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.

The darkness swallows another horse.The trailer gate shut, and the taillights glowed under the moon, all the way to Texa...
11/05/2025

The darkness swallows another horse.
The trailer gate shut, and the taillights glowed under the moon, all the way to Texas.

I’ve done my job. Time to start another one.

Whether or not the idea of leveling and straightening a young performance horse makes sense, both the trainer and the rider will feel the difference.And the horse feels safe and commits to the work

My skills lift the horse off the forehand, untwists the hips, and frees that stubborn right shoulder making the horse easy to ride.

You can drop the reins and create collection by controlling the hindquarters. That’s how we should be riding.But it's hard to achieve on a downhill horse.

When the Buckle is earned, and the horse’s quality is impossible to ignore, someone will figure it out… and look me up to ask me to balance thier horse.

I'm not famous, just experienced and very good at my job.

🐎

11/05/2025

Oh once upon a time.

I Chose to Learn from HorsesNot from books. Not from courses.There are certainly easier ways to learn and progress. But ...
11/02/2025

I Chose to Learn from Horses

Not from books. Not from courses.

There are certainly easier ways to learn and progress. But if I had taken another route, an entire world of. STEP RHT would remained hidden. What horses revealed to me could never have come from a classroom or a textbook.

Through them, I’ve learned how to rebirth equine body symmetry to prevent injury and solve training problems.

Each mistake, each challenge, each breakthrough has become part of that education. That’s why I share not just the successes, but also the stumbles along the way. Every year, a horse arrives who tests the limits of what I know and pushes me to grow even further.

Last January, I purchased a horse I’d known since he was weaned. He was the perfect candidate to show how my training program aides the development of above-average conformation. His growth pattern was following the same path I’d seen in 278 other young horses.

I watched his sales video, and was shocked. His neck and wither configuration were clearly causing problems. That should NOT be happening.

You could see it in his body: tension, resistance, the readiness to buck, and the impossibility of true collection.
So... I bought him.
Go ahead and laugh.
But I could see his potential.

At three years old, Gunnie still hadn’t grown into his feet. His chest was narrow and not expanding.He had a pencil neck. Someone even said, “He has a turkey butt and genetically, he should have a massive chest.”

Why he didn’t have a chest was a mystery.

Under saddle, he’s the lightest, most comfortable, dependable and kind horse to ride. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t free his chest to widen or strengthen the topline of the neck.

He improved through the body like a normal QH.. The frontquarter are long and runny like a yearling TB.
What the heck???!.

I’d never been so disappointed in a STEP RHT result. Go figure it had to be my own horse who became the anomaly.

But good things come to those who wait.

One day, the story of Gunnie's near death experience surfaced. He had nearly killed himself when his teeth hooked around a stirrup and he levered with his neck to get free.

Suddenly, everything made sense.
His narrow front quarters, his weak chest and neck and the tension I saw in the sales video stem from the event.

I'm forever thankful to have this information. If I hadn’t learned about his near-death experience, it might have taken years to uncover the cause.Now we can modify STEP RHT to produce better results.

Genes are amazing resources that most trainers overlook.
They determine bone length, body symmetry, color, and blood type—but they do not create conformation.

From my investigations, conformation is the expression of trauma that creates compensational balance which cause the body to twist. All horses modify their posture to avoid pain caused by trauma. This overrides the genes blueprint for symmetry.
Cancel the trauma, and the genes can express the true equine form as symmetry. If we trained with this philosophy, we’d produce far better horses. But that's not the point of this article.

Even though Gunnie appeared level and symmetrical, he still carried hidden trauma. Learning the truth caused me to I examine his undercarriage. My fingers reached between his front legs, and sweet Gunnie winced. I thought about anatomy and discuss the findings with Frank.

Frank lifted Gunnie's leg and check for a rib end that might have shifted off the costochondral joint of the breastbone.

Sure enough he found it. Gunnie winced again as Frank performed his magic.

When the foot touched the ground, Gunnie dropped his head, extended his neck like a dog following a scent.
He stood there, breathing deeply as if he was a foal breathing for the very first time.

Could his near-death experience have twisted a rib and collapsed his chest expansion? Or was it unresolved birth trauma?
Could this discovery help other horse owners recognize and resolve conformation weaknesses at their source?

