Awakened Equestrian

09/09/2025

What Science Revealed About Tight Nosebands 🔬📊👀

To find out how much tightness really impacts horses, researchers tested 12 horses with three different noseband settings:
👉 loose (2 fingers),
👉 medium (1 finger),
👉 very tight (0.5 finger).

Using a special camera, they measured eye temperature, a well-known stress indicator. The results?

📈 As the noseband tightened from loose to the tighter settings, eye temperature rose significantly – showing a clear stress response.
📏 Pressure ranged from almost zero with the loose fit up to 63 N with the tightest fit – a huge difference in force on the tissues.
🔗 These findings confirm that tight nosebands are not just an aesthetic matter – they directly compromise horse welfare.

The key takeaway is simple:
💡 The tighter the noseband, the more stress for the horse. If we want horses to have “a good life,” then regulations and practices around nosebands must be reconsidered – putting the animal’s comfort before sporting demands. 🐎💚

Source: Doherty, O., et al. (2024) The Effect of Noseband Tightening on Eye Temperature as a Marker of Stress. The International Society for Equine Science.
Photo: Horse and Hound

06/09/2025

🙏🙏🙏

I mean this from the bottom of my heart:

If you want something that you can jump on and ride whenever you want without having to factor in emotional or physical well-being, there are a number of great machines on the market that you can do this with.

Horses are not one of them.

If you choose to get a horse and pursue riding as a passion, that should come with the responsibility of caring about their well-being instead of feeling so entitled to riding that your desires come above their physical, emotional and mental well-being.

If your horse’s physical and mental comfort does not matter to you in your pursuit of riding, you are better suited to a hobby that involves machinery because then you can disregard emotion without there being a negative impact to your mount.

02/09/2025

When the Noseband Hurts More Than It Helps 🐴❌😬

For many riders, the noseband is just a normal part of the bridle. In some disciplines, it’s even an unwritten standard to fasten it as tightly as possible – so the horse can’t open its mouth, and the rider doesn’t lose points. 🏅➡️😶

But overly tight nosebands are a serious welfare issue. What happens when the noseband is pulled to the limit?

• it puts immense pressure on the soft tissues and bones of the nose,
• it restricts the horse’s natural responses, such as opening the mouth to relieve bit pressure,
• it increases discomfort and pain when the bit is used.

From the horse’s perspective, it’s not about “better control” – it’s about higher stress levels. And all of this, just so the rider can gain an advantage or avoid penalties. 😔

So, the debate around noseband tightness isn’t just about rules – it’s about whether we’re willing to prioritize the horse’s comfort and health over the aesthetics of sport. 💚

Source: Doherty, O., et al. (2024) The Effect of Noseband Tightening on Eye Temperature as a Marker of Stress. The International Society for Equine Science.
Photo: Equus Magazine

29/08/2025

Why Horses Disappear into Shelters in Summer 🦟➡️🛖

Horseflies – small, yet relentlessly annoying companions of warm days. A recent study observing ten horse groups over eight summer weeks revealed a surprising finding: the number of horseflies significantly influenced how often horses used shelters. 🪰😵

Researchers set up traps and regularly recorded how many horseflies were caught. The results?

📈 On days with the highest horsefly activity, horses spent noticeably more time in the shelter.
👀 Even though the pastures offered natural shade (like trees), horses often chose artificial shelters, which seemed to offer better protection.
🤝 These shelters weren’t just shady spots – they acted as defensive zones against biting insects.

Age, gender, breed, or shelter design didn’t matter – all groups showed the same behavior. This points to a universal equine need: to escape biting insects, especially during hot summer days.

💡 The takeaway? If a horse is spending time outdoors in summer, shelter access should be a necessity, not a luxury. It's not just about comfort – it's about health, peace, and welfare. Because even one bite can decide whether a horse grazes calmly… or spends the day frantically running around. 🐴💚

Source: Christensen, J. W., Andersen, A. G., Skovbo, K. N., & Skovgård, H. (2022). Shelter use by horses during summer in relation to weather conditions and horsefly (Tabanidae) prevalence. Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Photo: The Horse

25/08/2025

I DON’T USUALLY COMMENT, BUT…
I don’t normally comment on the work of “the competition,” but this one I just can’t let pass. I was recently at a stable that had been visited by an animal communicator. The owner of a horse we might label as “problematic” told me that this communicator had said their energies were completely different, that they would never understand each other, and that she should sell the horse. The owner was devastated, though, because she still hopes and doesn’t want to sell him.

