Garland Farm & Stables

09/07/2025

❤️❤️❤️

ARE WE BLAMING HORSES FOR BEING HORSES?

If a horse is difficult to lead, bites someone, stops at a fence, bucks under saddle or refuses to load, the explanation you’ll hear most often is that they’re being naughty, stubborn or difficult. This culture of blame runs deep in the equestrian world. But why do riders and handlers so often blame the horse. Why is it the horse’s fault?

Human psychology gives us some clues. Humans are prone to the fundamental attribution error. That means we’re quick to assume a behaviour is caused by what the horse is like (‘he’s lazy,’ ‘she’s always moody’) instead of looking at what’s happening to the horse.

In practice, that means we often jump to the idea that a horse is being awkward on purpose, rather than considering external factors like pain, inappropriate management, unclear training, or fear. We assume intention when, in reality, the horse is usually just responding to their circumstances. We don’t consider what’s really driving the behaviour and motivating the horse to behave that way.

Add to this the traditions of equestrian culture, where riders are often told from an early age that horses ‘test you’ or ‘take advantage if you let them.’ This narrative becomes normalised — and so blaming the horse feels natural, even when the science tells us otherwise.

Research shows a very different story:

• Studies by Dyson and colleagues (2018–2020) demonstrate that many so-called 'naughty' behaviours are actually signs of pain under saddle

• Hausberger et al. (2008, 2020) found that poor housing and pain are strongly linked to so-called ’problem behaviours.'

• Cheung, Mills & Ventura (2025) show how riders often rationalise practices that compromise welfare in order to reduce their own cognitive dissonance.

Blaming the horse is easier than admitting our tack doesn’t fit, our training wasn’t clear, our horse may be in pain or that we did the wrong thing. It protects us from uncomfortable truths. But it also prevents us from seeing behaviour for what it really is: communication.

Horses don’t plan, plot, or punish. They respond. And they can suffer.

So next time something goes wrong, rather than asking ‘Why is he being naughty?’ consider asking “what is my horse trying to tell me?’ instead.

08/27/2025

Goodall and Fossey taught the world that animals are more than categories—they are individuals with voices, feelings, and relationships. It’s time to apply the same shift in perspective to horses. Let’s move beyond obedience and open the door to true partnership.

08/24/2025

Starting from Neutral: Why Calm Default Matters in R+ Training

One of the most overlooked yet powerful foundations in positive reinforcement training is the idea of a calm default (sometimes called default neutral, patient position, default behaviour, settle, or calm default stationing). No matter the name, the principle is the same. Before asking for complex behaviours, it is essential that our horses know how to return to a neutral, relaxed baseline.

When we start from calm:

✨ Learning is faster and clearer:

High or chronic stress impairs problem solving and memory, while a balanced level of arousal supports learning. A neutral state leaves room for real learning to occur.

✨ We avoid false positives and superstitious learning:

A horse who is fidgeting, mugging, or offering behaviours at random is not truly engaged with clarity. They are guessing under pressure, sometimes repeating behaviours that accidentally worked once. A calm default helps us reinforce precision, not confusion.

✨ It builds safety:

That clarity also feeds into safety for both horse and human. A horse who can pause, settle, and wait without anxiety is less likely to escalate when things get challenging.

✨ It protects the reinforcement history:

When rewards are consistently linked to frantic energy or pushiness, we risk creating a training loop that feels chaotic rather than cooperative. Calm default helps keep reinforcement linked to relaxation and trust.

✨ Bonus:

Calm default can also be shaped into an opt out behaviour. This means the horse has a safe way to receive reinforcement if they do not know what to do or if they cannot do what is asked.

What we actually reinforce are the observable postures of calm such as stillness, head forward, and soft muscles. These postures often correlate with a calmer internal state. While we cannot directly reinforce emotions, we can consistently reinforce the behaviours that express them. Over time, this builds both the posture of calm and the feeling of safety that goes with it.

Think of calm default as your foundation stone.

Neutral is not about shutting down energy or enthusiasm. It is about teaching that calm is always safe, always reinforcing, and always the place we return to. From that baseline, anything becomes possible.

08/16/2025

If you have worked with me, I'm sure you have heard me mention "thresholds" and "trigger stacking" and what we can do to manage those things when working with a horse. This is a great post about it!!

Trigger Stacking: What It Is and Why It Matters

Trigger stacking happens when multiple stressors occur close together, creating a bigger reaction than each trigger would on its own. A horse that could normally cope may go over threshold when these stressors add up.

