Gippy Equine Assistant

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Gippy Equine Assistant For when only a horse girl’s help will do 🐴
Honest, Aussie horsemanship, working in harmony with horses 💖
Fluent in thoroughbred 🏇🏼
Putting the horse first 🥇

21/11/2025

It takes a lot to be willing to change. To see something inside yourself, in what you’re doing, in what you’ve been taught. To hold it, see it and and then… let it go.

I learned about horses in racing stables. I internalised so much aggression and dominance in my handling. I was quick to be confrontational. I didn’t see - or know honestly - the basics of how to read a horse, or how a horse should be.

Simply loving them as horses, I was intuitive about some aspects. I bonded easily with the horses that weren’t liked. Giving them the love and patience and kindness that built them up a little.

I missed the indoctrination of a pony club upbringing. Being told that we do things in certain ways because we always have.

I learned in tertiary study, in my own life and other areas and interests of mine that it is seldom good to maintain the status quo.

So when Tourn came home to me and I was faced with truly learning what it meant to own a horse?

When Tourn came home to me and I did little else but chew on whether he liked a given discipline, pursuit or style?

When Tourn came home to me and I had to unwind his body and learn about horses and redevelop his entire system?

When Tourn came home to me and openly and without hesitation shared every thought he ever had?

I changed. I grew. I found the pieces of what I thought was good practice, thanked them for teaching me and then let them go. Or I’m trying to anyway.

And Tourn has thrived.

So when you meet inevitably meet the horse that asks you take a step back and review yourself? Let them.

19/11/2025

It’s actually been a long while since Tourn said ‘no’ to being caught.

When I started giving him the choice to engage with me on any given day, he said ‘no’ a lot. But that led to a lot more ‘yes’ when he realised he had that autonomy.

People laughed, they said it was dangerous and dumb. I’m fine with that critique. It’s difficult to truly appreciate an individual and a reality through a screen. Sometimes I think we must appear as characters in a tv show. That’s a different chat, for a different day 😂

Offline, my horse is happy to see me. He meets me at the gate. He puts his nose through his halter. We have more mutual respect than ever.

Where he once saw me with a halter and reacted on a spectrum of “catch me if you can” to “I’m walking away and making a face to make a point while I ultimately allow this”. He now engages with me much more positively and actively chooses to be in my space. And to allow me into his.

This ‘no’ caught me off guard though. I did have an enormous urge to follow him and catch him. I swallowed that. That’s my discomfort to work through as I continue on this path. It’s his boundary, my role is to respect it.

The next day? We did go for our walk 🥰

17/11/2025

What happened to Harry at the crossroads of his career is one of those racing industry outcomes that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

As a 6yo, Harry was recommended retired by his trainer. The stable foreperson had a home for him. But his connections saw dollar signs, not the welfare of their horse as the number one priority.

I know not all participants are in it for the money alone. I know not all participants cheat. I know not all participants subject the horses in their care to abuse.

But many do.

Just look at how many people think Darren Weir deserves to be relicensed. And how participants continued to support him. Even after that footage with the jigger was released. Even with a 20 year long rap sheet of offences.

And he’s far from the only one.

Harry’s owners chose to continue on with a horse who should have been retired at age 6. In April of 2022, Harry snapped his leg at his fist start for the new trainer.

And I cried for that horse. Who didn’t deserve that ending. Greed. It was greed that ended his life.

It’s these parts of the racing industry that the industry refuses to reckon with that continue to harm it. Social licence is real. Treating the public like idiots, rather than educating is a constant mistake. Failing to acknowledge the harm its own echo chamber creates will end this sport.

Is there a place in society for racing? Yeah. If it’s willing to change in big ways that actually demonstrate the “love” the industry claims to have for horses.

Harry’s fate was so intertwined with my own. He altered the trajectory of my life, in a single moment so irreversibly that I can never forget him.

And just as I mourn for the version of myself whose life he interrupted, I mourn for him. And what could have been for us both.

16/11/2025

No other animal, aside from Homo sapiens of course, has contributed more to modern society than the horse.

They’ve transported us, they’ve facilitated agricultural practice for us, they’ve run blindly into battle for us.

And how do we repay Equus caballus ?

By treating them in the same, sh*tty and gross ways we always have. Most of the equine industry is stuck in a mindset that is at least 50 years old.