Here I go again, learning from a horse.

I’ll be tracking Gunnie’s progress closely. With the bone now realigned, the trauma should be released and his genes can finally send out stem cells to complete the development of an above-average horse.

Fall has finally made its presence known.Last night’s temps dipped into the 40s, and with five performance horses in for...
10/30/2025

Fall has finally made its presence known.
Last night’s temps dipped into the 40s, and with five performance horses in for restorative work, having help around the barn has been a blessing.

We live in a time where technology is replacing people. Machines are taking over jobs once done by hand and heart. When the work disappears, what happens to the people? How do they find meaning again?

Well, that happened to Mike.
When his tech job ended, we offered him one here. He went from knowing nothing about horses to helping run the barn.

As a former computer network designer, he’s discovered that the critical thinking, problem-solving, and science involved in caring for horses is far more complex than he ever imagined. It’s even changed the way he sees farmers.

He was amazed to learn how 16 hours of light can stop winter hair growth or regulate a mare’s cycle. Now, he’s learning the art of layering blankets, day and night, to keep the show horses’ coats sleek and shiny.

He reminds me of The Karate Kid.
Wax on, wax off.
Blankets on, blankets off.
Lights on, lights off.

For someone who came from suits and jets to quiet nights under the stars and the unconditional presence of horses, this is a transformation. Mike is becoming a groom, and he’s realizing that caring for horses carries serious responsibility and even deeper rewards.

I joked about adding more stalls, and he panicked:
“I can’t care for all those horses!”
I promised I wouldn’t do that to him.

But guess what?
Mike wants to learn to ride.

The income may be less, but the quality of life; the peace, the purpose, the sense of accomplishment, is greater than ever.

When fate throws you for a loop, you can fall on your fear… or stand up and embrace life.

Working with horses is a world more people should experience.

🐎 Why horse training is done in STEP's. My job as a STEP Horse Trainer is simple:It's to create a level, balanced hors...
10/29/2025

🐎 Why horse training is done in STEP's.

My job as a STEP Horse Trainer is simple:
It's to create a level, balanced horse so the show trainer can introduce skills to support a sustainable career. If I can refine the horse body symmetry, these trainer can save time because the horse is confident and athletically balanced.

It’s hard to wrap your head around a new idea, so let’s use this image to make sense of what STEP RHT (Self-Tuning Equine Posture – Restoration; Horsemanship Training) really does.

Imagine a boat tied to a dock.
Three people sit in the bow.
Two on the left, one behind them on the right.
The boat tilts left, the bow sinks down.

The stern lifts. The propeller angles out behind verse down.
Now the thrust drives the bow even deeper into the water.
(That’s your “downhill” "strung out behind" horse — heavy in front, stiff on one side, struggling to engage the hind.)

Now those same passengers move to the middle.They sit side by side.
The bow rises. The stern settles.
The boat glides forward easily and safely.
(That’s your level, centered horse; balanced, willing, and effortless to ride.)

Finally, the passengers step off.
The boat floats level on its own.
(That’s the horse’s natural self-righting reflex. That's what STEP RHT reawakens.)

But here’s the missing truth:
Most horses can’t engage that self-righting reflex
because of a twist imprinted by birth trauma.

I invented a training system that supports this natural reaction. It's
a step that has been absent in starting horses across all disciplines.

When I balance a horse through STEP RHT,
the rider finds themselves in the middle of the boat — horse, with
no resistance, no fight. It forms a flow state for partnership to develop.

What many call “behavior”
is often caused by imbalance.
What is call injury is prevented when STEP activates the self righting reflex .

My job is to lift the downhill horse into level posture,
restoring buoyancy, trust, and freedom of movement.
From that place, training becomes easy.

Ignore balance, and the work gets hard, time consuming,
with limited gains and too often… injury.

Are you curious if your horse might be “listing at the dock”?

Everything in Nature strives to achieve balance. That’s where STEP makes the difference.

Lame and foundered.tobeing Sound!The symmetry found in the chest will always echo through the development of the feet.C...
10/22/2025

Lame and foundered.
to
being Sound!

The symmetry found in the chest will always echo through the development of the feet.

Can the body restore itself?
Absolutely.

Katie is living proof.

Her owner's commitment has been validated. Mission accomplished.

