RSH EquineConnection

13/12/2025

09/12/2025

29/11/2025

This has been my company for my morning jobs missed these! What a cool lady! ❤️🦄

It's been a while since I released a podcast, it's been hard getting my timetables and guests timetables to mesh.

But we have a new one today, and it's a great one.

My guest on this episode is Josephine Jammaers.

Josephine's bio reads

"Joséphine is an outdoor psychologist, lifelong horsewoman, and adventurer who feels most at home far from the beaten path. She has crossed the mountains of Kyrgyzstan with stallions and competed in the Gaucho Derby in Patagonia — the world’s toughest multi-horse endurance race — where she earned the Spirit Award for her resilience and positivity in extreme conditions.

After two years of living almost entirely outdoors — traveling on foot, by bicycle, sailboat, packraft, and horseback — she developed a profound understanding of how nature and adventure shape the mind, build resilience, and spark personal growth. With years of experience as a trainer, speaker, and practitioner, she blends scientific insight with lived wilderness experience.

She now leads Outdoor Psychology, inspiring individuals and organizations to step outside and far beyond their comfort zone, using nature and adventure as catalysts for change."

I met Jospehine in Argentina when we were both competitors in the Gaucho Derby, and was immediately drawn to her amazing energy. In fact, one night eating dinner at start camp, I said to her "I want what you're having", and she generously pushed her plate in my direction. I said "Not what you are eating, whatever it is your are nourishing your soul with". her open energy was so amazing I wanted to know where/how she got it!

I'd been trying to get Josephine on the podcast for a while now, I hope you guys enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it.

The Journey On Podcast is available of all of the podcast platforms.

27/11/2025

🐴 The correct use of learning theory in horse training is good for horses.

Every goal-directed outcome that is satisfied is confirmed mainly via the neurochemical reward system.

When actions become habits, these habits also are maintained by a charge of dopamine every single time.

Therefore, horse training, when done correctly, can lead to positive sensations for every learned response and movement.

💢 But here is the crunch: for training to be rewarding, it must follow the sequence of the operant contingency—signal, response, reinforcement.

Contemporary horse training, particularly in horse racing and Olympic sports, has increasingly drifted away from the correct use of learning theory.

Driven by commercial pressures and the subjective nature of judging in sports like dressage, horses often become overly habituated to rein aids.

🌀This leads to a detrimental spiral where riders escalate to harsher bits and more severe gadgets just to maintain head position.

In these circumstances, horses become motivated less by the original foundation cues—such as leg aids—and more by the release of rein pressure, essentially the release of the brakes.

At speed, a simple release of the reins means the horse accelerates, a result of what is called ‘restraint training’ rather than true signal-based response.

From the horse’s perspective, this approach is confusing and amounts to ‘changing the rules,’ which can be harmful in a variety of ways.

💡Always remember, a horse’s remarkable abilities in classical conditioning mean that countless things in the horse’s environment can become triggers for behaviors, often in ways you never intended.

📖 Modern Horse Training: Equitation Science Principles & Practice, Volume 2- Andrew McLean

23/11/2025

Two days of learning, at the healthy horse conference one in person and one the sofa listening to the rain.
NKCs talk on imposter syndrome reminded me that growth matters more than perfection. We can help horses if we don’t put ourselves out there.

I really enjoyed Dr Gillian Tabors’ talk and was so pleased to see classical in-hand work recommended from a physio perspective.
Nic from Redwings gave such a useful session on the 5 Domains and beyond, a great reminder that we can only do as well as we know at the time, which is exactly why we must keep learning.
Kate .equine.vets showed once again just how much knowledge and passion she has. My horses are very lucky she is their vet.
Watching my friend really got me thinking about the dead space I could turn into a loafing area.
Plus there was so much more. I definitely need to rewatch Sue Dysons talk!
I loved hearing so many talks about the progression of the equestrian industry. It took me back to my early twenties, when I first started questioning what we do with horses. A non-horsey friend said something that has stayed with me ever since:
“Rach, people are going to ride and have horses anyway. You giving up won’t help. You need to help find the way that works for the horses.” This has been my mission ever since.

18/11/2025

Your horse’s skeleton is built for impact — not confinement.

Three decades of equine bone research makes one thing painfully clear: Horses kept in box stalls lose bone density.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Confinement triggers the same biological process humans call osteoporosis — and it starts fast.

Key findings from the research:

- Horses moved from pasture into stalls and worked only at slow speeds began losing bone mineral content within weeks.
- A single short sprint per week (50–80 m) dramatically strengthened bone.
- Corticosteroids mask pain and increase risk of further injury
- Good nutrition cannot override a lack of mechanical loading.
- A skeleton that doesn’t experience impact simply cannot stay strong.

All of this is drawn from:
Nielsen, B.D. (2023). A Review of Three Decades of Research Dedicated to Making Equine Bones Stronger. Animals, 13(5), 789.

So what does this mean for our modern domesticated horses?

It means bone weakness is not inevitable.

It’s a management problem.

It means many “mysterious” pathologies — stress fractures, suspensory injuries, joint degeneration, chronic compensation, recurrent lameness — are downstream consequences of bone that never had the chance to adapt to the forces nature designed it for.

Box stalls create osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis creates a whole lot of other pathology.

Your horse doesn’t need to be an athlete. But their bones require impact. Free movement. The ability to respond to their own nervous system’s cues to trot, canter, play, stretch, and even sprint.

Turnout is not enrichment.

Movement is biology.

Bone health is built — or lost — every single day.

A question I encourage every owner to sit with:

If you knew your horse’s bones were weakening in silence every day they stood still, would you keep managing them the same way?

Because in the end, it’s not confinement that keeps a horse safe.

It’s a resilient skeleton.

And only you can give them the environment their biology requires.

Change begins with us.

06/11/2025

04/11/2025

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