Amryddawn Welsh Cobs NZ

15/11/2024

Our horses have their teeth done on a regular basis by a qualified professional bit we also take a quick peak inside their mouths fairly regularly too to make sure nothing is obviously amiss. Our gear is also checked regularly for any signs of damage (although wherever possible we prefer to use no gear at all)

14/11/2024

This is Flint. The big old boy is part of the reason we decided to get into the welsh cob breed in the first place. He is super sweet, is a lovely up hill mover, has a good jump in him, is very trainable and was quiet enough for my partner to learn on until one day he suddenly wasn't. Sadly he put my partner in hospital because he was in pain. He was retired at just 10 years old due to soundness issues. These days he is Shelyron Disgleirio's companion. I love watching them play across the fence with each other. One of these days I will catch them in the act so I can share it.

13/11/2024

It's healthier for everyone involved (including the trainer themselves) to be kind. Kindness matters

Stop giving your money to trainers who talk down to you, and make you feel like sh*t 😫🙅‍♀️

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of the trainer/client (trainer/student) dynamic that has been standardized and is continuing to the day to be accepted.

Why do we allow trainers to speak down to us?

Why is it okay for them to make us feel bad for making mistakes or being human?

Why are we accepting open ridicule, belittling, gaslighting, and worse from professionals we pay to teach us?

I can tell you I don’t accept it anymore. 🙅‍♀️

And you shouldn’t either!

If your trainer…

• makes you cry
• makes fun of you or your horse
• talks down to you
• makes disparaging remarks about you, your horse, or your riding
• talks about you behind your back
• yells at you
• throws things or in any way loses their temper around you or your horse
• or is in general unsupportive and negative

You need to be giving your hard earned money and precious time to someone else. No ifs ands or buts.

I don’t care how popular of a trainer they are, how many medals they’ve won, how fancy their horses are, or who says they are the “best”.

You and your horse deserve better. 🫵

13/11/2024

The move down from the north island was pretty rough on Bridgerton. She lost a lot of weight, didn't eat properly for the first few weeks and arrived with a skin condition. She's now has a hearty appetite, has consequently put all the weight back on (and then some), and her skin condition is finally starting to clear (the wet winter spring did not help at all).

13/11/2024

This little lady is going through a bit of a growth spurt. We are hoping she makes 15hh. In the meantime we are loving her summer coat. She is looking a lot like her sire and is going to mature into quite the blingy girl.

08/11/2024

I love a big butt... I can't deny it ❤

07/11/2024

The girls letting me know they have finished their breakfast earlier this morning. All our horses are on a forage based diet but that doesn't mean they just get hay or grass. Most forage isn't nutritionally balanced so they also get supplements to ensure they are receiving all their essential vitamins and minerals as well as healthy probiotics. This ensures hoof health, skin health and healthy coats. It also helps ensure gut health too. The cobs are pretty easy keepers so their breakfasts are kept to the basics. While the tbs, especially during the colder months, get a few extra goodies thrown in to help ensure they maintain a healthy weight.

04/11/2024

There is always some sort of drama going on around here - this morning, when I opened the shed door to feed the girls out of the rain, I found a crime scene!!

03/11/2024

I want to challenge the common assumption that horses only live in the present and don't think about the past or the future? This doesn't make sense to me and has been bugging me for a while.

I realise this is the story a lot of people tell themselves when they have to make the tough decision to euthanise. It can bring us comfort to think the our faithful companions don't worry about death. It's possibly true - every living being eventually dies. It's a fact of life. But it is also possibly false - after all, every living being also has a very strong survival instinct. Horses have the largest (proportionally) amygdala of all domesticated animals - the part of the brain responsible for flight/fight (i.e. survival)

Horses can and do suffer anxiety. There are many potions and supplements available to treat exactly this condition. Anxiety is said to occur when we live in the future and not the present.

Horses can also demonstrate depressive behaviours - they can mourn for the loss of their friends, cease to eat and drink when they move homes and they can suffer from learned helplessness at the hands of unsympathetic trainers - helplessness is a central feature of clinical depression and we are said to be depressed when we live in the past.

From our own experience, our horses know when it is dinner time, we keep our stallion to a routine so he doesn't get his jobs confused (i.e. he acts appropriately depending on the respective social occasion) and our horses get excited and curious when the horse float arrives. They can anticipate good and bad events, plan and while they don't use clocks, in our experience they absolutely understand time. This all suggests to me they are capable of complex thought including thoughts about the past and the future.

