Hackett Equine

01/01/2025

I thought you have probably all had enough of that “and with that the 2024 season comes to an end” I have 😂
2024 the year my body, brain, both said enough is enough, the year I wasn’t given a choice in choosing to rest I was forced to. I grappled with burn out for most of 2024 fighting the need to slow down, I still am to some degree. The most humbling, transformational experience of my life so far I think. Being faced with fear every day is not something I have ever felt before, having to choose to keep going and refuse to let it own me has been exhausting in itself.

I may not have achieved huge things in 2024 a fair plateau occurred in most areas of my life, but I did survive and I’m still proud of myself for that because I am most definitely not the same person I was in January last year. I have skills and knowledge I didn’t have before.
I have trudged through the blackness that was my mental health, drowned in the discomfort that is anxiety. But I have survived every intrusive thought, every feeling I thought was the worst I could ever feel, every sleepless night when my mind ran away with my body. I know I don’t have to believe every thought, I know I can choose not to disturb myself by leaning into them. My anxiety is allowed to flow now, and my energy levels are to be bloody listened to!
I don’t think I’ll be clear of this because place I have been lodged in for a while yet but I have certainly accepted it as the journey I am on. No resistance is left just acceptance and awareness.
Here’s to good habits in 2025 that bring us peace and joy, to starting again any moment we need, not just at the new year. And to be so kind to ourselves it radiates off us like a glowing light beaconing others to do the same 💫✨

29/12/2024

I have read this story more than once now and I feel I can’t not share as the message behind it has stuck out and reminded me of part of my purpose. “There was a great fire in the forest, and all the animals where fleeing the fire, the jaguar looks up and see’s the hummingbird flying back towards the fire, and then back towards the river and then over head again towards the fire, he calls out to the tiny hummingbird, we have to go it isn’t safe. The humming bird says, “I’m taking what water I can to stop the fire. I’m doing my part no matter how small it is, because I have to care for the forest that has cared for me my whole life” At this the jaguar stops, pauses is reminded of the forest he loves and joins the hummingbird in trying to save the forest and slowly the rest of the animals follow. From nowhere the sky opens and rain pours down, extinguishing the fire”

You can use the fire as something you feel deeply about, for me it’s more than one thing, the care and consideration of animals in our human lives, whether that is in sport or how animals are treated in the food chain these days. I consume social media like you are doing right now and I see a lot of bad practice with horses, not always but often, top riders talking about their horses getting 1hr of turn out in individual pens with no grass even just sand. Horses with totally un formed bodies being ridden and worked for financial gain. My voice for horses will not quiet and as I learn more of what horses truly need, what helps them thrive and flourish my voice will only grow louder.
I found Christmas harder this year with meat being consumed around me in large proportions, I sat and ate my mushrooms and vegetables thinking of the lives that were lost and the animals that are no longer here for the pleasure of humans. You can be offended by what I say but you won’t be more sad than the animals that lost their lives for your pleasure. Those animals that walk gently where they are asked and then slaughtered.
I know my one small voice may not put out the fire but if we all start being aware of the fire that is around us then maybe we can start a shift that is so desperately needed.

