Two Strides Forward Equestrian

12/03/2025

I wrote this blog post three years ago. In that time some things have moved in the right direction (it definitely seems to be less of an “out there” opinion to be viewing our horses as sentient beings, and considering their needs before our own). Meanwhile not a whole lot has changed at the governance level, and in fact we’ve backslid on some areas (see the recent change to the blood rule in FEI showjumping). I think it’s an important conversation to keep having. If the industry as a whole continues to treat horses like tools instead of partners, training modalities continue to be used that turn to violence and outdated ideologies, and species-inappropriate care continues to be so prevalent, we could well lose our social license to operate.

You may have heard the term “social license” floating around over the last few years. Certainly, some great trainers and authors have already written articles on the subject, and organizations such as the FEI have even created an independent commission for that purpose. But what exactly does the...

12/02/2025

This is a hill I will die on. What a great program this is. We need more of this work in the EAS industry!

Horses working in therapy, learning, and coaching programs deserve more than good intentions. They deserve informed advocates.

Our Equine Advocate Program is built from years of behavioral research, welfare science, and field experience. We train practitioners to recognize:
• Early signs of stress vs. comfort
• Behaviors that communicate consent — and withdrawal of consent
• How environment, herd structure, and human behavior affect horse well-being
• How ethical, mutual interactions actually improve client outcomes

Here’s the truth:
When horses feel safe, heard, and respected, the entire system changes. Humans learn better. Horses thrive. Programs become more ethical and more effective.

This is what your donation supports.
Please consider giving today: www.equineintl.org/donate



Photography credit - Stephanie Sioras

12/01/2025

Agree 100%! If we can’t read our horses, we are bound to misunderstand their behaviour, which means we are guessing at how to deal with behaviour issues when they pop up.

Behavioural knowledge should come first 🐴

How to read basic equine behaviour should be the first thing anyone learns about horses, not just something that you talk about once you have a problem. Unfortunately the industry has a really long way to go.

I run online talks for young people/riding clubs/various groups based around reading very basic horse behaviour. Part of the talk involves showing a variety of images/videos and getting people to tell me what they see in terms of how they think that horse is feeling or what could be going on in that scenario. A huge number of people cannot recognise very basic indicators of stress and yet they could name and put together every piece of a double bridle or jump round a XC course. We should be prioritising teaching this stuff.

The difficulty is the instructors don’t know it either, the amount of misinformation being spread surrounding behaviour being taught by highly-regarded people with industry-recognised qualifications is frustrating and harmful to horses. And its not their fault, because that is what they have been taught, this is the industry standard. Its all about getting horses to comply and if you’re good at doing that and you say nice things to the horse while you’re doing it then you’re a great horseperson. How can anyone learn to recognise stress and fear if seeing highly-stressed horses is normalised?

While I appreciate there is much more talk around looking for pain as a reason for behaviour now, things are still very lacking and a lot of horses are still being treated like crap despite people’s good intentions. We’re still describing their behaviour away as dominant, cheeky and stubborn instead of recognising a horse under stress that is not coping with what is being asked of them.

I used to think I was a great trainer and thought I knew all about horse behaviour because I practiced some natural horsemanship techniques which basically involved applying pressure until they did what I wanted. I would get results and compliance and I did encourage people to go to the vet to look for pain when it didn’t work, but it was very basic level and I now realise I missed so, so many subtle behavioural cues. I was working with false information, I had just believed what someone else had told me and discounted anything that made me feel uncomfortable about what I was doing. Once I really studied equine behaviour I realised I had to change what I was doing and the way I was looking at horses if I wanted to be ethical.

My friend told me an interesting memory of her first riding lesson as a child. She remembers arriving and being upset because the pony was tacked up in the arena waiting for her and they wanted her to mount straight up, she said “but the pony hasn’t met me before, he doesn’t know me? I can’t just get straight on his back?” I would imagine the majority of people who start riding horses do so because they love horses. Wouldn’t life be so much better for our horses if we were taught to treat them as sentient beings and respect them as animals from day one instead of indoctrinated into dominating and using them however we see fit.

This isn’t a traditional vs natural horsemanship debate, a lot of the natural horsemanship stuff is full of behavioural pseudoscience and its just making horses do stuff with flags and ropes instead of whips and spurs while using fluffier language. We praise training when we hear kind words and stories that make us feel good, even if the horse we’re looking at is telling us otherwise. How can we hear what the horse is saying if someone keeps mistranslating their words to us?

This isn’t meant to be a negative post, I just really want to offer resources to anyone who wants them. Interestingly I find the people who are newer to horses are much more open to listening and understanding this stuff. There is so much amazing content available online now to open up doors to people who want to do the best for their horses. Feel free to message me. 🐴

12/01/2025

Call me nerdy, but I was so excited to receive an email invitation from Horse Council BC for their upcoming Trauma Informed Coaching Series. I immediately signed up for all four webinars, and I highly recommend all coaches do the same.
Trauma-informed practice is a cornerstone of my business, and is something I feel very strongly about integrating for both horses and humans. It is a common misconception that trauma only occurs in the case of serious events that many of us will never experience. While that may be true for PTSD, we now know that trauma and its effects are actually far more common, and can occur from things such as not having our needs met, insecure attachments when we were young, chronic stress and more.
Because of this prevalence, we as coaches absolutely have and will continue to come into contact with traumatized humans and horses, whether we operate in the therapeutic, recreational or sport worlds. If we do not have at least a basic understanding of trauma, we risk not being able to coach these individuals effectively at best, and unintentionally re-traumatizing them at worst. I have certainly done so in the past, but now that I know better, I do better.
Additionally, if we have not processed our own trauma, we can cause damage to those we work with. We owe it to those we work with to prioritize our own healing.
As coaches we have safety drilled into us as being of the utmost importance, but this usually refers to physical safety such as wearing helmets and holding lead ropes correctly. Becoming trauma-informed allows us to put the same emphasis on mental and emotional safety.