I'd also suggest our horses are more intelligent than most people want to consider. They understand what we ask of them far better than most people understand what they ask of us. I'd argue my horses understand me better than most people do. So I am always perplexed when people imply they are less intelligent than we are - ok, they aren't reading books, solving complex math equations or sitting chemistry exams, but less face it, there are a hell of a lot of people who don't do that either 😉 Surely understanding a second language from a species not your own is one of the hardest things to do. PERIOD. This demonstrates to me they are at least equally intelligent to people except that they have different strengths.

The reality is, neither we nor science have much of an idea about what thoughts our horses have and I think we are a long way from understanding exactly how intelligent they are. To say otherwise, I personally find to be pretty arrogant.

29/10/2024

I never understood the nervous system until a few years ago I fell ill. In order to go from being bedbound to some level of activity I had to learn to tap into and regulate my own nervous system. I now use that knowledge I learned when I am interacting with my horses and what a difference it makes. They still become uneasy and fearful at times but it is a hell of a lot easier to bring them into relaxation, calm and peace than it has ever been

REGULATING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND TRAINING

A well regulated nervous system is one in a state of calm alertness, which is the state where learning, positive social behaviour and enjoyment all exist. I think the great classical teachers have always dealt with horses in this way even if they wouldn’t have used those words.

A dysregulated nervous system then is where we experience what we call bad or oppositional behaviours, spooking, shutdown and so on (in humans as well as horses!). So it stands to reason that if our training is based around creating a level of calm and safety in the nervous system things are likely to go a whole lot better.

We need horses to move and think in ever increasingly complex ways as we go through training. So the ability to expand their physical capabilities is essential, but it’s not possible if they can’t expand their mental understanding.

And all of that depends on the part of the brain that’s currently activated. Horses have the biggest amygdala (fear center) of any domesticated species. Broadly speaking the more the amygdala is activated by threat (whether we see it as real or not is irrelevant), the more focus the horse automatically places on survival and escape and the less energy is directed into learning and co-operation.

Lots of things we do with horses activate warning signals because we usually overestimate what a horse understands and underestimate how slowly and distinctly we need to spell things out to make sense to them. All those misunderstandings lead to accidents, or just the horse hits a ceiling in its training.

Just because they’ve gone along with something, even for years, doesn’t mean they’ve truly understood it or felt comfortable. So we need to focus on creating a sense of safety and comfort for the horse in everything he’s asked to do.

It’s not possible for a horse or a human to always be in a zen-like state of internal balance, but here are some ideas to train and maintain a good state of regulation.

- It starts when you are in the horse’s line of sight. If you are careless, don’t show him how to lead in a relaxed way or don’t help him through a gate you are actively disconnecting and dysregulating him before you’ve even got to the tie up.

- Only ask for one hard thing at a time - eg if you’re working on something new or hard, don’t do it where the horse is likely to be distracted or spooky, or in combination with something else new or hard.

- Everything we ask from the horse should result in more confidence, more physical comfort, less anxiety, better technique and strength. If any one of those is sacrificed in training it was without exception more destructive than it was constructive.

- Be very precise, including the timing of the aids, help the horse find his balance to do what you’re asking, and release the ask/pressure when the horse has not only found his balance and performed the move physically, but also relaxed into it mentally.

- Don’t ask too much for too long. Things that seem super simple to us require a considerable mental and physical effort from the horse, and if they are pushed too hard they lose technique and confidence. Sometimes a few steps is better than a whole circle.

- Just back off altogether if things go too wrong, and find something constructive the horse can solve fairly easily to bring the thoughts back into the body and a calmer state.

- If you’re working holistically it won’t matter that you can’t practice shoulder in or canter today, because whatever you can do today will strengthen the horse for another try tomorrow.

- How regulated is your own nervous system? It’s totally fine to have anxiety or stress around a horse, that’s just life, but if you are not conscious of it or trying to pretend you're ok-er than you are, your level of reactivity will be high and your empathy will be low, and timing and decision making will be not so great.

If you’d like some practical help I currently have limited spaces for coaching in West Melton, Tai Tapu, and Rangiora. PM me for details.

28/10/2024

Pay attention to ME!!

27/10/2024

Like so many people I was bought up to think you must always make your horse do what you ask them. I have since changed my approach and the relationship I have with my horses is all the better for it. Don't get me wrong, I still set boundaries but more often than not, I no longer need them.

🐴

26/10/2024

Our set up will never be what most people consider fancy facilities but we are pretty sure our horses are happy and content with them

Human choice Vs horse choice

23/10/2024

Always remember behaviour is communication. It is the only way horses can express to us what is going on inside their heads. Respect that, don't punish it