So. This is a perfect example of how animal communication – or rather its interpretation – should not look. A communicator is NOT GOD, to decide what someone should do or to hand out judgments and verdicts. That’s absolutely unethical and only reveals the oversized ego of such a person.

Using words like NEVER, FOREVER, MUST NOT, or WON’T in the interpretation of animal communication or energy work is completely wrong. Because:
🤦‍♀️ I don’t believe the universe has just one inevitable path from which we can never turn. It may have a plan for us, but we also have responsibility, and we always have the power of choice and change.
🤦‍♀️ Even if their energies don’t match now, that doesn’t mean it can’t change. Energy isn’t stone – it shifts, sometimes profoundly. Where there’s will, there’s always a way.
🤦‍♀️ Telling a horse’s owner something like that is pure unprofessionalism, ignorance, or simply an ego-driven fabrication.

I couldn’t help it – I also spoke with the horse. And what did he tell his owner? “If you’re looking for a horse just for riding, then I’m not the right one. But I can teach you how to live.” He’s been consistently pointing out the huge inner conflicts in his owner. He’s very sensitive, and it weighs heavily on him. He wants to show her how to change, he wants to stay with her, he loves her. He’s just not capable of performance-based riding in the current situation.

So should I advise the owner what to do? NO! The most important thing he already told her himself. What she decides is entirely up to her.

So be careful whose advice you listen to. My recommendation? Above all, listen to yourself.

📸 Illustrative photo by Šárka Dohnalová

24/08/2025

CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO?
“So what do you see there? Should I or shouldn’t I? Should I break up / quit my job / buy or sell a horse / go through with this plan?”
This is the kind of question I hear very often during energy therapy sessions. And my answer is always the same: NO, I can’t tell you what to do.

Energy therapy is not crystal ball fortune-telling. My role is to look into the body and soul, ask them what they need to be seen and heard, bring energies into alignment where I am allowed, and replenish where something is missing.
I describe what I see and feel, but I don’t give instructions or advice. That would be way too easy—if you could simply hand over the answers to the questions that weigh on you. :) Besides, if I did give direct answers, I could probably charge you a lot more.😁

But I don’t tell you what to do, for several reasons:
🍀 only you are the true expert on your own life—you know yourself best,
🍀 energy doesn’t have an opinion, it only longs for harmony, and there are many paths that lead there,
🍀 if I were to tell you what to do, I’d only be taking away your strength, because ->
🍀 I don’t want to create dependence on me as a therapist or on my sessions (sure, from a marketing perspective it would be brilliant if you had to keep coming back for advice at every crossroads—but ethically, that’s unacceptable),
🍀 energy therapy isn’t here to make decisions for you, but to give you strength, perspective, insight, and distance—so you can sense yourself from different angles and make your choices with a wider awareness.

So YES, energy therapy can definitely help you make decisions in difficult life situations. But NO, I will not be the one telling you what to do. That part will always be yours alone. ✌️

K.
photo .dohn

22/08/2025

Shade Is Not a Luxury, but a Necessity: How Horses Seek Shelter in Summer 🐴🌞

When we talk about shelters for horses, most people imagine winter – rain, snow, wind. But what about summer?

A Danish study observed ten horse groups over 56 summer days, and the results are clear: horses actively seek out shelters even in hot months – and not just because of the sun. ☀️🌡️

Using wildlife cameras, researchers recorded horse behavior every 30 minutes, resulting in over 26,000 observations. These revealed a clear pattern:
✅ The hotter and sunnier the day, the more horses stayed inside the shelters.
✅ On warm days, their daily behavior shifted – shelter use peaked during daylight hours.
✅ At night, their patterns stayed relatively unchanged.

Interestingly, many of the shelters were warmer than the surrounding outdoor temperature – yet horses still chose to use them. This suggests their motivation wasn’t only shade, but protection from biting insects, especially horseflies. 🦟😖

The study confirmed what many horse owners already observe: horses need access to shelter in summer too – not just for shade, but to escape insect harassment. If natural shade is limited, a proper artificial shelter should be considered essential. 🛖🌿

Source: Christensen, J. W., Andersen, A. G., Skovbo, K. N., & Skovgård, H. (2022). Shelter use by horses during summer in relation to weather conditions and horsefly (Tabanidae) prevalence. Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Photo: The Horse

17/08/2025

2/3 THE BODY KEEPS SCORE
I’ve been living with chronic back pain since I was fifteen. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes worse—there were even a few periods in my life when it faded into the background for a while. I was a regular at physiotherapy from a young age, hearing all sorts of opinions and diagnoses. I was told to stop riding horses over twenty years ago. I thanked them for the information… and stopped going to doctors.

