Garland Farm & Stables

12/11/2025

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

One of the most overlooked yet powerful foundations in positive reinforcement training is 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.

I’ve also had quite a few people reach out saying they’re curious about R+ but feel hesitant because they’ve seen horses throwing behaviours or mugging on social media. That isn’t an inherent part of R+. It’s simply what happens when the foundational pieces aren’t in place. Calm default is one of the clearest ways to prevent that confusion and help both horse and human succeed.

This should be the very FOUNDATION and the behaviour you start with.

When we start from calm:

✨ Learning is faster and clearer:
High or chronic stress or arousal 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 throwing behaviours:
A horse who is fidgeting, mugging, or offering behaviours at random is frustrated. 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. The horse learns that standing quietly next to the human is reinforcing, and there is no need to mug or be “on top of you.”

✨ It protects the reinforcement history:
When rewards are consistently linked to frantic energy or pushiness, we risks 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 a behaviour the horse offers when they are not sure what to do. This gives the horse a safe, reinforced option if they do not understand the cue or if they cannot do what is asked.

——

What we actually reinforce are the observable postures of calm stillness, head forward, soft muscles quiet breathing. 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.

It is about teaching that calm position is always safe, always reinforcing, and always the place we return to. From that baseline, anything becomes possible.

12/08/2025

Horses DO keep me busy…

12/06/2025

For anyone questioning if positive reinforcement is “all about the food” I wish you could be there to observe us working with a horse who doesn’t trust people. Jessie here. The past few months we have traveled a few hours from our home in PA to work with a couple horses privately.

This really sweet guy has a history that’s mostly unknown. But what he’s told us these past sessions is that it’s been a struggle for him to trust people. One of his go-to’s is the check out. It looks like staring off/spooking in place. This is an avoidance behavior.

After a few sessions where it was hard for him to focus, we decided to go with super short sessions and put him back in his stall before he could get too over threshold that he lost that focus. This meant sessions just a couple minutes long. And today, we might have made a break through.

After watching multiple sessions where he was walking past us, stopping and staring off in fear as though he couldn’t even hear us (all avoidance behavior), unable to feel as though he could express himself by breaking into a trot to have a little fun with us… we had a break through and it got me choked up. In this moment, this precious little guy stopped and stayed with his face pressed against Shawna’s for a few minutes.

Horses just want to be heard. They want to feel safe and comfortable in their own skin. People are the same. Have you ever had a relationship where you couldn’t seem to do anything right or where the other person told you every little thing to do? It doesn’t feel very good does it? It can even make you feel like you’ve lost a piece of yourself.

When we approach our relationship with horses as a business transaction or as though our role is to be their “boss” or “leader” we risk missing out on the expression of their true, authentic selves, the deep emotional bond of true partnership, and the quiet, extraordinary conversations that happen when two beings meet each other without expectation, judgment, or the burden of rank. From there, we grow and its horses who are our teachers.

12/05/2025

I'm still open for training- but this is good "food for thought" .

Why I No Longer Take Horses For Training?

When my career began twenty years ago, everything was different. I enjoyed riding horses and soon found a way I could get paid to do it. Fast forward a bit and I was working a steady job to pay the bills as I was building my business, and in the meantime was learning a lot, about horses certainly, but as much about people.

Horses are the easy part, people are not. Quite frankly, people are hard to please and at the same time are often unreasonable. I have met some great people because of horses, many were clients, but people are still the hardest part.

Here is a situation that played out enough that I have it memorized by word.

Client-I have a horse I need started.

Me-how old is it?

C-5 or 6, I really wanted it to mature before it was started and now I dont have the time.

Me-what will be changing in your schedule so that you can keep riding the horse when it comes home?

C-oh I will find the time. I just can't afford to get hurt right now.

Me-I can't either

Me- here is what I charge...per month, and I require 90 days

C-oh I can't afford that! What can I get for 30 days?

Me-........

C-and I want to be there everyday so that I can watch you and learn what you do. Can you work it everyday on my schedule?

If life was only this simple. The truth is that training horses is a very tough business. I have recently had numerous aspiring trainers reach out to me, which is great. But everyone needs to realize that that the industry needs to fix some things. If we dont do some things soon, I fear no one will be training horses in a decade, especially starting colts. And that is where I want to focus on.

We have too many people that have trained one or two and think they know everything and want to throw stones at everyone else that might do things differently. Then, what realistically needs to be charged to make the finances work is much more than most will pay. So why would a young person want to start something that takes considerable time to learn, doesn't pay much, and has a high risk of a short career?

So here is what I believe can be done. Take it or leave it.

Be reasonable, despite what you may think, ALL young, uneducated horses can have their moments. I know in the YouTube, TikTok age that doesnt happen, but in the real world it does.

Don't be cheap. It isn't the trainers responsibility to make horses affordable for you.

Understand that the process of training a horse is a VERY time consuming, thought out process filled with immense intentionality in everything and that doesn't end when you pick them up from the trainers.

And finally and most importantly, understand that horses are not programmable. Just because a trainer spends tons of time teaching a horse to do all the things, but you do everything differently they they did. You will get a different result. That wasnt and isn't the trainers fault. Ask the same way they did or expect something different.

I have just scratched the surface of the topic. Much more could, and maybe should be talked about. And to be fair the horror stories can be told from both the client and trainers perspective by many of you. So lets see if we can communicate better with each other and do our best to look at life from potentially others perspectives, not just our own, just like when we are working with our horses.

Pc Tracey Buyce Photography

12/03/2025

11/29/2025

This is stunning. Hopefully in the next year or so, we'll have a track system on our property!

11/27/2025

Sometimes the horse world pretends to be a big family.
But most people won’t admit how lonely it can feel.

You can stand in a busy yard and still feel like you’re the odd one out.
You can love your horse more than anything and still feel like you’re guessing.
You can scroll past everyone’s tidy arenas and feel like you’re the only one having a rough time.

There’s a silence in the horse world that says
“don’t make a fuss”
and
“everyone else manages”.

But most people are hanging on with tired hands.
Most are doing their best with limited time, limited money and a nervous system that’s stretched thin.
Most are carrying worries that never leave their mouths.

And the anchor in all of that is the one creature who doesn’t judge any of it.

Your horse doesn’t rate you on success, confidence or how well you’re coping.
Your horse only cares whether you feel safe to stand beside.
That’s the real relationship.
That’s the real connection.
And it is enough.

What I’ve noticed over the past couple of posts is that, despite all of this quiet loneliness, people really do show up for each other when the mask slips. Out of thousands of comments, I can count the keyboard warriors on one hand.

Everyone else has been kind, honest and singing the same song:
“I feel this too.”
It’s the closest thing we get to proof that the horse world isn’t cold and judgemental.

It’s just full of people who’ve been carrying far too much.

If you’ve felt a bit alone in it all, you’re not the odd one out.
You’re simply surrounded by others who’ve been waiting for someone to speak first.