24/12/2024

Perpetual relentless work is something seemingly applauded in the horse world. Maybe because making a living with horses is so hard if we aren’t doing it 365 days a year. But that doesn’t have to mean you and your horses have to be the same. Maybe you have a horse on a livery yard and everyone is always seemingly aiming for something, riding and doing all year round and at Christmas we have some time away from our normal work so there’s more time to ride and train and progress. But what if you are tired? What if you need some slow time? Do you keep up with your friends at the yard and keep going despite feeling tired or wiped out from a busy December work schedule? You could but you can also slow down, have some rest time yourself, give your horse some slow weeks, see your family, eat some chocolate and festive food and have some time to go slow. No need to finish the year strong, you can finish the year gently in what ever way feels good. And when you are ready build your horse back up gently, with some of your little goals in mind.
If you run a yard and you struggle with the rest and work balance then here is your reminder that rest shouldn’t be seen as a reward for hard work, “I’ll have a day off when I have worked 10”
You can change your business plan, you can set stricter boundaries, you can better your service if you employ more staff allowing you to charge more. You can make these changes! I promise cause I have done it! They say in agriculture ‘make hay when the sun shines’ but the reality is we have to make hay when we choose too. This is a balance I struggle with and I’m not saying this from a place of having it all worked out, but I say it from a place of stark awareness and that’s the key. Become aware of feeling the need to rest, and then work out how to do it. Let yourself of the hook sometimes and get to know what balance works for you. It won’t be easy and people might question why you aren’t going on a Boxing Day hack but it’s ok to prioritise your horse going in the field and you having a nap. 😴

12/12/2024

Ralph is doing better than expected 🥹 the call from was positive this evening. Ralph even had a flicker of movement in his left back leg, which is more than Alex (Ralph’s surgeon) would have expected at this stage. 🫶🏼
If you haven’t seen on my stories this week Ralph out half Jack Russel half dachshund hurt his back, there is something called IVDD in small dogs (many breeds actually) but especially common in dachshund’s where their disks become sort of shriveled up and then can burst out of where they are meant to be and press on their spinal cord. On Monday Ralph was really quiet, but by Wednesday 4am he began to lose the use of his back legs. George and I have been in absolute bits, our animals mean everything to us so having him in a critical state has been exhausting. The risk of his condition worsening isn’t 0 but the vet said today that the progress is better than expected as the bruise on his spinal cord was quite significant. He said he’s really bright and loves a fuss from anyone who is willing to give it and the tiny flicker of movement in one leg is a great start. They aren’t keen for us to visit him at the moment cause leaving again is really hard for them so for now we just have to hold him in our thoughts and send him love from a distance. I just want to kiss him and tell him he’s gonna be ok but I don’t want to distress him so I’ll have to be tough.
I have received 100’s of messages sending Ralph love and I truly believe in a collective giving of energy so thank you from the bottom of my very emotional, sensitive heart, this community of animal loving humans is so special and in these times I am reminded of how truly unique it is, so thank you for all the kindness so far. If all continues as we are a he will be home on Monday and we will have a long road of rehab and recovery ahead, good job I have had my fair share of practice with the horses over the years 🫣

01/12/2024

I’m going to make a monthly round up a habit. Cause sat on the sofa on the first day of December I could look back at November and remember all the hard bits. Instead I’m reliving so much joy, so many wonderful moments to remember and celebrate
The world is literally on fire and taking stock of the small moments of joy some of us are fortunate enough to experience is important.

23/11/2024

Hackett Equine Rope Halter
The halter has been designed to offer consistent soft connection for ground work practice. An investment into your horses training and wellbeing. Hand made in 3 sizes from high quality durable material.
Small horse for ponies and horses up to 15hh
Full for most standard horses
X-full for really big horses, 17hh upwards
Available through my website www.hackettequine.com

📷
P.s I miss hanging out with Didi so much. 🙁

01/11/2024

Autumn 2024 🍂🧡🤎
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I hope you got to the last picture for a laugh 😛

25/10/2024

Online Training Packages are GO!!! Kick start your Autumn training with a coach in your pocket… me 🙋🏽‍♀️ 🍂🧡🤎🍂 for a fraction of the cost of in person lessons. And I really do mean a fraction! £1.25 per session with the current discount!
My online training platform has a new feature and I’m really excited to fill you all in! You can now buy groups of videos and podcasts as one off purchases. The monthly subscription is still available but if you wanted to purchase a whole group of ride along podcasts (a lesson with me pre recorded that you listen and ride along to) to kick start your autumn training then you can now do that. I have a £10 discount running till the end of October on that package which is 16 podcasts!! You can also purchase the fundamentals of flatwork, a series of videos and podcasts that guide you through learning about the scales of training and build up to riding a walk trot dressage test. The third package that’s currently available is all of my videos on Loading, ground work solutions to the common issues we come up against. I have had amazing feedback on my ride along podcasts and training content (swipe right to see the feedback on just one of my podcasts)
I would love to help you and your horse make some progress, find relaxation and confidence in the saddle and learn some new exercises and skills.
Link in my stories and bio or search Hackett Equine on the Patreon app

