Serendipity Dressage

07/29/2024

A great diagram and example of what you should look for!

07/25/2024

This!!! I love everything about this article! Thanks for expressing it so well Lauren! 😊🦄❤️

:

I’m going to stick my head in the lion’s mouth: we have to talk about the vertical 🦁

Where the horse’s face is in relation to “the vertical” is one of many pieces of a horse in motion we should evaluate when determining “good dressage moment” or “bad dressage moment.” But there are many (and they seem to be very loud on the internet) who think that it is THE piece we focus on, the only data point we need.

When I see a horse that is behind the vertical, I look at a few things. First, is he there because the rider is pulling, or does the rider seem to have a steady and compassionate hand and the horse is just not yet perfect in self carriage because it is young/still developing strength/has lost his balance for a second/is conformationally challenged and is still working to overcome that/whatever? Second, is everything else pretty good? Is the back up, the hind leg under, the rider sitting in good balance? Is he moving with good forward energy, rather than scrambling on the forehand? Third, is he behind the vertical because the neck is low - like when stretching - but the angle between the head and the neck is what I would want it to be with the poll the highest point, when the horse is in a more upright working balance?

And finally, I remember that dressage isn’t only “good” and “bad,” as if there are only two linear states available. There’s plenty of gray. If a horse and rider are generally checking all of the other boxes, just struggling slightly with the self carriage, it is not PERFECT, of course, but I’m not personally convinced that it’s inherently a capital crime. There’s so many more pieces to consider.

07/24/2024

I think this is a really well thought out opinion on the situation. It is heartbreaking on so many levels, for the horse, for the viewer…but also for the trainer. The trainer that is human, who makes errors every day.

We are all human. No one is perfect, and that in itself is NOT an acceptance of bad behavior. But as it has been said “he who is without sin shall cast the first stone”.

I hope we can learn and grow from this situation, to always be better for our horses, to always try to be a better human.

Start with yourself, I will start with myself.

❤️🦄

So, when Charlotte (Dujardin) was in London 2012 Olympics with Valegro, she got my attention. Because Valegro was the first competitive dressage horse I personally saw in recent memory, in recent records, compete and win without an abundance of overtly obvious calming signals and signs of stress. Valegro did show stress, lots and lots of it. But in an environment to his left and right, horses showed stressx100000, and he showed stressx100, he appeared relaxed by comparison. Not relaxed according to what I prefer and try to practice. Putting myself in the shoes of an other, I saw an exception in Charlotte then. I do not see an exception in her now.

So she got my attention.

In subsequent years, when Valegro (Blueberry) retired and I saw her riding of other horses, it became clear to me that Valegro might have been an exceptional animal and an anomaly, and then digging a little deeper into personal research, I tried to find quotes from Charlotte herself talking about her champion horse.

A person always tells you exactly who they are, if we believe them.

I heard a rumor, that Charlotte described Valegro as "Hard Mouthed". I am not sure if that is true. Because much of their press is glossy and idolised. Like this article, still on the FEI website, attributing Charlotte and Valegro to inspiring a whole new generation of dressage riders. https://www.fei.org/stories/sport/dressage/5-things-learn-charlotte-dujardin-valegro

So if a Gold Medallist is describing her champion horse as Hard Mouthed, what does this mean for the training process that horse went through when nobody was watching? I guessed, wildly speculated for myself, that Valegro might be a horse who tolerated more pressure, than perhaps other horses would. Perhaps a horse who was predisposed to working under an enormous amount of compression, without feeling emotionally off-kilter about it. And was therefore able to demonstrate high level competitive riding with her, without an abundance of signs of stress (not no stress at all, just drastically less than is typically seen in those contexts). And actually win. Valegro actually looked... sort of happy... with her. By comparison to the horses around them.

But in subsequent years watching her ride Pumpkin and others, I personally did not like what I saw. I saw too much of the modern, Continental Euro-Dressage culture in the horses body. I felt quietly she needed to listen more to Carl Hester, and less to the Continental Hyper-Mobile style that is so rewarded now across the board.

So in recent years I waned my interest in Charlotte, after initially feeling pleasantly surprised at how much I found an affiliate image in her public body of work that I felt I could... maybe, just maybe, enjoy watching and supporting.

