The Balanced Horse Project

The Balanced Horse Project "We don’t train horses. We reset balance so horses can train themselves and confidently carry the rider." Attention to preventing injury is very important.

Patricia Cleveland reshapes horses to make world class rides. Training, Equine Redevelopment Education, Sales, Workshops and Riding Lessons. At The Balanced Horse Project, our goal is to create a comfortable body for the horse to use, while their mind focuses on the job. We develop training programs to address the completeness of symmetry and balance through organic means. Training, going to the

show ring, the track, or down the trail, horses face constant physical stress. Our maintenance program can be done on site using photo analysis, the mobile service, or visiting Rel Leaf Farm. Restoring and regenerating the body provides instant and long term benefits. The techniques are designed to resolve very deep seated issues producing the compensation injuries and behavior commonly experienced. We are dedicated to present a discussion through which owners, trainers, and handlers gain an education regarding the potential of quantum resources to naturally straightening the body, making training a horse safer and easier. Improving the whole body before training allows the horse to experience natural balance. We offer information, experience, and data relating quantum realms, energy, and the material goals of the horseman to create self-carriage, engagement, and athletic power. The horse develops his body, as we expand our thoughts.

There’s something about this time of year that invites a different kind of listening.It asks us to pause. To reflect, to...
12/23/2025

There’s something about this time of year that invites a different kind of listening.
It asks us to pause. To reflect, to review our performance.
And perhaps, if we truly paused as the season suggests, some of our problems might resolve themselves.
Nature doesn’t rush.
So why rush a horse?

The winter Fields rest.
Trees conserve their energy.
Even the light takes its time returning after the Winter Solstice.
Yet modern life rarely honors this inherited rhythm.

We’re taught to push through chaos.
Stay bright. Stay busy. Stay productive.
Even when everything around us is quietly doing the opposite.

Through years of working with horses, I’ve learned that the pause matters.
Like the moment of suspension in the canter’s beat, balance is never forced.
It arrives.
It happens when the body is allowed to reorganize.
Winter isn’t a time to push.
It’s a time for recognition.
It's time to look at the accomplishments.
A little more trust.
A refinement of timing that clarifies the cue to the horse.
The pause brings peace of mind and opens a path to new answers.

From the Balance Horse Project Team,
we hope you pause to enjoy
a peaceful Christmas.

Watching a Horse Grow Into HimselfI’ve worked with G since he was a yearling.That’s a long time to watch a horse form no...
12/20/2025

Watching a Horse Grow Into Himself

I’ve worked with G since he was a yearling.
That’s a long time to watch a horse form not just a body but a mind.

This past week, we took him to an outside trainer for evaluation.
A new place.
A new rider.
New expectations.

An alien environment, by any standard.

G walked in, curious, then mod9foed his behavioradjusted from comic to serious work.
He listened.
He tried to translate what was being asked of him. Everything was new.
He adapted.

Not once did he lose himself.

There were no bad moments. That mattered, because the pressure was deliberate. Will G step up and ve a professional horse?

The trainer needed to find his weak points. He applied psychological stress. He tested physical abilities. Would Gbe a horse worth investing time in.

G stayed present through all of it.

Watching him, I felt like a parent seeing a child step into adulthood , not because he performed, but because he handled himself with maturity.

Confidence isn’t loud.
Stability isn’t flashy.
Adaptability doesn’t come from drilling.

It comes from a horse knowing he can trust in his own body.

Maybe supporting symmetry as he grew up, contributed just a little bit.
Maybe it gave him something solid to depend on when everything else changed.

Whatever the reason, G showed us who he is.

And that’s the kind of future you can build on.

Before movement.Before behavior.Before training.I look for stillness in the horse.A horse that cannot stand quietly with...
12/17/2025

Before movement.
Before behavior.
Before training.

I look for stillness in the horse.

A horse that cannot stand quietly without shifting, bracing, or holding tension is telling an important story of survival.

The training issues they offer are alway visible in the body before a single step is taken.

If we know what we’re looking at we can change the story they are sharing.

Conformation always speaks first.

Progress Isn’t Proof of BalancePost copy: One of the hardest things to accept in horse training is that improvement does...
12/16/2025

Progress Isn’t Proof of Balance

Post copy:

One of the hardest things to accept in horse training is that improvement does not always mean resolution.

Horses are exceptional compensators. They learn to organize themselves around imbalance, pain, or restriction. — And they do it willingly in an effort to please.

This is why a horse can look “better,” perform more reliably. But still the invisible effect of birth trauma quietly deteriorates muscle structure and confidence.

Balance isn’t something we train into a horse.
It’s something we can use to help the horse self straighten.

It's possible if we stop interrupting the natural reaction.

When structure is allowed to reorganize, behavior and conformation changes without being managed.

This distinction matters to the future of the horse. Especially for safety, longevity, and trust.

What WHOLISTIC Horsemanship Really MeansAnyone who has spent time with horses knows this feeling:there is more happening...
12/14/2025

What WHOLISTIC Horsemanship Really Means

Anyone who has spent time with horses knows this feeling:
there is more happening than we can explain with technique alone.

