Holistic Equestrian LLC

12/28/2024

It takes a top notch team to help horses become their best selves. Thank you, Tara Kolesar and Dr Hannah Mueller for being part of my team!
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12/21/2024

Time for a body transformation check in on our training horse, Danny. Danny has been with us since September. He was struggling to keep weight on, super unconfident with other horses and some odd physical issues. I fully believe he's transformed as much or more internally than he has externally, at this point, and that's saying something!

Now he's feeling downright sassy and his confidence to express that sass without fear is both heartwarming and totally annoying. 😜 He's way too smart for his own good and uses those smarts to get into all kinds of mischief! 😂🤣 I'm super proud of Danny and give full props to his owner for recognizing he needed something different and making the incredibly difficult decision to move away from all her wonderful barn friends in order to give him that.

12/20/2024

Long-reining (aka, long lining, ground driving, double lunging, whatever you want to call it) is a really useful tool that I utilize regularly in my program of reconditioning horses with asymmetries and soundness issues. But, it's not a beginner friendly tool. It requires feel, timing, and a lot of physical coordination to prevent some potential disasters if the horse gets spooked or confused...

Here's a tip that I use every time I start a horse on the long reins, if the horse is feeling particularly fresh, or the first time teaching a student to use them: I attached the inside line like a lunge line, and the outside line normally. That way in an emergency I can drop the outside line and keep the horse on the circle until it settles again.

I also frequently connect the lines to both the bit and the halter, to prevent the horse from getting a nasty yank on its mouth if something does go wrong. And, with horses, something will inevitably go wrong. 🤪

Hopefully this will help give someone the confidence to try this awesome tool for building their horse's topline and teaching and/or correcting contact issues.

11/07/2024

Horses come to me from all different backgrounds, with unknown traumas, and training usually from a variety of places, and always unrecognized pain somewhere in their bodies. They come with resistances, evasions, defenses, often times having come to the conclusion that nobody will listen to them unless they scream as loudly as possible. Sometimes they are simply shut down and don't want to interact, aren't interested, will look everywhere but at me. It's an interesting thing to observe.

What I do notice, though, is that once they realize that a) I can show them how to be relaxed in any situation, and b) I listen to their small communications and they don't have to scream, the transformation is profound and remarkable. They become interested, they become confident, they communicate, they engage, and they start enjoying using their bodies. They come to me when I go to get them from the pasture. Sometimes they even try to help me put their halters on. 😂 It's inevitable and it's dramatic.

And yet, for some reason I'm always amazed and awed that it works, every single time. 🤷

10/28/2024

Thanks to Equestrians Institute and Cindy Reichel, I had the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful weekend symposium with Sabine Shut-Kerry. It inspired me to write a blog about a topic I've been thinking about for a very long time. I hope you enjoy it.

This weekend I had the thoroughly delightful opportunity to attend a symposium featuring Sabine Shut-Kerry, sponsored by the Equestrian's Institute and ...

10/22/2024

We have a few openings for training (full or partial) in Snohomish, WA. If you need help with your horse's soundness, fitness and conditioning, tension and spookiness, and/or preparing for next year's competition season, this is absolutely the right time to take advantage of this opening. Don't miss out on this rare opportunity! Message me right away!

10/21/2024

Holistic Equestrian has another very special horse looking for an equally special person.

Name: Ziva (Zealous Zoey)
Breed: Thoroughbred (not raced)
Gender: Mare
Age: 10
Height: 15.3hh
Color: Solid Bay, small white star
Location: Monroe, WA

Ziva is a very special horse with some physical maintenance needs, seeking her perfect person.

What makes Ziva truly special is her incredible brain and desire to engage with people. She is beautiful, athletic and wicked smart. Ziva is an enthusiastic ground work, liberty, R+ horse. She LOVES attention, LOVES being engaged in things that make her think, and is 100% ready to learn tricks and show them off anytime, anywhere. She also LOVES to jump, although it is harder on her body than it should be, so we are looking for a non-jumping home. She is not affected by external factors when she is at "work." She is not spooky or hot. Even if she's physically uncomfortable, she will find something to distract herself with so she can stay calm.

However, while Ziva is as absolutely sound as she can possibly be, she gets quite uncomfortable after being ridden. For this reason we are not willing to send her to a home where she will be expected to be ridden. Ziva's owner has gone above and beyond to give her the best chance at being comfortable and happy, but needs to find her a new home where she can thrive doing what she loves and not be forced to do things that cause her pain.