Distance was never the problem thanks to a remote horse training program backed by the research of
the Balanced Horse Project. The mission to consistently activate the self-righting reflex, regardless of the conformation of the horse regardless of the distance between the trainer and horse, has helped horses like Katie.

The goal to own and ride sound, balanced horses is growing as people discover this unique program.

The cheat. The short cut.The quick fix.The manufacturing of illusions. It's like lying. It catches up with you when you ...
10/20/2025

The cheat.
The short cut.
The quick fix.
The manufacturing of illusions.

It's like lying.

It catches up with you when you least expected. The results create problems expense embarassment and lost achievements.

So why bother?

Just do it right the first time.

It's hard lesson for some to learn.

And some never will.

The seller probably thought they had two suckers on the hook. No X-rays needed . I drew the STEP CHECK lines, on the ho...
10/15/2025

The seller probably thought they had two suckers on the hook. No X-rays needed . I drew the STEP CHECK lines, on the horse's coat. Frank noted the flinch pattern.
We both nodded and made an offer on a higher grade reiner.
The seller’s story was simple:
A bad day in the trailer; had
cast and pinned this young horse for several hours. The crooked frame had not been solved after 2 years of vet work, corrective shoeing, chiropractic care, and therapy.

All though the horse was top of the line, the last buyer walked away after the vet inspection failed.
Just look at those hips. Yikes!

But then, there’s us.
We specialize in problem solving.
Actually we unwind crooked horses based on the IP from years of research. Now we have a dependable training program based on STEP RHT, a regenerative training philosophy.

Below are the results from STEP 1 & 2.
We just completed STEP 3 last week, and when the horse returns from pasture, we’ll share the final photo to complete the story.

Through the biomechanics of balance and the motion of the horse, the hip and hind leg angles are correcting towards level.
As that happens, the pinch points at the mid barrel and base of the withers concentrate to outline the trauma pattern. We are using training exercises to stablize and align the spine.

STEP 3 will decompress the topline and release the tension moving forward through the front body.

We’re hoping the natural action of grazing after completing STEP 3 will unravel the body and lock in symmetry. We will be happy to see any improvement.

So far so good.
We are looking forward to the stress test phase to ensure the horse can succeed in Ranch Riding or a breeding program.

The False Poll: Breaking Engagement Before It Begins.I have a horse who has always struggled to truly transfer weight t...
10/14/2025

The False Poll:

Breaking Engagement Before It Begins.

I have a horse who has always struggled to truly transfer weight to the hindquarters.

He resists by running backwards.
He, lifts his head through transitions, and although his chest looks better than most and his back stays straight something is wrong because his hips are uneven.

Then there is his mouthiness. To me it signals aniexty... nervousness. So what have I missed when resetting his body symmetry?

Then my eye caught it when he was ridden.

His poll was locked.
That may explain a lot.

It’s been that way before I bought him. Hence the frustration of several trainers who love his potential but just couldn't encourage his commitment.

Everything made sense:
he is compensating for a locked poll.
This is a very influential lever point in the core dynamics of equine balance.

It impacts:
Dental occlusion
Facial muscles
Neck development
Lumbar muscles
Angel of the flank and hind legs
One side flexion.
Weak transitions
Hollowed back
Volunteering to come behind the vertical without rein contact.
And more.

I took this photo to illustrate how he offers to curl behind the vertical to balance the lope.

Can you spot the locked poll and the false breakover in his neck?

It’s amazing how many horses present with the same issue.
Some will be over flexed while others ars inverted.The relationship between the skull and the first two vertebrae are very important.

If you look closely, you’ll see it:
a flatness behind the ears, followed by a bulge before the midpoint of the neck, then a flat muscle that finally transitions into a flowing curve.
There are other landmarks, but let’s start with what’s easiest to see.
In this case, the horse is locked at C2.

If you find trigger points at the poll, the troat latch grove and the brachial attachments at the base of that neck, don't rule out a lock poll.

My horse was doing his best to please the rider. When he started ovef curling naturally behind the vertical while the rider openned the rein and drove forward instantly the false poll was observed.

After each ride, I apply STEP Re-check system to help his body restore after being stressed. The problem has been addressed.

It will be interesting to see if he starts to show his potential.