A horse responds before the cue is finished.
They carry history in their posture.
They change when the environment changes.
They show us balance and the lack of it, through a list of clues, without words.

The horse is not a machine to be operated.
It isn’t a set of buttons or a motor waiting to engage.
It is a complete unit of balance which interlocks to everything in nature.

Structure, breath, movement, stillness, emotion, memory, and spirit
are not separate parts—they are layered systems working together as one being.

Change one layer, and the others respond.
Like a ripple across water, influence moves through the whole.
The horse continually adapts, seeking either symmetry or compensate for assymmetry.

This is what WHOLISTIC horsemanship refers to.

It's beyond alternative therapy.
It pre-dates training trends.
But the original way horses were understood, before body was separated from mind,
before awareness was replaced with behavior modification and mechanics.

As technology grows louder, nature goes quiet.
And somewhere along the way, we stopped listening.

To work WHOLISTICALLY is to meet the horse as a whole being,
not a problem to fix,
not a behavior to correct,
but a self-aware master of the horizontal world.
What if they are inviting us back into relationship with the power of creation?

If we choose to listen, the process reveals itself.
Balance powers something ancient.
WHOLISTIC horse training is not something we invent for market share. It is something we remember.

The Crooked Horse Shapes the Rider Not the Other Way AroundRiders are taught to believe their posture creates the horse’...
12/13/2025

The Crooked Horse Shapes the Rider Not the Other Way Around

Riders are taught to believe their posture creates the horse’s balance.

Heels down.
Sit tall.
Hands steady.

But in practice, the opposite is happening.

A crooked horse reshapes the rider.

The raised heel.
The collapsed hip.
The forward pull.
The drifting hands.

These aren’t bad habits.
They are compensations.

The rider’s body is responding to asymmetry in the horse.

You can’t ride straight on a crooked foundation.
You can only adapt.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when the rider's compensation counters the horse's state of imbalance a temperary flow state, or self carriage occurs.

For generations, instruction has focused on correcting the rider
while ignoring the primary flaws in the structure beneath them.

And so riders work harder, adjust more, and carry the blame
for problems that originate in the horse’s body.

There is a proposal in horse training that offers long lasting solutions.
When training begins with the horse
leveling, centering, and restoring balance conformation then
both horse and rider benefit.

Not through force.
Not through technique.
But through understanding how the body creates balance.

By advancing new training concepts,
to reset the horse's true balance, we don’t just create better horses.

We create better riders.

Photo
No amount of rider posture correction could compensate for the horse's imbalance. The horse's focus shifts from following direction to self preservation.

Focusing on resetting the conformation, simplifies things.

The Most Overlooked Cause of ResistanceEvery rider knows the feeling:The horse that won’t move forward.Won’t bend.Won’t ...
12/12/2025

The Most Overlooked Cause of Resistance

Every rider knows the feeling:
The horse that won’t move forward.
Won’t bend.
Won’t soften.
Won’t yield.

We punish the outward expression while missing the inward cause.

Most resistance comes from a place the horse cannot escape, their own structure.

A crooked rib cage makes bending painful.
A dropped shoulder makes stopping frightening.
A compressed poll makes thinking impossible.
A horse on the forehand carries the world on a collapsing foundation.

Resistance is not refusal.
Resistance is the body saying,
“I can’t hold this shape anymore.”

When the structure changes, the horse stops fighting.
Not because we made them obedient,
but because we finally made them able.

The resetting of a disgruntled reiner.
He use too bolt backwards. Whe. we reset his body the negative behavior stopped. As the frontquarters freed up he lost the artificial muscling. With the ability to shift weight from the hip to the shoulders his stops and spins are more athletic. The new muscles stabilize his symmetrical frame. We look forward to his performance coming 2026.

The Horse Who Opened the DoorThere are horses who arrive in your life the way storms do.Sudden.Unavoidable.Full of a lan...
12/10/2025

The Horse Who Opened the Door

There are horses who arrive in your life the way storms do.
Sudden.
Unavoidable.
Full of a language you don’t yet understand.
Their voice is so natural, that our un-natural mind can't hear them.

My meeting Gooch was like that.

A grey mustang gelding broken by the hands who tried to own him. He sent out ripples of self protection.
You could feel the betrayal in his body. The flinch in his ribs, the breath held tight against his spine, the way he braced against the idea of a human mind projecting an intention.

I didn’t train him.
I listened to him.

Not day by day, but in one moment, he showed me where horses carry their stories, and where humans should start looking.
He taught me that connection arrives when emotion intersects posture. Not when pressure increases fear.
He showed, the horse will always choose truth over technique. But humans teach them how to lie.

Gooch didn’t just become my teacher.
He became the doorway into everything I now understand about symmetry, energy, and the silent wisdom stored in the body.

He didn’t speak with words. He expressed him self with feelings and posture and finally a trusted touch.
He mirrored COM{PASSION.

And in that mirror, I found the beginning of my real work.

People ask, “What exactly is a reset? What does it mean to the horse?"A reset is not a technique.Not a pressure cue.Not ...
12/10/2025

People ask, “What exactly is a reset? What does it mean to the horse?"