It is so heartening to see our provincial coaching association offering this opportunity, and I strongly recommend all coaches, whether in the therapeutic, equine assisted learning, recreational or sport streams take this course if they can.

11/28/2025

💯💯💯

This is NOT anthropomorphism - it’s mammalian neuroscience. To be clear.

Most horse people have heard the term trigger stacking, but few truly understand what’s happening inside the horse’s body when it occurs. And fewer realise that humans experience the exact same nervous-system process.

This is not “treating horses like humans.” This is a biological truth.
Horses and humans share the same basic mammalian nervous system:

• sympathetic (fight/flight)
• parasympathetic (rest/digest)
• vagus nerve
• thresholds
• stress hormones
• startle responses

So comparing the experience is not only valid but it helps people understand, relate, and develop compassion.

So let us look at YOU the human reading this:

Think of a day like this:

• didn’t sleep well
• you’re running late
• the kids are shouting
• you stub your toe
• your phone keeps pinging
• someone snaps at you
• you’re worried about money
• the traffic is heavy
• you spill your coffee

You hold it together… until someone asks something tiny of you:

“Can you just... ?”

And suddenly you:

• snap
• cry
• shut down
• withdraw
• feel overwhelmed
• can’t cope
• overreact to something small

People think it was “the last thing.” But you know it wasn’t.
It was everything before it that pushed you past threshold.

This is trigger stacking.

And your reaction was NOT a meltdown, or disobedience, or manipulation. It was your nervous system saying:

“I cannot take one more demand.” and guess what friends? Horses are no different. Not because they are human like but because we share the same biological wiring. Isn't that just fascinating to comprehend?

Now, lets translate that from a horse's perspective...

A horse’s day might look like:

• didn’t sleep lying down
• herd tension
• flies irritating
• heat or humidity
• slight hoof discomfort
• a loud noise earlier
• a new horse on the farm
• a human arriving stressed
• pressure from the halter
• the saddle pinching
• uncertainty about what’s coming next

None of these alone may cause a big reaction. But inside the body, each one is adding sympathetic charge and slowly building on top of eachother stacking and stacking...

• small adrenaline spikes
• cortisol accumulation
• reduction in vagal tone
• increased muscle tension
• faster startle reflex
• sensory overload
• hypervigilance

Just like a human, the horse’s system is slowly filling the bucket.
Then the final moment happens when it all becomes too much:

• “Walk on.”
• “Just stand still.”
• “One more try.”
• someone closes a gate too loudly
• a bird takes off
• a leaf rustles
• your energy spikes

And the horse:

• spooks
• bolts
• balks
• bucks
• freezes
• shuts down
• refuses

People say, UGH “That came out of nowhere.” But it didn’t. It really did not. It came from every single moment that added to the stack.... Just like you.

This is NOT humanising horses. It is recognising shared mammalian reality.

When horses (and humans) experience multiple stressors, the same biological cascade happens:

• sympathetic activation rises
• cortisol stays elevated
• heart-rate variability decreases
• prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) goes offline
• limbic system (survival brain) takes over
• proprioception changes
• muscles brace
• breath shortens
• tolerance shrinks

This is why neither horse nor human can “think clearly” once the stack is high.

Neither is “naughty.”
Neither is “difficult.”
Neither is “dramatic.”

Both are overwhelmed. Let us please see it for what it is, in eachother and in horses.

And this is not anthropomorphising. Anthropomorphism is actually giving horses human thoughts, motives, or stories. This is different.

This is comparing shared physiology:

✓ We both have amygdalas
✓ We both have vagus nerves
✓ We both produce cortisol + adrenaline
✓ We both have startle reflexes
✓ We both have thresholds
✓ We both get overwhelmed
✓ We both shut down when we exceed capacity

This isn’t “treating horses like humans.” It’s understanding horses better by recognising what is universal to all mammals. You have lived through trigger stacking. You know what it feels like.

So when you see a horse “explode,” or “go blank,” or “overreact,” or “say no” - instead of judging, you understand.

You feel compassion. You soften. You respond differently.

This is why relating horse and human nervous systems is not anthropomorphism - it’s empathy rooted in biology.

How do we support our horses through trigger stacking?
Preventing the stack means supporting the nervous system:

Environmental

• herd stability
• forage
• movement
• predictable routine

Physical

• pain checks
• saddle fit
• hoof care
• vet care
• bodywork

Relational

• clear, consistent boundaries
• choice
• slowing down
• not pushing past threshold

Co-regulation

• you regulate first
• stable breath
• soft intention
• calm posture
• reading early signs

You are either lowering the stack… or unintentionally adding to it.

Horses don’t “react out of nowhere.” They react when their system can no longer cope, the same way you do.

When you realise this, everything shifts:

• behaviour becomes communication
• resistance becomes protection
• “naughty” becomes overwhelmed
• training becomes partnership
• pressure becomes patience
• correction becomes compassion

And the horse softens - not because they’re forced to… but because they finally feel safe. Just like you do when someone holds space for you, stays regulated when you can’t, listens without judgment, and meets you with gentleness instead of pressure.

We are not so different when it comes to how we feel things in our bodies. Meet the horse the way you would want to be met. ❤️