I like to use three colour zones for simplicity:

🟢 Green Zone: The horse feels safe, relaxed, and calm. This is the best zone for learning, listening, and retaining information.

🟡 Yellow Zone: Early signs of fear or anxiety. Be cautious here as things can escalate quickly. Focus on calming your horse back to green before continuing.

🔴 Red Zone: The sympathetic nervous system kicks in automatically and the horse enters fight, flight, or freeze.

With trigger stacking, horses can jump zones quickly. Some stressors are unavoidable. We are working with prey animals, and it is impossible to create a completely trigger free world. Our job is to minimize stress where we can, build resilience, and set our horses up for success.

Trigger stacking is an involuntary response. The best thing we can do for our horses is teach them the skills to self regulate through these moments, work on desensitizing what we can in the moment, and if needed give them time and space to come down from sudden triggers. Setting your horse up for success means working within the green zone and leaving plenty of room for stressors to stack without pushing them over threshold.

We can help by:

• Creating a positive and healthy learning environment

• Recognizing potential triggers early and responding as they appear

• Helping train your horse to be confident

• Gradually introducing common and regular triggers through desensitization and/or counterconditioning

• Remaining in control of your own emotions, as they can add to your horse’s stress load

• Creating calming techniques and cues for when triggers are presented suddenly

• Avoiding techniques that add unnecessary pressure or escalate stress

• Using good management and husbandry practices to ensure there are no pain or physical stressors

• Giving your horse a safe way to communicate fear, pain, or anxiety (such as creating start and stop buttons)

By understanding trigger stacking and working proactively, we give our horses the best chance to stay calm, confident, and ready to learn. Every step we take to recognise triggers, reduce unnecessary stress, and build their coping skills helps create a partnership based on trust and safety.

08/13/2025

A great opportunity with an awesome young trainer!!

🚨 FILLED! Can’t wait for bootcamp🚨

Prosperity Farms Sport Horses Fall Training Learning Bootcamp is almost full — and there’s just ONE spot remaining! 🐴🍂

If you’ve been wanting hands-on experience, one-on-one guidance, and the chance to level up your horse training (business) skills this season, now’s your chance!

📅 This October
📍 Williston Florida

Message me today to grab the last spot before it’s gone! 😊

08/11/2025

❤️🐴❤️🐴❤️🐴❤️

08/10/2025

Let’s Talk About Thresholds

The more you understand your horse’s thresholds, the better you can keep them comfortable, safe, and ready to learn. Working with horses is as much about reading their emotional state as it is about teaching skills. This awareness is key to preventing stress from escalating and turning into dangerous behaviour.

If you look at the chart above, you can see how quickly stress levels spike when the yellow zone signs are missed. I break thresholds into three simple colour zones.

🟢 Green Zone:

The horse feels safe and relaxed, showing no signs of fear or anxiety. This is the best zone for learning. Memory, focus, and problem-solving are all functioning at their highest. Training here builds trust, speeds progress, and reduces the need for retraining later.

🟡 Yellow Zone:

Subtle signs of stress, fear, or anxiety appear. This is the caution zone. Without intervention, stress levels can escalate into the red zone quickly. The goal here is to de-escalate and bring the horse back to green.

🔴 Red Zone:

The sympathetic nervous system takes over and the horse enters flight, fight, or freeze mode.

Flight: Primary defence, bolting, often with no regard for safety.

Fight: Secondary defence, kicking, striking, rearing, or turning the hindquarters toward the threat.

Freeze: Immobility with a rigid neck, raised head, fixed gaze, slowed heart rate, and sometimes explosive reactions when coming out of it.

❓Why the red zone is so dangerous:

When a horse crosses into this zone, their body floods with stress chemicals such as adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol, all of which have been widely documented in equine stress research.

These chemicals prepare the body for survival, not learning, and they create a chain reaction in the brain and body that impacts both safety and training:

• The prefrontal cortex (responsible for decision-making, focus, and memory) is impaired.

• Memory formation and recall drop sharply.

• The horse’s reactions become faster, less thoughtful, and far more unpredictable.

• Human safety risk skyrockets, handling a horse in this state greatly increases the chance of injury to both horse and handler.

The skill every horse person must have:

• Read stress signals before they become obvious.

• Recognise calming signals and displacement behaviours.

• Understand equine body language well enough to measure thresholds in real time.

This takes careful observation, practice, and education. If you are unsure whether you could confidently recognise these zones in your own horse, that is your starting point. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes and the safer, calmer, and more effective your work will be.