Charlotte is currently under-going the effects of Cancel Culture. Cancel Culture is something I would like to cancel. Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. Here is a competitor who demonstrated at the Olympics that once in a blue moon, 1 horse in a million could compete -and win-with a drastically minimised output of overt signs of stress. Charlotte showed that to us. She also popularised and brought into fashion the era of helmets in competitive riding. Before that, it was all tuxedo's and top hats. And now helmets are popular and normalised at upper levels. She was the first to really popularise that. She, together with Carl, also used her enormous platform to advocate for the ample turn out of their horses. They even hack their top horses on country roads. At a time when some competitors horses never saw light of day, or had a chance to roll in a field, or play with their buddies, this person was returning from world championships, and instead of posting a photo of her ribbons and trophies, would post of video of turning the champion horse out in a field with their buddies.

And then we see a video of her abusing a horse with a whip. In my opinion, the video is egregious. Her actions in the video are horrific. They appear well practiced. They appear to be perfunctory, like she had done them before. There is NO EXCUSE for what she did. It is bonafide abuse.

But there are explanations why. And understanding WHY is crucial for us right now if we are to avoid the pitfall before us. The pitfall of making camps on the left and right, while we hurl abuse at each other. Let us have enough self restraint to pump the breaks on our outrage, and understand why. We must, if we are to use this moment as a crucial turning point in the development of horse welfare.

I have made mistakes with horses. So have you, yes you. I have done things with horses out of frustration. So have you. Nobody is immune to that. All of us have sinned. But I have never whipped a horse like was shown in the surfaced video. I have never done that. To the laughter of those filming? Sickening. And the inaction of the rider. And the entitlement of Charlotte.

And yet, I do not agree that now is the time to cancel Charlotte.

It would not occur to me to blame the victim. The timing is perhaps suspect to speculation. But perhaps the timing has nothing to do with it. I know what it is like to wait years, 10 years in fact, to blow the whistle on my abusers. I have abusers who I am still waiting for the right time to blow my whistle on them. Now is not the time. I waited for a time when the groundswell of support was such that I could blow the whistle and not stand alone. Perhaps Charlottes whistle blower waited until they had enough support around them, so they COULD be brave. I do not know. But we must not make this about the whistleblower that is the lowest hanging fruit here today.

Let us make this about WHY the top competitor in our industry, so completely failed. Why we cannot sanction almost any competitive riding in 2024 through an ethics lens? And why we need to stop cancelling peoples mistakes, and instead learn from them. So we never-ever- repeat them.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Someone can be abusing horses. And in the same breathe, make great choices for them. It is the human-problem. We have a heavy, clever, abstract brain that needs another 50 millions years of evolution to refine this new bio-computer and de-bug some of its glitches. The human brains most common glitch in my opinion, is the glitch of incongruence. Say one thing. Do one thing. Next minute contradict that entirely. It is almost like somebody left the paddock gate open in the human psyche and all the horses got out. Running chaos across the road. It is the reason why we so wholly engage in acts of abuse, torture, murder and systematic annihilation of others. Just like cancel culture is the annihilation of others we abhor, the same way abusive horse training is the annihilation of the horses well-being in real time. Be careful, outraged or not we may be, be careful to track the threads of aggression and hostility through our bodies, lest we make hypocrites of ourselves.

To use hostility and aggression and lack of listening to others and lack of compassion of others to cancel another, is the same human trait of lack of listening, hostility, aggression and lack of compassion shown to the horse in Charlotte's scandal. To weaponise the same weapons of the person we cancel... is by definition incongruent. The best way to no longer sanction the sort of abuse Charlotte engaged in, is to eliminate those same urgings from ourselves... wherever they show up. Yes- even when directed at Charlotte.

The human brains most common glitch in my opinion, is the glitch of incongruence. Our brains have not fully re-connected recent complex brain developments into our body, our ancient wisdoms, our empathy and our kindness.

I mean, we can. But it takes a Herculean effort to do so. In order to live a congruent life, one must be actively anti-social to the mainstream. Because mainstream living requires incongruence to fit in, survive and be successful.