Chronic pain is a huge and fascinating topic in itself. Where does it come from? Is it still a reaction to an issue in the body, or just a well-worn neural pathway? …But that would take me too far from the point I want to make here.

I used to resent my body for not supporting me. For not letting me move the way I needed. For keeping me awake at night in pain, for making it hard to get out of bed, for turning carrying my children into pure suffering, for sometimes not allowing me to move at all for days. My body wasn’t my partner—it was my enemy. We were constantly competing to see who could hold out longer. Would I push through the pain with my mind, or would that traitor take me down first?

It took me down. The last time it happened, something inside me finally broke. Only when I saw Gallardo fading away before my eyes—when I understood that his condition was, in many ways, a mirror of my own—did I decide I couldn’t go on like this. And more importantly, that I didn’t want to.

photo .michaela.cernikova

16/08/2025

1/3 THE BODY KEEPS SCORE
Our body is so incredibly important, yet we take it for granted. As long as it holds up and functions, we mostly care about how it looks. We live in our head. We think, dream, worry, solve problems, plan, and love with our mind.

Since childhood, we’ve been unconsciously disconnecting from our body. Because it’s not fast enough, agile enough, attractive enough, strong enough—it’s not the way we want it to be or the way others say it should be. Sometimes it draws too much attention. We hide it, we shut down the signals it sends us. Because they’re too intense, confusing, and often at odds with our mind. “Don’t whine, don’t complain, toughen up,” we’re told—and we teach our body the same.

Then comes a time when we decide we want more from life than just surviving in the same old patterns and routines. We feel as if our head might burst from the pressure. Perhaps our body is already giving out. Its “This can’t go on!” finally forces us to stop and think. It halts us and pushes us toward change.

Only when physical pain outweighs mental pain do we give our body the attention it deserves—even though it has been speaking up for a long time, warning and pleading for years.

Every insult, every trauma, every sadness and heartbreak, every disappointment, every stress, anger, and sorrow passes through the body. If we don’t know how to fully process them (and we don’t), they settle inside us—as energetic blocks, muscle tension, fascial constriction, faulty cell programming, pain, and pressure. Without CONSCIOUS care and release, we keep piling more and more weight on our body. Yet we rarely give it the care it truly needs.

When the body finally demands attention, we often turn to a doctor whose treatment addresses the symptom, not the cause. Because if the pain is hidden, then everything’s fine… right?

photo .dohn

01/08/2025

✌️

There is no correct use for draw reins.

Yes, you heard me.

Draw reins will always and forever be a shortcut for the benefit of the rider, not for the benefit of the horse.

There is no way to “correctly” create a leverage system that serves the purpose of pulling the horse’s head down and in.

The entire purpose is to make it easier for the rider to force the horse into a certain head and neck position.

Draw reins create a pulley system that amplifies the amount of pressure from the rider’s hands on the draw rein.

No matter how you configure them (where you clip them to) the leverage is always pulling the horse’s head IN.

The direction of leverage effectively serves to teach the horse to go behind the vertical.

Additionally, physical fitness is not built overnight.

The rider cannot feel the horse’s muscles fatiguing or when the horse is overstretched.

Humans are also notoriously bad at noticing discomfort signals from the horse so it becomes easy to ignore any attempts from the horse to communicate discomfort.

Draw reins skip steps that would otherwise allow the rider to gauge the horse’s physical capacity and where they’re at in terms of learning to carry themselves.

Skipping those steps does not develop the muscular ability any faster.

So, sure, the head and neck may go down and in and it may become easier to stop the horse from popping their head up, but it does not build the physical capacity to maintain that position for an extended period of time.

We should want the horse to seek contact and move into it softly, not hide from it.

The damage draw reins do to horses is apparent in their muscling but also their way of going.

Horses frequently ridden in draw reins are highly likely to dip behind the vertical with very little contact from the riding, “hiding” from contact.

This can be difficult to fix and it is much easier to avoid the problem in the first place by not using draw reins.

Draw reins, like many training gadgets, are for the rider.

They serve the purpose of offering instant gratification for the human.

But, this comes at the expense of the horse.

Building physical fitness and teaching correct carriage takes time.

Take the time it takes.

Draw reins are not for the horse.

They’re for the human.

There is no correct use for them.

This is a hill I will die on.

Stop rushing at the horses’ expense just to get to a destination faster.

It ALWAYS will come at a cost.

And usually it is the horse who pays.