This understanding ties directly into trigger stacking, which is how multiple stressors, even subtle ones, can combine to push a horse over threshold. I will cover that in the next post.

08/09/2025

A great read about many misconceptions about training- specifically food reward based training.

𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞.

I will preface this that I used to believe in and say most of these things, this is not a dig at anyone, there is a significant lack of knowledge on operant conditioning in the Horse world it leads to a lot of confusion and defensiveness.

“𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦.”

This one is a doozy, it implies that dogs are one of the only animals that learn from food rewards which is far from the case and has been displayed consistently throughout anecdotal experience as well as studies on numerous different types of animals.

Food rewards are a high value reinforcer for many animals. Horses are trickle feeding animals, which means their regular daily time budget involves eating for the majority of their time.

They are highly food motivated and their bodies are built in such a way that in some ways, they are actually more built to consume food throughout training than dogs are.

There has been numerous studies done on horses pertaining to rewards based training, and there is a consistent trend showing the efficacy of it.

Regardless of whether or not people want to train with food rewards, there is no denying the fact that it is an effective way to train horses when it is done correctly.

Spreading misinformation to try to justify the way you want to train exposes an internal conflict.

If you cannot be comfortable using pressure and release without trying to convince yourself that training with rewards is inherently inferior, it might be worth contemplating why that is.

“𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞.”

This is not true, food can actually be used to teach horses safer behaviours around food. What teaches horses to bite is the application of the training, environmental stress, being hungry, resource guarding among other things.

This is the equivalent to trying to claim that pressure and release teaches horses to run away from humans. You can for sure use pressure and release to make horses avoidant of humans to the point where they want nothing to do with them, but this would be an indicator of incorrect use.

If horses are becoming food aggressive and pushy in a rewards based system, the fault lies with the application of the reinforcement, not food as a reinforcement as a whole.

It should be noted that the people who do this are rightfully angry when people use poor application of pressure and release training as an example for how it always works, so they should not be creating a double standard that they then direct at rewards based trainers.

“𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐲.”

The truth is, many horses do not live species appropriate lifestyles. They are meant to be consuming forage on a constant basis, when they are unable to do this, it creates stress behaviors.

Lots of people try to train horses with food when they have gone hours without access to food prior. The discomfort that this hunger causes is rightfully going to make them more anxious around food.

Horses can start developing stomach ulcers in as little as four hours without access to forage.

So, imagine how many horses must feel if they are operating with an ulcerated an empty stomach, and then are offered food.

This can be addressed by ensuring that horses have near constant access to forage, feeding a flake of hay or a small meal of soaked feed before training and using low value rewards.

When training with food, it is imperative to use low value food because really sugary high value treats will make horses more stressed and pushy plus they also should not be fed in large quantities.

Forage based rewards, like hay pellets, are safe to feed in larger quantities and low value.

Increasing chew time can also help manage anxiety. So, some people may want to opt for chopped hay over hay pellets.

Also, reward in small handfuls of forage, not just a singular pellet or treat. It is much more likely to increase grabbing if the horse is barely getting a mouthful and does not feel satiated.

If you watch how horses consume food in a natural setting, they are typically taking full bites, not just a tiny little nibble or two.

It’s also incredibly important to teach a bridge signal. A bridge signal is usually an auditory cue (the clicker in clicker training, for example) that signals the correct behaviour has been performed and reward is forthcoming.

It marks the exact moment the horse has done the right thing, providing clarity.

It bridges the gap between the correct behaviour being performed and the reward being fed.

Without one, there is a lack of clarity and anything the horse does between the desired behaviour and actually being fed the reward can end up accidentally being rewarded.

This makes it a lot easier for someone to mistakenly reward pushy behaviours.

So, with rewards based training, a bridge signal is a necessity for clarity.

“𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞.”

This is greatly oversimplifying Equine communication.

It also implies that horses perceived training done by humans the same way that they do with communication from other horses, which is not true.

Horses are well aware that we are not horses.

No matter what people do to try to model, Horse behavior, it will never be received the same way because we are not horses.

Horses also don’t ride around on each each other’s backs, load each other into trailers or do quite literally anything that humans do with horses.

With that said, horses do use positive reinforcement in developing bonds with each other.

Mutual grooming is a very common bonding activity that horses will do and this is an example of positive reinforcement.

Both horses get mutual enjoyment from the grooming and their bond grows as a result.

But, regardless, we shouldn’t be making training decisions based off of how Horse is communicate with each other.

I also see a lot of people trying to justify physical punishment like hitting horses based off of the fact that horses will kick and bite each other.