Dominance and compliance doesn’t mean your horse is well trained. It doesn’t mean your horse is happy. We’ve been trained to see their pain and distress as normal. Something to strive for. Success at the highest levels of sport.

Pretty bloody shameful.

We ask, they give. To their own detriment. And we remain ungrateful.

It’s past time this sport changed.

11/11/2025

Content creation doesn’t just demand of me; and it’s a choice I make.

It demands of my horses. And I always let them guide me on any given day as to their willingness and capacity. Because we’re not performing. We are showing up as ourselves, exactly as we are in that moment. There’s no character built for this platform. It’s not a performance.

Tourn and I had been free lungeing. We are trying to find the sweet spot between being forward, but not so forward he works entirely on his forehand. All part of teaching him to use his butt more effectively to prevent dysfunction.

As we finished I had a thought;

‘I wonder if he’ll let me on?’

Because he doesn’t often, ba****ck. Even if he’s let me tack up, he will still say ‘no’ when it comes time to mount up.

So his ‘yes’ was very special to me.

But the way he told me he was done filming? Bloody priceless 😂

10/11/2025

Every time I see a sales ad citing that the horse is ‘wasted’ in the paddock.

Every time I see a post saying ‘I don’t have the time to ride so I’m moving my horse on.’

It’s not really about the horse is it?

I can say with certainty that Tourn and Lissi would still be my horses, even if they could never be ridden again.

The difference between people who love horses and people who ride horses is more apparent every day.

And perhaps we need to reckon with that.

03/11/2025

It’s definitely Melbourne Cup time, based on my feeds.

For years, certain groups have tried to tell the world that there’s no such thing as a retired racehorse.

They’ve tried to tell us that 18,000 retired racehorses are slaughtered annually. Which is confounding, because that’s more than any annual foal crop. On that logic, there are no retired racehorses.

From there, they’ve been walked back to 15,000, thousands and then “some”.

But to now take the position that there are so many retired racehorses that their relevance is negligible?

“Just another retired racehorse.”

Bizarre.

02/11/2025

I know, we all got taught that scraping the water off is an essential step. But it’s time to let that myth go when the weather is warm.

Scraping the water off removes the cooling effect of the water evaporating off your horse’s skin.

Let them drip dry in warm weather. They’ll be much happier 🙏🏻

30/10/2025

Just a fun one for ya Friday 🥳

I do enjoy watching herd behaviour. I especially love watching them hoon around and enjoy being alive!

My two or partial to running around like hooligans. People comment on it all the time. They get a thrill out of watching them. Hearing the thunder of the hoof beats.

For me, a lot of it is seeing the move freely and with joy.

And watching Lissi keep Tourn in line 😉 He’s only the boss in his mind

TGIF 🥳

26/10/2025

You know the videos I’m talking about.

Person hard ties their horse to a wall, tree or hitched trailer and stands by as the horse goes off like a bomb trying to break free.

They film as the horse tries to break its neck to get free. The comments section is filled with approval, likes and shares through the roof

Trading in harm for engagement and cash.

It’s really funny hey, that we’re watching a horse be let down by another human. The human who is supposed to be “training” them.

It’s really funny hey, seeing that rope halter digging into the back of their head again and again. Watching the yank of the head and neck, twist of their spines and bracing of the hind end muscles as they dig under themselves in their panic.

It’s really funny hey, that this is considered training.

Training horses typically involves pressure. A question is asked. And when we get a response, the response we as the human desires, the release.

We know better.

There are better ways to do this.

Waiting for a horse to snap its neck to prove something unintelligent? Earn yourself some social media points?

Just say you don’t like horses. We already know.

23/10/2025

“Horse first” is used to shame people a lot these days.

But it’s the people who weaponising the words who should feel that shame. Decentering the horse is shameful.

Today a good friend and great mentor of mine shared a post reflecting on the grace, patience and work ethic of her mare. And also reflected on how she herself worked with this horse, noting the ways her horse showed her to improve.

It was working in this environment, that I came to see how much power there was in seeing the ways our horses show up for us to mirror the ways we show up for them. And more importantly gave me the words to explain this thing I’d always felt. I don’t think it’s accidental that the “difficult” and “frustrating” horses attached to me, and me to them.

This is all a lot of words to say that we could all learn a lot here. Coming to our horses, whether at work or rest or anywhere in between, from a place of awe and appreciation.

Rather than burdening them as we are want to do.

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