01/04/2026
Kashi taught me this very valuable lesson. It is not only great for helping your horses, but teaches you how to deal withany life situations. 🐎
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Calming Signals and Horses
A friend brought her mare over recently for help working through a problem. She has done some great work with this horse and built a strong relationship with her, but they had hit a genuinely scary hiccup. Whenever the mare became worried, she started to overreact and pushed through all forms of her aids and pressure, spinning and running off quite dangerously.
So, we decided to spend some time together and see if we could help the mare feel safe again, and give her rider some calming skills the mare could rely on.
She arrived a little earlier than expected, and I was riding my big Clydesdale, Reuben, at the time in our arena, with our little band of donkeys and miniature ponies wandering around outside the fence, as they often do.
I thought she would wait for me to move the little herd to another area before our session, but by the time I realised, the mare was already in the area and sniffing the donkeys through the fence.
As could be expected, this didn't go down well; and the horse panicked, spun, and exploded with energy, dragging another if our friends across the arena in a moment of pure fear, pushing through everything being asked of her.
I was riding my horse Reuben quite a way from them when I felt the panic travel across the space, and in that moment, he copied the panic in the other horse.
He spun, grew to what felt like 25 hands tall, and kept stepping around quickly, showing both physical and emotional concern.
This wasn't because the donkeys were dangerous to him, as he knows them well.
But because the feeling of “something isn’t safe” had arrived from the mare.
That is limbic resonance.
It's not a physical cue or a conscious decision, but rather what happens when one nervous system syncs with another.
Now, Reuben is a very big horse that is powerful and strong, so when he reacted like that, I must admit I felt a brief flash of panic rise in me as I realised I could come off. It lasted only a moment. Then years of studying and practising this calming work took over.
I knew not to try to correct him.
I didn’t push him forward.
I didn’t try to prove anything.
I just concentrated on regulating myself.
I slowed my breathing, pushing all the air from my lungs.
I softened my body as I tenderly rubbed his shoulders.
And very clearly, inside myself, I said,
You’re okay, mate.
Nothing to worry about.
I’ve got you.
And I meant it. And he knew it to be true.
Within moments, a ripple of calm moved through us both. He sighed, licked and chewed, then dropped his head as he softened, and I softened further in response. My nervous system settled, and his followed mine, and that calm continued to circulate between us. We were feeding each other regulation rather than escalating stress, and he trusted me completely, and I him.
Once that calmer state was established, we had some quiet time, then we went on to have a great lesson applying the same premise to help the mare. Over the next hour, we focused on calming signals, breathing, mindset, and presence. There was no forcing, no pushing, no trying to override fear. Just consistent, regulated humans offering a nervous system the horse could lean into, and it worked beautifully.
By the time they left, the mare was in a completely different state. She was softer, calmer, and willing again, and more deeply connected to her rider through genuine trust.
With the rider happy, content, and more confident and grounded, and some new skills to add to her already impressive toolbox to help her and her horse move forward.
In a short space of time, two horses were helped simply by understanding how regulation travels from human to horse, from the central nervous system to the central nervous system.
Reuben didn’t calm down because he was trained to do so.
He calmed because the unsafe signal stopped and a regulated one replaced it.
This is something I have learned from all the generous horses who have shared this with me through my lifetime of working with horses who have experienced trauma.
And over 3 decades, I have been fascinated by these observation that horses are all about feel because they react to the nervous systems around them, where feeling moves faster than thought, and faster than aids, or our intentions.
When we understand this, we stop trying to manage behaviour and start paying attention to regulation and presence, to being in the moment with the horse in front of us.
That is limbic resonance.
And it is happening every time you are with a horse, whether you are aware of it or not.
So, the question becomes:
How can you offer calming signals from your own nervous system to your horses?
