Art Under Saddle - Training, Lessons, Corrections, Horsemanship

10/27/2025

Destined for bad feet - courtesy of us.
Not necessarily their genetics…

10/26/2025

Don’t fit in, understand the why and find a new feel.
It’s a game changer.

Why the High Hands? 🙌

It’s a question I’m often asked; sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with a hint of scepticism: why do we ride with high hands in Philippe Karl's School of Légèreté UK?

In much of modern riding, “hands low” has come to mean “hands correct.” It’s what we’re all shown early on: elbows in, reins straight, hands held quietly above the withers. But correctness isn’t about appearance; it’s about effect.

When the hands are too low, the line of contact from the bit to the rider’s hand acts downward and backward. This puts pressure on the horse’s tongue and bars, which can cause discomfort and defensive tension. The tongue contracts, the jaw tightens, and the hyoid apparatus becomes restricted. The hyoid is a small but vital structure that connects the tongue to the rest of the body through a web of muscles and fascia reaching the poll, shoulder, sternum, and the hind end.

And when the hyoid is blocked, the effects ripple through the entire horse. You’ll often see shortened strides, stiffness through the poll and neck, difficulty stretching over the topline, and even restrictions in breathing freely. What began as a “low, steady hand” can quietly lead to tension and heaviness throughout the horse’s body.

By contrast, an elevated hand, soft, mobile, and never pulling, acts upward and forward. It relieves pressure on the tongue and bars, freeing the jaw and allowing the hyoid to move. This release encourages the horse to lift the base of the neck, rebalance, and carry itself in lightness.

In the French classical tradition, the hands aren’t there to hold the horse together; they’re there to educate the mouth and invite self-carriage. High hands are simply a moment in that conversation, a way to restore freedom, sensitivity, and balance before the hands naturally descend again. An elevated hand says “please” to the horse, requesting a shift in balance. A lowered hand says “thank you” to a horse that has found good balance and returns to a neutral, following action.

So when you see a rider with high hands, no need to think “get back to the riding school.” Look closer and you might well see a rider helping the horse find relaxation in its jaw, lightness in its shoulders, and softness through its whole body.

That’s why the high hands.

10/25/2025

“The difference between medicine and poison is the dose”

•Non-escalating pressure•

It doesn't exist.
It's a myth that's often used as a trendy marketing term.

Placing this expectation on modern horse owners to be more ethical through a theory that logically doesn't measure up to reality is a hefty price to pay, if you ask me.

All living creatures seek comfort within finding a balance of *everything*.
Such as the comfort between being too hot or too cold, hungry or stuffed, rested and exercised, and it only gets more nuanced from there.

This means that mere stagnation, in and of itself becomes "escalating pressure" every single time.

Any stagnation.
Even sitting down in the most comfortable chair becomes uncomfortable and even painful unless one shifts position.

That's escalating pressure experienced simply by being alive.

The soft, quiet, comfortable cues that are labeled as pressure free or non-escalating lack the fluctuating, cyclical, living feel that exists within the laws of life and horses.

Clicker theory attempted to avoid the topic all together, but that is an equivalent logical fallacy.

All it takes is to look around and FEEL, to know that it isn't the truth.

The horse-first-man-ship scene misslabeled abuse as escalating pressure.

And in our attempt to avoid that hell, the work became stagnant.

Our horses' bodies and minds exist in the discomfort equivalent to the "pins and needles" feeling from sitting cross legged too long, just because humans are afraid to flow and fluctuate (or escalate).

So that brings me to my main ideas for today.

1. Non-escalating pressure and feel do not coexist

2. Training without pressure all together is DEFINITELY not real. (Even and especially if food rewards are involved)

3. Living Feel is rhythmic and fluctuating

So let's think of escalating pressure as fluctuating pressure.

Of non-escalating pressure as the stagnant feel that it is.

And let's call cruelty, cruelty. Without dressing it into "escalating pressure".

Always remember that the difference between medicine and poison is the dose. Thank you for reading.

10/08/2025

Open your eyes to what’s really happening out there.

09/04/2025

Yes yes yes!
It’s all about balance 🤌🏼

08/24/2025

Sign me up!