29/09/2024

Autumn, 🌦️🍁🍂🪵 The season that reminds us it can be beautiful to let things go. A season of change. Let’s hope that’s the case for Blondie and I 🤞🏻
Blondie and I have been quietly taking our time, she had a vaccine to help her hormones a few weeks ago. She will have another soon. I’m hopeful it’s going to help her have an easier time going forward, seeing her so un comfy and miserable each month for about 10 days just didn’t seem manageable any more. And I have really exhausted all the other options including
- the polymer marble (she ejected it)
- regumate fine but not sustainable long term
- hormonal supplements. Sassy mare from the most effective by far.
- homeopathy, an aid but not a cure.
I am hopeful this can give her some relief, I didn’t want to the as science but I haven’t felt I had an option.
We have been trying to do her rehab, but she has been complex with the girls who work for me with her feet, this has always been an issue. If you don’t trust her she definitely won’t trust you and she s a big horse. So it’s hard because part of her rehab is wearing her scoot boots with wedge pads. And sometimes she won’t let anyone but me put them on. Which is hard when I can’t be there all the time every day to do so. A complex girl that’s for sure.
I had a call with on Friday, Lily has been helping me with our conservative rehab plan for Blondies PSD (suspensory pain and scarring to the suspensorys) so we are going to start our rehab protocol on Monday. Her foot balance is improving and from our hoof mapping (which I’m also learning about!) we can see that her planter angle (hind foot pedal bone angle) has improved to 3° from 0° this is important because at 0° the whole hoof would be under a lot of pressure, the heel is weakened by the angle and the whole posterior chain is under pressure. Hind foot angle is really important! For all horses but really important for Blondie girl. I will explain more about the hoof mapping but I’m still learning so no image proof yet!
Blondie and I putting our best foot forward beautifully captured by
Here’s to some progress 🧡💛

06/09/2024

🌈*Discount codes*🌈
A pinned post for everyone for all my current discount codes that I have to offer thanks to the wonderful partnerships I have.
- Free postage and a free postage bag for all uk orders. HACKETT
- HACKETT10 discount for all products (bar tape worm tests)
- 10% off the whole site MIRI24
- 20% of all products (bar calming cookies) HACKETT20
- MH5 5% sight wide
- HACKETT10
I will update and add to this post as and when.
Some of these companies are paid partnerships. Some are commission based.
Happy shopping guys 🥰

01/09/2024

I posted a reel yesterday about my recent show with Zora and the comments section was so lovely. Many people commenting on Zora’s soft open frame and strong top line. I wanted to open the conversation around how and why this is so important. Let’s start here, these pictures are 1 year apart. The left is 2023 and the right is 2024. Her top line is different as is her shoulder and hind end. Her whole body is working as one now.
In this time I have learnt a lot about the power of a horse’s posture. The horse has amazing functions of the body that can compress and tighten, shorten and lengthen, one of these structures that comes into play is the brachiocephalicus muscle. Horses don’t own collar bones so they have a number of structures in and around the shoulder that play a huge role in their survival and in holding them upright. I won’t get into it in too much detail or you might stop reading but the reason for my ramble is that when a horse goes into flight mode the neck will brace and lift up, in doing this all of these structures including the brachiocephalicus will contract and work to protect the important veins and arteries in the horse’s neck. This is a survival mechanism but can cause long term harm as the rest of the body follows and the strain is then placed on the wrong structures. This leads to lameness, postural issues and pain for the horse.
The time spent in this upright tight posture can be limited as their environment shouldn’t be a constant trigger to them. Relaxation, safety of self and soft posture are the most important things we can teach our horses, as their guardians I believe it is our role to bring them back to using their bodies as nature intended. Even if your horse doesn’t stand with its neck like a periscope they can still have tightness and dysfunction in the body. So striving for soft low necked posture NOT WITH A TRAINING AID is the best thing you can do for your horse’s whole body.
Ground work and rehab videos on my online platform for anyone keen to learn more
Time, patience and awareness are all you need to be a great horse person ❤️

