and expenses rise we have come to the decision that a cancellation policy will be necessary going forwards. So as of January 1st 2024 we will have a 24 hour cancellation policy for all services. We understand things happen last minute and people can't always make their bookings but we're hopeful all our clients will understand that when last minute cancellations take place, that's our time we had put set aside to make income and when we lose that we lose the income with no way of recouping it. We want to be able to continue to provide all our services to everyone which means we need to make it financially sustainable. So with that being said, all cancellations within 24 hours (weather related cancellations aside) will still require full payment. We will be updating our website to reflect this and are providing 2 weeks notice to all clients with this post🙂

We hope everyone has a fantastic end of year and gets to spend a very merry Christmas with their ponies 🐴🎄

09/12/2023

Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement coming in the new year 🐎🏹🤭

16/10/2023

🩵 SOLD 🩵

Arlo is a beautiful one blue-eyed 17 year old, 16 hh Paint Horse x Thoroughbred gelding. He is named after Arlo the Good Dinosaur as he is truly a good boy. He is incredibly gentle and loves to be dotted on. He gets along with any horse he is paddocked with and always shows kindness to people. He has been used as a lesson horse the last 6 months but due to me cutting back on the amount of lesson days I have available, I no longer will be needing as many lesson horses. He is up to date with vaccinations (including hendra), teeth done under sedation by a vet, hooves (currently barefoot and has strong feet), worming and body work - which he receives every 4 weeks and is easy to catch, trim, float. He is currently ridden bitless and does great this way as he is very responsive to leg and seat aids but he can be ridden with a bit. He has 3 established, balanced gaits with a lovely rocking horse canter. He has begun mounted archery training where he is happy for arrows to be shot while standing next to him (he will continue training in this area until sold). He has been ridden by beginners and young riders under supervision however he is not being sold as a complete beginners horse. He requires a capable, confident rider with a balanced seat as he can get tense and worried if his rider is bouncing around on his back and has been known to throw a couple pig roots in this situation. But with a balanced seat, he doesn't put a foot wrong and is lovely to ride. He is currently leased out by a 13 year old girl who rides him very capably and she has no issues with him. She is able to do all his handling and ride him on her own without me present. Video footage in comments of him being ridden at all gaits. He is the kind of horse that can be left for months in the paddock and then get on and go. When I first got him, he spelled for 2 months and my first ride on him he didn't put a foot wrong. He does best with kindness and loves positive reinforcement and clicker training so would love to see him go to a home that will continue to provide him with the same level of love and care. If you are the kind of person who thinks they need to dominate their horse in order to be their "leader" than Arlo is not the horse for you as he deserves better than those old school philosophies.

PROS:
*quiet, easy to do anything with kind of horse
*easy to paddock with other horses but isn't herd bound and very easy to take out on his own
*experience with young riders
*established ground work - easy to yield shoulders and hind, neck flex and lunge
*understands leg and seat aids
*up-to-date with everything and currently in work - so ready to get on and go

CONS:
*requires a balanced seat or can get worried
*a heart murmur was picked up on at his last vet check-up. A previous vet report from a different vet made no mention of it and that report states that his heart sounds are normal. His heart has been monitored while worked and he retains a healthy heart rate even after canter work. Not sure if it was a temporary murmur but wanting to be as honest as possible as I want to find Arlo his forever home, as well as the new buyer deserves all the history/information that I know about him.

5, 🥕🥕🥕

05/10/2023

09/09/2023

Tabor is trying to see what it's Iike to have little humans on his back 🥹 very proud of the little man giving these new chapters of his life a go and feeling very grateful to have such great students who are just as passionate about ethical horsemanship as we are to help out in the process. It makes all the difference to these guys journeys to be surrounded by supportive and patient riders.

06/09/2023

The Hamilton Acres ponies definitely agree that we have the best agistees 🥰 they got homemade cookies baked by one of them and safe to say they left no crumbs behind 😅 We love being able to share our home with so many lovely people and the ponies love all the extra friends!...and treats 😆🤤

01/09/2023

Our lesson horse Arlo will be for sale in the coming weeks. We'll be sad to see him leave as he's been the sweetest boy! But are excited to see him continue on in his journey as he's a special boy with a lot to give 🐴❤️ feel free to pm if you'd like more info or else will be posting his ad when everything is ready to go ☺️

06/08/2023

Finishing off weekend lessons with a trail ride 🎉 a great way to get both rider and horse out of the arena doing something different and building on confidence 😄

03/08/2023

Horses with Trauma 💕🥹

This is somewhat of a specialty for our trainer, Tylah from Liberated Equestrian Horsemanship.