This quote means so much to me right now…

It came up on my memories this morning, from a few years ago, and it was one of those moments where something resonates even deeper the second time around.

In the positive reinforcement community, we often hear, ‘effective is not enough,’ and while that can be misapplied in a way where we fail to progress at all, for fear of inciting any measure of stress, it’s very much ‘food for thought.’

Is effective enough?

Do the ends justify the means?

Should we really have to ride ugly, to get ‘pretty?’

Last year, a colleague and mentor gave me a bit of a wakeup call with this that made me dive even further into my application of classical and biomechanically correct work in my horsemanship.

This year, my work is getting so quiet, so uneventful, that, to a certain extent, it no longer has the appeal to observers.

The slow, deliberate walk work for rhythm and straightness, the subtle swinging of the inside hind to set up correct poll and rotational releases, so that I can get a single effortless step of a truly biomechanically correct haunches-in, which is the entire point of the exercise…

Big deal.

So much more impressive to crank a horse into incorrect rotation, and pretzel them into a huge display of the movement. To prove we can?

Been there, done that. My pretzeling days are over.

Visiting with a colleague yesterday about the challenge of presenting ‘quiet’ horsemanship and a quiet teaching style in an industry of loud voices talking up effective methods, the solution wasn’t really clear.

In an industry of bright and shiny quick fixes, how do we sell good horsemanship?

‘Simple, but not easy.

Pretty damn boring.

Oh, and one more thing…
It’s not the horse who’s the problem, it’s you.

You’re going to be working on yourself every day for the rest of your life.
Your mind, your body, your emotions.’

Sold. Sign me up. 😅

08/12/2025

They actually don’t need us as much as we think and hope they would.
Clear directions, support and stay outta their way!

When I was younger, I had a lot of challenging horses serve me a lot of humble pie.

Any time I’d get a little too cocky, they were there to remind me I still had a lot to learn.

But in a way, they also fed my ego…

After all, I got to take so much credit for their mental and physical transformations!

As I mature, I’m starting to experience that it’s the talented ones who can humble us the most, if we let them.

When we realize the best thing we can do is stay the heck out of their way.

When we realize how little they need us.

But let me tell you, getting to step back and watch them thrive in their own glory is more rewarding than any hard-earned ‘win’ with a challenging horse.

I love how this guy has intuitively transferred all his knowledge of balance from the halter and hackamore into the snaffle the past few days.

It’s been almost effortless, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he’s gathering information from working the slack of the rein, hindquarters to shoulders, which is a very similar feeling to ridden cues, and not having to rely solely on the headgear.

This is why I prioritize working back to front in my riding and my groundwork.

Applying French principles like descente de main and the weight of the rein has crept into all of my horsemanship, and I cultivate it in my lunging and advanced double lunging by utilizing corners, so that they can start to work their own drape, especially when I’m introducing new ideas or new equipment.

It’s little things like this that set them up to navigate something new so they don’t need us.

08/11/2025

Ladies and gentlemen, with great sorrow…here is what’s setting the tone for success and what’s winning in the “higher end” of our horse industry.

08/10/2025

It’s all about balance

In an effort to be kind, we run the risk of being too soft, lenient, or giving them too much freedom to choose their way of going. In doing so, we run the risk of also being unclear which can also cause the horse stress.

Creating boundaries, whether for safety, or gentle guiding aids, create clarity and motivation. I like to think of it as guiding a small child by the hand through a large crowd of people. I have intent, and clarity. It's fair, but clear that this is where we are going.

I know when I'm doing something for someone, I like for the person that I'm helping to say, "this is what I need you to do". For example, if I came over and said, "I know you're overwhelmed, what do you need help with?", and you reply "anything", it would make me feel a lot better if you just said, "washing the dishes would be a great start".

This is not bossy, it's clear, and helpful information that leads to productivity. This is what being clear with our cues and aids brings to our horsemanship.

07/28/2025

07/25/2025

Reflecting the energy of the pull into the energy of the flag can create a mirroring effect. An effect which a horse can attune with and then learn to govern through becoming softer, and staying more in touch.
That is, if the handler can do so first with good feel and timing.

07/20/2025