Charlotte, like tens of thousands of top equine professionals, is part of this problem. Stuck in a system where she must force performance, force compliance, by any egregious means necessary, so that she can maintain her safety, her success, her image and her acceptance. Imagine being an Olympic Gold Medallist, training someone elses "lesser" horse, and the horse is not doing it the way your Valegro did it for you. Imagine doing that in front of an audience.

"I saw Charlotte at a clinic and actually, she couldn't get the results. It must be Valegro, not her"

Such nasty phrases are common place and directed everyday to all trainers, everywhere. Trainers are under enormous pressures to prove not only competency, but competency RIGHT NOW, and the means necessary are not important. This is a dynamic I work hard everyday to counter. It is so hard to do.

If we cancel Charlotte now we risk the following
1. Not learning from this. WHY did the TOP COMPETITOR in that industry still fail at horse ethics 101. If she is failing, we all are.
2. We risk covering up the positive impact she did make towards helmet culture, turn out culture and showcasing, 12 years ago, a relaxed horse. Even if he was one in a million. She still showcased that.
3. We lose an opportunity to understand the popular culture of training and how we need to double our efforts to reform it.

We actually need new parameters of competency. New parameters of success. We don't need to cancel Charlotte. She will get what is coming for her.

Cancel Culture in my opinion is the epitome of a diversion tactic. It is also hostile, and aggressive. And eye for an eye and we are all blind. Someone grappling with their own conscience in what they did or are currently doing to horses, can redirect their internal turmoil onto another and heap their own self loathing onto a scapegoat. They get an adrenal hit out of it. They feel better about themselves. The Germans call it "Schadenfreude" direct translation is Crappyfriend, or happiness at the misfortune of others. It is a toxic trait in my opinion to cancel an other.

We cannot talk a storyline of holding space for misbehaving horses, for troubled horses, if we cannot hold space for misbehaving and troubled people.

I see someone like Charlotte whipping a horse the way she did and I want to throw up, but I also acknowledge how troubled she must be. Troubled and damaged, before, during and after the abuse. not an excuse, I hold no sympathy for her. But damn, how damaged must someone be, to do what she did. How damaged must someone be to believe they can cancel another. Deny their existence, like a death. The same way horses are denied their existence.

Be careful, outraged or not, to track aggression patterns through our bodies and stop them in their tracks.

I have been saying for months:
"S**t is going to hit the fan this Olympics. We need to be ready to catch the people who are abandoning ship"

Olympics hasn't even started yet, and here we are. S**t-fan-ship.

07/22/2024

I saw someone had started a horsey AirBnB site, but I cannot find it now.

With the close completion of the Efficiency, I am looking forward to several different offerings:

- Our amazing ranch house which can sleep up to 10 people, with stalls available

- Our super cute Efficiency which can sleep up to 3 people and stalls available

- Use of the English footing covered arena

- Subject to scheduling, we will have supervised ranch trail rides available for our guests

- Soon to come - 2 to 3 day clinics and retreats with MOI! 🥰

If you see the horse airbnb site slide across your feed could you please forward it to me?

TIA! 😊🦄🙏🏻

07/18/2024

This mane needs its own hour of training! 🦄❤️😆

07/14/2024

I’m really excited to hear Mary’s latest podcast and that she is back with more good stuff for us to ponder. While I have not listened to all of her podcasts, I found this one to be really interesting, as it follows along some of the lines that Mark Langley was talking about when he was here last month.

Sometimes, for both horse and rider, we have to be willing to let go of something you have believed for a long time, in order to be able to grab hold of something new you want to learn. You can SEE the value of it, you can FEEL the difference ce it makes, but there is still some vague unease of buying into the new information, despite all the good you find in it.

Take a listen to Mary Wanless’s latest podcast, then feel free to share your thoughts and feelings about this idea here!

‎Education · 2024

07/11/2024

And another thought for all us riders - sometimes you have to recognize your own good spot, your own win, despite it not being popular or well received. Know your horse. Be your horse’s advocate (not his nanny or his nursemaid) for the future, even if today looks and maybe feels awful. Tomorrow is a whole nother day! ❤️🦄

07/11/2024

I think this is a really important thought process. When we learn what we previously didn’t know, when we grow in our own understanding and skills, it does not give liberty to castigate someone else’s methods.