This fails to acknowledge the fact that horses have a diverse and subtle language that typically involves lots of warnings before any physical punishment contact.

Healthy herds are not frequently kicking and biting each other.

Horses also speak the same language and can have far more clear communication with each other so people cannot liken themselves to being a horse.

“𝐔𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐲.”

Nope. A bribe precedes the behaviour, the reward comes after.

By the time the horse is getting a reward, they’ve already performed the desired behaviour.

But if we want to use this as a reason to drag R+ training, with this logic pressure and release would be coercion.

A reward is simply a reinforcer for a desire behaviour. You are effectively “paying” your horse for offering the desired behaviour.

No correct application of R+ involves solely luring horses with food aka “bribing.”

“𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧.”

Also not true. With R+, you shape behaviours and build duration and at that point can reward intermittently.

While new behaviours are being learned, rewards need to be more frequently but once the behaviour has been conditioned, you can reward intermittently.

Rewards build a pattern of pleasant outcomes following certain behaviours and the behaviour itself can become reinforcing due to that history.

In all honesty, you can build more duration between reinforcers with R+ than you can with R- (pressure and release) because the reinforcer isn’t built into the cue with R+.

Horses trained with R- need to be frequently cued with pressure and then the release of it.

You don’t ever “phase out” the pressure with negative reinforcement. It’s always used. People don’t seem to view this as a training weakness so why is alternative logic applied to R+?

“𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐫.”

R+ training focuses on the WHY behind the behaviour and addresses the underlying cause. You aren’t going to reward behaviours you do not want to see, so of course you don’t feed food following aggression.

You do, however, look at the likely causes of aggression which generally relate to fear, anxiety, chronic stress, pain, inadequate management and more…

When you start addressing the causes, the behaviour will either reduce in intensity dramatically or go away completely.

You can also “counter condition” unwanted behaviours by rewarding a behaviour that is “incompatible” with the unwanted one. For example, a horse cannot bite at the person leading them and face forward with their head in a neutral position at the same time.

If it is more reinforcing to face forward and the reasons why behind the biting in the first place are being addressed, the horse is more likely to defer to that behaviour.

Complex behaviours like aggression or extreme fear behaviours that are dangerous are best addressed by dealing with the cause if you want to create safety and predictable behaviour.

Focusing on suppressing the behaviour without considering why it exists can lead to the behaviour becoming more unpredictable and extreme.

“𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫. 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐝.”

“Negative” in operant conditioning terms refers to the removal of a stimulus.

Negative reinforcement is “negative” because the removal of pressure is what reinforces the behaviour.

It may be more clear to call it subtractive reinforcement.

“Positive” in operant conditioning terms refers to the addition of a stimulus.

Neither of these terms refers to “good” or “bad.”

“𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞.”

This isn’t true. Not all pressure is an aversive pressure where the release of it is the reinforcement.

A lot of pressures are neutral. For example, gently resting your hand on your horse’s shoulder. They may not enjoy the sensation but they also aren’t bothered by it.

It’s still pressure but the release of it isn’t reinforcing anything — the pressure has no meaning until it’s linked to something.

Some pressure is also pleasant, like scratching a horse in an area they like. This would be positively reinforcement.

So, positive reinforcement can use neutral pressure to link to a previously learned behaviour, like following a target. It can then be put on cue so the pressure is used to cue a behaviour.

Once the horse understands the cue, it will look similar to how traditional pressure and release looks, but how it was taught is different.

The primary reinforcer is the food reward.

Rewards based training doesn’t mean you never touch your horse, use equipment or apply pressure.

It isn’t some magical telepathic method that works off of straight vibes and no physical touch.

It just means that the physical cues being taught are not being taught by the use of aversive pressure.

The bottom line is that R+ is highly effective with horses and many other animals.

A lot of the problems people attribute to rewards based stem from a lack of knowledge, lack of understanding and/or incorrect application.

It is fine if you don’t want to use rewards in your program, but you don’t need to spread misinformation.

Both R- and R+ can be utilized ethically in a program but I’ve personally found that rewards lead to my horses being more motivated in training and with a much more pleasant outlook towards training.

Regardless of how you train, it is important to understand how your reinforcers work and have a basic grasp of operant conditioning.

Lack of understanding of how the application of your training methods actually are received by the horse can make training much less effective or impact ethicality.

It should be viewed as a non-negotiable for anyone working with animals to understand operant conditioning and be able to explain the function of HOW they’re training.

Unfortunately, the horse world is behind in this regard.