A reset is not a technique.
Not a pressure cue.
Not a correction.
Not a trick.

A reset is the moment a horse’s body stops fighting the shape it’s compensating for. It's the first time the body sighs and drops it's guard.

It’s the sigh that rolls through the ribs.
The softening behind the eyes.
The release that starts so small and is so complete, you miss the effect by focusing on one thing.
The quiet click we do not hear, brings the body’ back to the original form. It's the satisfaction of restetting symmetry that creates the intstant shift.

A reset is the horse remembering its true design and purpose The blueprint of true balance recovers from distortion and twisted.

We don’t force the reset.
We don’t teach it.
We simply invite it to engage..

And when the horse accepts that invitation, the whole system reorganizes and resets..
The horse will take it's first deep breath as the body return to it's perfect state as the shape timprinted at birth fades.

A reset is a homecoming of nature's intended purpose. The reset of the horse aligns with living an good life.

Photo
Inner awareness silences the outer world as the reset engages the core of the horse.

Why Balance Matters More Than BehaviorMost people look at a horse’s behavior and assume that’s the truth.The spook.The b...
12/09/2025

Why Balance Matters More Than Behavior

Most people look at a horse’s behavior and assume that’s the truth.
The spook.
The brace.
The rush.
The refusal.

But behavior is only the shadow the body casts.

Underneath every reaction lives a deeper story. It's written in the angles of the shoulders, the collapse of a rib, the twist of the spine, the breath caught halfway between fear and trying.

When a horse loses balance, they lose themselves.
And when they lose themselves, we mistake survival for disobedience.

Fixing behavior is easy.
Restoring balance is sacred.

When the body stands in the shape nature intended, the mind quiets, the nervous system softens, and the horse remembers who they were before the world bent them.

Behavior is the symptom.
Balance is the cure.

Most horse problems don’t begin under saddle.They begin in the structure.Long before a horse resists, spooks, rushes, ho...
12/08/2025

Most horse problems don’t begin under saddle.
They begin in the structure.

Long before a horse resists, spooks, rushes, hollows, or grows difficult, there is always a quieter story written in the bones, the joints, the fascia patterns, and the symmetry of how the body carries its own weight.

For years, I’ve specialized in reading those traits. Not as a traditional trainer.Not as a behaviorist.
But as a structural development and performance refinement specialist.
Working at the foundation of core stability I train the horse to engage the origin of true balance.
It results in self restoration of athletic conformation.

My work is called STEP RESET; a proprietary WHOLISTIC process that restores the horse’s natural architecture so movement, focus, and soundness reorganize from within. I don’t force change; I reveal what was meant to be there from the beginning.

Young horses, high-potential prospects, and performance lines respond exceptionally well.
The earlier the balance is set, the longer the horse stays sound and the more of its talent surface without tension or resistance.

Many 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds present subtle asymmetries that later relate to “behavior issues,” “training problems,” or “performance limitations.”
These are not flaws.
They are simply patterns waiting to be reset so the horse develops effective conformation and free flowing movement.

This page focuses on:

• problem prevention.
• development of symmetry
• young-horse structural mapping
• performance refinement
• classical balance
• long-term soundness
• high-level case studies
• visuals of structural change
• WHOLISTIC insights for discerning owners

I work privately with a small number of horses at our farm, to engage the highest standard of development.
Intake is limited and application-based.
Young prospects and high-end performance horses are prioritized.

If you would like your horse evaluated for STEP RESET, send a message with your horse’s age, goals, discipline, and one standing photo from the front and side.

Remote services supported by Zoom ensures STEP RESET is available for international clients and owners with horses who can not trailer.

STEP RESET is not discipline, breed gender or age restricted.

As new seasons begins, higher standard are sought.
And we start with balance to provide riders with problem free horses .

Normal doesn't mean it's right. If it isn't balanced, normal will rebound into chaos. What appears to be impossible may ...
12/08/2025

Normal doesn't mean it's right.

If it isn't balanced, normal will rebound into chaos.

What appears to be impossible may be right.

Address

249 W Smithville Road
Dothan, AL
36301

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+13347187806

Website

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Our Story

The Balanced Horse Project, comes straight from the personal experience of Pat Cleveland and her love for riding and training. She left the show world to track down the elusive source of training problems, resistant behaviors and crooked conformation. It transformed into private investigation which changed her views on how to train, interact and support the restoration of balance in horses.

Pat’s approach is unique. by merging crooked horses, birth and body symmetry, she problems every facet that is over looked. The engagement of a powerful epigenetic response regenerates, restore and emotionally rebirths horses who thrive under stress. The benefits bridges all disciplines, horse problems and miscommunication to enhance horse and rider safety.

Ultimately Pat’s message is leading horsemanship towards incorporating topics and research that blend insight with epigenetics and practicality, to return the potential of naturally sustainable horses.

The Balanced Horse Project is an umbrella for her programs and investigations. As an internationally recognized trainer, clinician and speaker , Pat works when and where she is asked. Long distance programs, mobile training service, consultations for owners, stables and breeding farms, generate effective horses for the track, national Equestrian teams and recreational enjoyment.