These two horses here have both had major breakthroughs this week which we just love to see 🥰.

Simba came to us suffering severe PTSD and had not an ounce of trust left in him that humans didn't 🟰 pain. This was from a lifetime of humans taking his choices away and teaching him he wasn't worth anything and didn't have a voice 😔. His way of coping was to stop most interactions before they even began. 🛑

Belle on the other hand went through several highly stressful events including moving properties several times, being started under saddle and giving birth all by the time she was 3 years old 👶. Her way of coping was disconnecting from reality - she didn't want a relationship with people (or other horses for that matter) and had only ever known fending for herself 💔

Both Belle and Simba did come to us with quite a lot of pain in their bodies so of course the first step is to treat this. But just like people, often times mental blocks are a lot harder to overcome than physical blocks. Tylah specialises in being able to really listen to what the horse is saying and tailor her training to what they are asking for.

🌹 With Belle that was finding a way to make the interactions fun for her so that she began to want to start participating and started looking forward to her training sessions, this opened the door to start to be able to build that all important connection and conversation. 🌹

☀️ For Simba Tylah had to give him his autonomy back. For a long time she let Simba just 'be'. His first session back under saddle was being rewarded for micro movements as he was still very resistant to being asked anything of him. The video is from his second session where you can see him engaging and enjoying making the decision to move (full video in comments). ☀️

These horses both had the very real possibility of people giving up on them and maybe you're at that stage with your own horse where you feel like you've tried everything. Sometimes it can even feel like with traumatised horses that you have given them a better life and they 'repay' you by acting out now that they're being allowed to have a voice. Tylah is very experienced at helping in these situations and would love to be able to assist you to have your own breakthroughs with your ponies.

There is hope for our traumatised babies (and also for our non traumatised ones!) Feel free to message us any time 💖

24/06/2023

Did you know we do pre/post vet care 🙊 if you require your horse prepared for veterinary care such as fasting before a gastric scope or require daily post op care but don't have the time or facilities necessary to do so, we can help. Our experience includes multiple forms of medications including intramuscular injections. Prices vary depending on the need so feel free to get in touch for a quote ☺️

14/06/2023

We've been working on preparing some of the ponies for mounted archery lessons 🫢 Snowy smashed his first trial lesson ☺️ we're always super proud of this boy! Stay tuned as we are working on offering this as a permanent service in the near future 🏹🐎

03/06/2023

Did you know that we offer a discount for emergency services workers? 🤗 If you work for any of the emergency services and can provide valid ID you will receive 10% off lessons - this can include ground work, liberty, and connection-based lessons if you don't feel comfortable getting on a horse.

Horses are incredible for mental health - being around them has been shown to lower stress and can lead to increased emotional awareness (they will make you pay attention to your own energy!).

We greatly value all of the amazing people that put their lives on the line for the rest of us every day and would like to give back to those individuals. 🚓🚑🚒❤️💙

14/05/2023

As humans we loooove to control things 😆🙌. For a long time the horse industry has been a prime example of this! But what happens when you take *away* the equipment instead of adding more. These might be some of the best conversations you'll have with your horse when there is a pure and open line of communication. 💬🤗

12/05/2023

These two angels, Snowy and O'Malley and Liberated Equestrian Horsemanship ran a clinic yesterday with a group of lovely girls visiting from the USA. They taught them all about how we can use our energy to communicate more effectively with our horses and build a relationship based on trust and understanding. 🥰

19/04/2023

Little Tabor the brumby is a great student and coming along in leaps and bounds with a daily short lesson every evening. He had no problems with accepting this ba****ck pad and girth for the first time 🥰

Regular, consistent training is one of the greatest advantages with on-property training and one of the reasons why it's so much bang for your buck! At this stage Tylah's off-property training slots are booked up but she still has some on-property training available. This includes 4-5 sessions per week to really have the most impact on how quickly your horse starts to understand the questions being asked of him/her. 💡🤓

08/04/2023

O'Malley is our newest kid on the block and today he got to learn that at Hamilton Acres we go bitless. Being an off the track Thoroughbred we imagine this was his first time!

Today was one of those days that I'm sure many horse riders are familiar with - where nothing goes to plan and there's monsters hiding around every corner! 👻 After attempting to go for a nice trail ride with some of our agistees many of the horses were saying "not today please" except for O'Malley. So we decided to give him a little ride in the round yard to get used to this new feeling of having no bit, and I don't think there were many complaints from this lovely gentleman. 😉

(Of course, it was one of *those* days so he threw a shoe and had to have a pedicure afterwards 🥴) Time to pack up the riding boots and try again tomorrow. 😌😂