21/08/2024

A sliver of foot that my farrier trimmed off Inde today. She was trimmed 3 weeks ago and that is the volume of hoof that she has grown. Why am I telling you this I hear you ask. Well, if you imagined as you wore your trainers over a 6 week period the trainer got thicker and taller in some areas maybe more than others you would start to walk differently wouldn’t you to compensate for the change. Then the shoes get replaced and you go back to the start but in the 6 weeks your body has had to go with the change. Balance you and keep you feeling as ‘normal’ as you can.
In barefoot horses this is really important, they can’t take their wonky trainers off and especially not when we don’t keep them as nature intended roaming for miles per day wearing their own hooves as their body intended them to. So again why is this important? In truth this alters Everything for a horse. The subtle changes in hoof balance are really important for their whole body and also nervous system. Horses receive signals from their feet from the ground through vibrations, texture, discomfort and the body posturally adapts as needed. If the balance of the feet isn’t in alignment for the horse’s limbs and body these signals can be scrambled and so the horse can be left feeling dis regulated and the posture is effected through compensation causing tension, tightness and long term pain and maybe lameness. (Blondie situation for example)
So what can we do? As you know my horses are all barefoot so I am slowly (with help) learning about how to map feet (access angles and progress). I’ll explain more when I know more. I am also learning about best trimming practice and now own a small blunt rasp and a hoof stand but the most important one is being in consult with your farrier or trimmer. I could see my horses feet changing so a call to Chris and we trimmed after 3 weeks rather than waiting 4.5. There is a fair amount of grass at the moment and my horses are all fed proper minerally balanced diets so the hooves need more frequent but smaller trims so I can avoid all the things I discussed above. The phrase no Hoof no horse really does have meaning I promise!!
Always learning always open 🧐

26/07/2024

I wanted to post this here, I wrote it on my instagram which is mainly horse folk but to all my non horsey friends. I wanted to share what I wrote as I believe this issue of horses in sport and the recent abuse is a wider issue now as it’s been shared so publically this week on the news.

So now what do we do? I think is the question we all need to be asking. I’m of course referencing the really upsetting video that became public earlier this week, I don’t want to go into that incident individually, the rider has and will be paying her penance for a long time to come so please do not feel this is a place to comment on it. I do however want this to be a place where we can start to make change. I advocate for kind, gentle horse training, for loving our horses for who they are whether it conforms to our goals or not. For learning sometimes we can’t ride them and still loving them. For remembering it is a privilege not a right that we clamber aboard our beautiful horses and they allow us to. And I think that’s a huge part of what’s happened here, horses do allow us to do all sorts of things, and unfortunately this willing generous nature has made it possible for some people to take advantage of that and myself included once upon a time.
I worked on big yards and this sort of behaviour and “training” we saw in the video and the other recent videos of abuse was sadly relatively common place. When I was young I didn’t know better so I didn’t stand up to the person with the whip and say no. But and this is a big but when I knew better I did better and here I am today saying that we all can play a part in this change that we need to see in the equestrian world. Whether that is to go to the olympics or not. Stand up to the person you see being tough, educate yourself so you can show them another way. See their frustration and help them find another option as so often the reason that the toughness comes it’s from lack of knowledge or fear rising to the surface.
I really hope that the hear our plea to them that they are the ones that can start the wheels in motion. Educate the judges to reward the soft and not the tense. Give the stewards more power to stop blue tongues and blood. Allow snaffles and no spurs, bit less even if people want to. Allow the ethical trainers to rise up and show again how magical horse training can be, how it can heal people and remain a joy to behold.