Ziva, unfortunately does not play well with others. She does best when friends are close but separate, so she wouldn't make a good companion horse.

Ziva has emotions and thrives with a person who is patient, steady and non-reactive. She doesn’t have a mean bone, but sometimes needs help to maintain her Zen. She’s very honest, though, and her biggest emotions are almost always related to pain somewhere in her body.

We are more than happy to share the details, x-rays and vet records for serious inquiries.

Free jumping:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/62gdr8xvrq63pomj4bwe1/20240728_122611639-3.mp4?rlkey=4jrmv8sz3723154jiwq54l671&st=1xuotwjx&dl=0

Targeting:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qcyr1p2e51fucjerju4lm/20241013_1225377321-5.mp4?rlkey=kkf7bp8ir36jf5sn28n3pvxxu&st=o1zvcxrj&dl=0

10/13/2024

Another very important facet to "Holistic Equestrian" is cross training. There's nothing like popping a jump saddle on and riding over jumps for opening the horse's back and refreshing the gaits!

The advantages of doing regular free jumping meant that Cindy Reichel's Giselle was relaxed and confident to go through the little jumps we set for her. Cindy, of course, had an absolute blast and did an awesome job! 😁🥰

10/01/2024

Ground work pattern sand art. 😎

09/24/2024

Little Ziva: May to September. Who says you have to ride a horse to build their topline? She is not comfortable carrying weight (she's getting her girl parts checked), but in every other way she's a very happy girl!

09/20/2024

I'm not entirely sure Adam would approve me posting these pictures of him in his blissed out state, but he most certainly *does* approve of his weekly bodywork sessions with Fiona Boardman (Open Stride Equine Therapy).

08/28/2024

Never, ever, ever give up!

08/11/2024

Sometimes it's hard to believe this is the same mare that I start training in 2020. 😲 Cindy Reichel's Giselle just keeps getting nicer.

08/08/2024

Ahhh, the beauty of a freshly drug arena. 🥰

07/29/2024

I'm seeing quite a few of these bits on the Olympic 3-day horses. Even on the cross country. That makes me happy. 😊

07/29/2024

This super little mare is a poster child for what I do and why I do it. Her owner brought her to me after spending a couple of years and thousands of $$ trying to help her get sound. The vets were stumped and couldn't offer any more clues as to why she was still lame after all the injections, rehabs, etc. Her owner finally found me and took a leap of faith in bringing her to me as a last resort.

There are no words to describe how much pain this girl was experiencing, but her behavior was what I would describe as "blind overwhelm." You couldn't touch her skin without her losing her mind, trying to cow kick, aggressively shaking her head and trying to get away at any cost. Everything was just too much, and she could not relax or stand still. The more you tried to contain her, the more aggro she would get. Everybody that saw her thought she was just a b*tch and needed to be "corrected," (aka, given a good beating 🤔) but I could tell this behavior wasn't her choice and no amount of "correction" was going to fix it.

There's no magic formula for "fixing" horses in this much distress. It takes looking at the whole horse (thus "holistic" Equestrian) and then stripping away all the layers one by one. There are so many things to consider; possible injury, physical asymmetry, gastric distress, feet, diet, anticipation of pain, and for mares, hormones.

But the first order of business is dialing down the pain so the horse can take a breath and start to think beyond the physical discomfort. Then it's about engaging the horse's mind in ways that they want to try again. It's rarely a straight line from start to finish, but a tweak here, a tweak there, an experiment with this and an experiment with that. Start, and start again. Every day work with the horse that shows up that day, whatever capability it has that day, no matter what.

In this case, after addressing the bulk of her pain, teaching this girl to "target" a cone, and teaching her some self management/relaxation techniques, these little clips of her free jumping are the kind of work she's able to offer consistently. All along I've also taken the time to explain every experience in such a way that she could really understand the expectations and accept life as a horse in a human world.

She has reached a place of total relaxation and confidence in her work. We are on track for having her back under saddle sooner rather than later, and my gut tells me it's going to be a whole lot of "no big deal."

These horses; this kind of "miraculous" transformation, like a caterpillar emerging as a butterfly, are what gets me out of bed every morning. They're why I do this work, why I won't simply focus on training for the show ring, and why I absolutely love my job.