Mountain Air Trails and Stable

11/15/2025

11/15/2025

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Empathy: An Important Word That Can Turn Human Discomfort Into Horse Problems

Empathy is the capacity to recognise, understand, and respond to the emotional states of others. It has multiple dimensions that include cognitive empathy, which is the ability to interpret another’s feelings or intentions, and affective empathy, which is the emotional resonance you experience in response. There is also empathic concern which is the motivation to act. So empathy is not just feeling sorry for a horse.

It is a blend of perception, interpretation, emotional regulation, and behaviour.

Which brings us to the real issue in the horse world...

➡️When Empathy Backfires for Horses

Humans can empathise with horses, but only up to the limit of their own imagination, their own emotional comfort, and their own understanding of how horses actually perceive the world. Horses do not think like us. They do not interpret pressure, learning, novelty, or social cues like us. Which means our empathy is a translation exercise and sometimes our translations are as inaccurate as a Google maps 10 years ago...

A distressed horse can stir up a wave of discomfort in a person that is harder to settle than the horse itself. So the human often shifts to soothing themselves and not the horse. This is where empathy loses the plot.

The horse might show stress while learning something new because it is confused or needs the task to be simplified or presented with more clarity and skill. The solution is usually better training, not a spiritual intermission.

But if the person feels uncomfortable watching the horse be confused, they may stop altogether. They may avoid the situation next time. They may proclaim that the horse does not like groundwork, or finds training sticks traumatic, or cannot be caught, or fears the mounting block, or hates being ridden. They make these declarations from the throne of empathy, as if being empathetic means never checking whether the horse can learn something new with good guidance.

They justify their avoidance by claiming they are being sensitive to the horse’s needs. Meanwhile the horse remains stuck with a problem it could have easily learned to navigate if only the person had sought knowledge, stayed consistent, or asked for help.

➡️What Real Empathy Requires

Practising empathy with horses is not about emotional purity. It is not about announcing your feelings and calling it care. It requires knowledge of equine behaviour and learning. It requires skill and the ability to regulate your own emotional discomfort so you do not project it onto the horse. It requires accepting that your feelings are not diagnostic tools.

Empathy becomes useful when combined with observation, strategy, and willingness to improve. Without these, empathy can collapse into avoidance and self soothing, while the horse quietly struggles with something it could have mastered.

If we want empathy to lift horses rather than trap them, then we can never stop learning. We need to pair empathy with competence, because the horse does not benefit from our discomfort. The horse benefits from our clarity.

➡️And what is clarity?

Clarity is the ability to present information to a horse in a way that is consistent, comprehensible, and free of mixed cues. It means your signals are clean, your timing makes sense, and your intentions are easy for the horse to interpret. Clarity is the opposite of emotional projection. It is the opposite of hesitation or avoidance. It is the steady, understandable guidance that allows a horse to feel secure enough to learn.

This is Collectable Advice entry 78/365 of my challenge focusing on words used in the horse world. Hit SAVE or Hit SHARE and spread the word - literally ❤😆

IMAGE📸: My good friend Isabelle and OTTB Dash. This is a heads up to all the OTTB and STB fans to Join our Racehorse Reboot 8 Week Challenge Event from the 3 January - 28 February 2026. Everyone already enrolled is welcome. If you haven't enrolled, do so now and follow our advice to support and prepare your Off-the-Tracker to be ready commencing re-training in January💪❤ More info below.

11/14/2025

This is a bit long, but important to share ❤️ 15 Fascinating Facts About Horses’ Emotional Memory and Empathy

1. Horses hold one of the most powerful long-term memories among domestic animals — recalling people, voices, and events for decades.

2. They read human intent through facial expressions, distinguishing friend from threat long before a hand is raised.

3. A single act of kindness can echo for years — a horse may seek out the same person even after a long separation.

4. Trauma carves deep grooves — a horse may forever avoid a place, object, or person tied to fear.

5. They sense human emotion through voice tone, breath rhythm, and body tension — even from across a field.

6. They respond not just to fear, but to sadness, joy, or confusion — silently, instinctively.

7. Mirror neurons in their brains allow them to feel what others feel — true empathy in motion.

8. When tears fall nearby, a horse may approach softly, lower its head, and offer a gentle touch — comfort without words.

9. A wounded horse can form the deepest bonds with a patient human — shared pain becomes shared trust.

10. Horses are proven emotional therapists for PTSD, depression, and anxiety — healing hearts, not just bodies.

11. They grieve deeply — lingering by a lost companion or withdrawing in quiet mourning.

12. Once bonded, they memorize your personal rhythms — footsteps, breath, even the silence between.

13. Their memory isn’t just survival — it’s the foundation for profound connection with those who earn their trust.

14. With gentle consistency, fear can be rewritten into safety — even shattered trust can be rebuilt.

15. Horse empathy is biological fact, not folklore — their brains and hearts sync with human emotion in real time.

11/11/2025

A horse does not begin at the poll.

For a long time the head was often missed out as part of the horses therapy session and only then maybe the TMJ was considered and the odd tongue mobilisation in fact probably to this day those two areas are only addressed as the mainstream when addressing the head yet there is so much more and we can't forget the head houses the brain which will interpret what we do before we even begin touching the horse. So even before we touch the horse they may already be on alert and preparing to block us out. How we introduce ourselves matters, in fact it will probably dictate how the whole session will go.