19/06/2024

I feel I should immortalise this moment in time. A really scary moment that I wish I didn’t have to go through. A moment that is going to take bravery for both Blondie and I.
Tomorrow I’m taking Blondie to the vet hospital, for a thorough investigation. X rays, scans potentially, her ovaries scanned too. There is a list but it feels a bit terrifying to write it down for you all.
Blondie hasn’t been ok since her seasons started again in spring, she’s on regumate now (which I’m not keen on) but it hasn’t been the miracle cure I had hoped for. She’s tense and swishing her tail when I ask anything more than walking in a straight line which had got so much better. We have had some better days like after she saw the Osteo but it’s time for more answers.
I
Am
Terrified
Scared of how she will be. She isn’t easy to handle, she’s terrified of needles and she did kick someone badly before I owned her apparently. We tread incredibly carefully around her but this is going to be at her limit. I know it’s needed but I’m not looking forward to it at all. You have seen the videos when Strangers approach her, it’s historic trauma and memory of her body hurting along with the pssm, regardless of the reason it’s really scary for her and when people don’t trust her she doesn’t trust them simple as that. Humans can do horrible things when they are scared. When I list it all it’s such a complex thing and hard to explain to someone until they actually see it.
My brain is running away with me to all the possible outcomes. The horrible ones mostly. But I’m holding close the reality that regardless of my human emotions, that I’m doing the right thing, even though it’s going to be hard. I’m so frightened that today was our last hack. That all the careful work we have done has been for nothing, those outcomes feel really painful. ❤️
Every time I have had a hard thing with my horses I have always shared with you all, the collective love has always got them through so here I am again. Please hold Blondie girl in your thoughts tomorrow (Thursday). No matter what we find whether it’s what I want to know, it will be what I need to know and what Blondie needs too. ❤️‍🩹

26/05/2024

17/04/2024

⭐️We are hiring ⭐️
Part time 30hr week position available. Looking for someone who is keen to join my little team. We have all horses from young horses for handling and backing to older competition horses so looking for someone competent and experienced. Normal yard duties and I will provide all training to learn how we do things as we have a different approach to most yards. Horse first, ground work and gentle handling. There would be some hacking for the right candidate if they were keen to ride.
This is an employed role, pension, holiday and a good wage.

I would also ask for holiday cover and some weekend hours.

Based in Kensworth Bedfordshire
Start end of April
Please get in touch via direct message or email me [email protected]

23/03/2024

Did you know Premier Performance now do Dog supplements? We have been trialling this for my older spaniels and they love it! We haven’t been using it for long but they think it’s delicious and if the results from the horse side of the company are anything to go by I’m pretty confident the dogs are going to be seeing the benefits in no time!

28/12/2023

I know I talk about horse nutrition a lot but I’m going to take a moment to talk about a change we made for the dogfluencers a month or so ago. We used to feed them a kibble and some meat but there were a number of things I didn’t like about it. It was unpalatable and their 💩 was not the best, call it inconsistent. Bentley has some intolerances and I was struggling to find a protein source that they actually wanted to eat and that was good for them. The greyness of the packet food was really grim!
A few friends had moved to so we gave it a try. And we are converted. It’s so easy, turns up every fortnight, it’s fresh and smells totally fine like bland human food. They even have some veggie options too! The dogs love it and Lexi who was really fussy before (like turn her nose up leave her food) is now licking everyone else’s bowls!
I wanted to give a shout out to this brand cause it really is easy to use and the dogs love it. Their 💩 is far healthier too, their breath is fresher so I don’t mind a little bit of Ralphy love. Anything for the health of my animals ❤️
They gave me a code (not affiliated just as standard) that can give you and I a discount on your first box! Miriam198 will give you 60% and then 30% off your first boxes! Very helpful indeed.