If your horse shows similar patterns, reach out to a DC, Osteopath, or Cranial-Sacral therapist.
And if the issue doesn’t resolve, remember, you have a resource here.

I love watching horses run, buck, and leap across the field.Their strength and agility reflect pure joy and the embodime...
10/12/2025

I love watching horses run, buck, and leap across the field.
Their strength and agility reflect pure joy and the embodiment of self-control.

At liberty the spirit is free to explore it's skills. I marvel at the agility when they power up and let go.

Every horse carries a bucket of joy within. How could we ever restrict that?

I’ve been gifted with the skills to help horses find balance and correct their struggles. In return, they offer understanding and respect.

That’s where the magic begins.

Our training programs should allow
horses to fall in love with the rider, to love their career or performance. And to come from the heart and to keep their partners safe.

Maybe, just maybe, when we see horses so free, we'llrealize how important it is to free ourselves..

Photo.
BHP- Sexy 6's

Holding each other up , that’s the gift of love.It doesn’t end the pain,but it helps us rise above.Can the trauma truly ...
10/11/2025

Holding each other up , that’s the gift of love.
It doesn’t end the pain,
but it helps us rise above.

Can the trauma truly end?
Yes... absolutely.

Go back ,
back to the beginning,
before the break,
before the twist,
when body and life moved as one,
in balance.

Balance... that’s the key.
Between horse and rider, it breathes as symmetry.

It’s the bridge that heals what time forgot,
restoring peace where pain once fought.

When form aligns, the fear grows still
and energy flows where it always will.

That’s when the world turns soft again,
and horse and rider simply blend...
into the beauty of the ride. 🕊️

Photo: Luewin on 66

What Happens When a Horse’s Hoof Strikes the Ground?I’ll let the other experts share their views, on the biomechanics,bu...
10/07/2025

What Happens When a Horse’s Hoof Strikes the Ground?

I’ll let the other experts share their views, on the biomechanics,
but allow me to offer the biophysics of horsemanship.

This field of science offers a point of view that has been known since the 1960's. It changed my approach because it explains what truly happens inside the horse’s body.
When trainers step away from the biochemical industry their horses
achieve deeper, more sustainable results.

It all begins with energy.
Without energy, the horse cannot move, digest food, grow hair or hooves,
or regenerate tissue.
Without energy, the body cannot grow or sustain itself.

That, to me, is important.

When bone is placed under pressure,
it generates a natural electrical current called piezoelectricity.
This means the skeleton itself is part of a free-energy system. We ride
a living circuit that needs to connect to the earth.

Like lightning completing a universal circuit,
the horse’s skeletonal bioelectric charge seeks to ground through the hoof.
Every hoof strike completes a discharge of negative charge and the uptake of positive charge needed to support regeneration of the body's living circuit.
When the hoof fails to meet the ground properly,
the grounded circuit can't prevent the build up of acid and heat.
Tissue break down has a relationship with the grounding through the foot. The same applies to people. Research "Earthing or Grounding."
A grounded hoof accelerates the regeneration of the body.

This is where my work begins.
This is one reason why horses in our STEP training program need to be barefoot.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve expanded on the research of
Dr. Robert Becker and Dr. Bassett—pioneers who demonstrated
how electric and magnetic fields influence tissue regeneration.
Their discoveries were made in laboratories.
My work decoded how to activate those same bioelectric reactions naturally—
through movement, pressure, and balanced equine form.

I am an unacknowledged researcher who found a way for horse trainers
to employ biophysics to develop sustainable, pain-free horses.
Through The Balanced Horse Project and
STEP Restorative Horse Training,
we have empirically confirmed that energy can be guided through the horse to engage structure to regenerate form and function.

This isn’t alternative science—it’s research once funded by the US government. The results using physics were surpressed by the AMA, American Medical Association.

After documenting my results, I understand why. It offers a
future where trainers use nature itself
to produce sound, balanced, high-performance horses
while protecting the safety of the rider.

It’s disheartening to see horsemanship still taught through
outdated biochemical models that ignore the body’s true design.
But that’s why I keep sharing—
because the real science of horsemanship isn’t synthetic.
It’s already written in the body.
We just have to learn to read it.

Photo.
Is this horse able to ground while on the rubber mat?

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

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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.