How many videos do we see with the person poking behind the ears, the horse reacting yet maybe has to endure another 5 or 6 pokes to get that sensational video??? Is this horse first thinking?? Only to see in the next video a quiet no responsive horse, well my cynical view if the horse cant get away it will check out and you can only be poked so much before the area becomes unresponsive but still just as uncomfortable for the poked.

We often forget the the muscles that work together we see a hypertrophied temporalis yet forget they belong in the group of mastication muscles so do we work on one?? Do we address the group or is it the teeth or chewing that is the issue? Or something else, as it could always be something else

We place fingers in the mouth to mobilise the tongue to mobilise the hyoid without ever thinking how does the brain feel about the foreign object in the mouth, is the sensory system now on high alert to protect the horse from the danger of swallowing a foreign object, are your hands clean?? Are the taste receptors also putting a warning sign out??
If the hyoid is connected to the root of the tongue it would make sense to start at the connection from the outside.

How are the eyes, if the horse has one eye buying alcohol and the other buying cigs then how can the rest of body get that balance that we work hard for.

What about the teeth?? The masseter muscle can tell us how the horse teeth were floated. The incisors if they have a hook on the corner then how can the horse be flexible on both reins if one side is restricted, how can the jaw have freedom of movement if restricted in one of many directions, I can do all the bodywork in the world but I cant do a thorough job if the horse doesn't have good dental care, I will be just addressing the same issue over and over again.
Is the jaw clenched through stress, worry about what you are going to do or is their personality having a part to play everytime a jaw is clenched restriction sets in we need to work out have we which one it is and adjust our work to suit the horse.
Cheek sucked in?? Or is the buccinator nice and plump?? Does anyone even notice?? It is all information that tells us a story

We can begin at the head without beginning at the head, huh???
Many muscles and structures continue and connect past the poll, past the hyoid so why would we begin at a place of stress for the horse we can work our way up, heads are continually controlled by human hands so if the horse is wary then we can work our way towards the head from another place but we must check our work to make sure we have been affective

Look forward past the poll for you may get another chapter in the story of the horses body and some answers to the questions you ask.

Again i try my best with the pics but do get some things wrong sometimes as my head ends up spinning with all the names
I may need to unclench my jaw after doing this one 😃

11/11/2025

11/10/2025

11/08/2025

On the Bit

Ah, “on the bit” — three innocent words that have caused more equine misery than a saddle that doesn’t fit (and that’s saying something).

Generations of riders have yanked, seesawed, and gadgeted their way to glory — all in the noble pursuit of putting their horses “on the bit.” The arched neck, the tucked chin, the “look at me, I can ride” pose. The term has made us worship the picture, not the process.

But here’s the twist - it’s all built on a translation mistake.🤓

The original German never meant “on the bit.” It meant something closer to “going to the hand” or “working toward the rein.” A dynamic, living process - a horse reaching out through balance, posture, and activity from behind.

Which, if you think about it, is the complete opposite of “pull and seesaw the horse’s face into submission.”
Dressage rider Steffen Peters once translated it more simply: “muscle them up.”💪

And that’s the point - it’s about building posture and strength, not sculpting a neck like a pipe cleaner.
I was lucky enough to experience the missing piece of this puzzle firsthand, thanks to a ten-year-old girl I once coached.

Her mum had her learning training with me and riding position with a show rider. She had a lineup of ponies that had been rejected by her pony club friends as “naughty,” so we restarted them from scratch, from the ground up, and I showed her how to do it.

Then something magical happened. Every time we reached the riding phase, when the ponies were ready for her to pick up both reins, within a couple of minutes they would move into a beautiful frame — no pulling, no pushing, no drama. It was intriguing, because I had a process for achieving this, yet we never had to use it.

Out of curiosity, I asked, “Are you doing anything with your hands?”🤔

She said, “No way — Anna (my riding instructor) banned me from doing anything with my hands. I’m not allowed to move them. My hands must stay still.”

That was the lesson.

When a horse is relaxed, understands its work, and isn’t busy surviving your corrections every half-second, it has a chance to find a functional way of going. It goes to the hand. Its spine flexes, its back muscles stay dynamic, and its posture finds harmony all on its own.

And it didn’t come from a clinic, or a German masterclass, or an expensive biomechanics workshop.
It came from a ten-year-old kid who didn’t have a clue how to do all the typical things people do - she just knew she had to keep her hands still. And in doing so, she showed me more.

I actually think this has had larger ramifications for how we understand the training process, especially in disciplines like dressage. Our fixation on head position has disrupted the understanding of the deeper process that involves both mind and body - not just the head and neck.

Moral of the story? There are two:
1️⃣Translations can get us into trouble.
2️⃣Never underestimate who can teach you incredible lessons.

This is Collectable Advice Entry 75/365 and my series on the words and terms we use in the horse world. Please hit SHARE for others to benefit from this as well, or just hit SAVE so you a keep this collection of work. But please, no copying and pasting as that is not cool.

11/08/2025

😂😂