Lead by example. When you know better, do better…you may lead a person to change, but you will never force them to drink the cool aid.

Your new "ethical" choices are not weapons for you to use against others.

There are sweeping changes, a tide swelling, within the community of horse-loving people. We are learning. We are growing. We are opening our eyes. We are realising.

We are realising that the things we used to do, were a problem for the horses. We realised that how we used to train, ride, keep and handle horses is no longer how we want to do it. So we learn. We sought mentors and teachers. We grew. We changed.

But just because we changed, doesn't mean everyone has to change in identical fashion to us. Nobody has to follow you on your exact path. Good training, can look like so many different things.

Your new choices you deem more ethical, are your new choices. They may not be someone else's choices. You are not permitted to weaponise your new choices against others. I mean, you can do what you like. I guess what I am saying, is that I do not personally or professionally condone that conduct.

I know it is tough. Because you see someone doing something with a horse, and they are laughing, or continuing unaware of their horses signs of pain, distress or discomfort. You want to help them. You want this person to stop harming horses AND to avoid the same mistakes you made.

So you make a comment. It comes out of you passive-aggressive even though in your heart you meant it with kindness.

So you make a face. You tried to not be bitchy, but you judged the others anyway, you judged them as Less-Than you because their choices are different.

So you come and tell them what they should and should not be doing, unsolicited. After all, you deem their behaviour ignorant and harmful, and deem your choices superior and well-informed.

That. Is. Abusive.

That. Is. Disrespectful.

That. Is. Demonstrating. That. You. Have. Not. Changed.

You used to force, or manipulate horses to your will. Now you force and manipulate other peoples horses to your will through anti-social tactics against other people. Usually these other people are your friends, acquaintances or even clients.

You used to be unaware of your impact on horses. Now you are unaware of your impact on others.

You used to be harsh on people who didn't dominate or force their horses like you. Now you are harsh on people who don't work softly and correctly with horses like you.

Let people have their journey. Let people experiment. Let people try. Let people find out for themselves. Let people explore their options and maybe even (gasp) allow other people to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Be there for them when they screw up, if they screw up.

But peering through the curtains, raising your eyes, saying Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda's AT them when they did not ask for your help... is not helpful.

Let me say this very clearly.

To my students. My friends. My colleagues. My clients. The people who have bought a course, done lessons, subscribe to services and content. Attended a clinic. Anyone who has passed through Emotional Horsemanship or Lockie or Lockie adjacent. I speak directly to you. If this shoe fits, wear it. If it does not, I do not speak about you.

I, Lockie Phillips, DO NOT CONDONE you weaponising my teachings, or my methods against people who are making different choices with their horses. Yes, even if you think they are harming their horses. I do not condone, support or encourage you employing manipulative, passive aggressive, aggressive, bitchy, high-schoolish, mean-girlish, tactics to "tell" others that they are making bad choices and should do it like us instead. I do not condone it. I do not do that. And if I do it unintentionally, I apologise, and rectify my behaviour. I do not support, encourage or expect my community to engage in toxic judgemental behavioural patterns with their friends, clients, community or acquaintances. At all. Dot com. Ever.

If you are doing this in my name or in the name of my methods, please stop. Stop. And apologise. How you represent yourself, and us, matters. Stop throwing fuel on the fire.

Now, what to do instead?

You identify that you do not like what someone else around you is doing with their horses? Here is what you can do.

1. Lead by example. Practice with YOUR horses and focus on your results.
2. If they ask you for help, and you are able to help them, then help them without condescending or patronising them. Help them as equals, or do not help them at all.
3. Reach out to them, in a friendly manner, and ask them if they are open to your feedback. If they are, present the feedback in an open way too. You might be wrong.
4. If you recognise a real situation of active abuse or neglect, go to authorities, if this owner is not open to guidance, support or direction. Authorities might be barn managers, their trainer, or Animal Control.

These are the actions I have taken in the past.

I speak to you as someone who is very harsh on the problematics practices in our industry, but who tries (and often fails) to be as soft as possible with the people. 99% of the time, when someone stands in front of me asking for help, and I see them doing or engaging in something that I deem problematic, I muster my self-control to help and support them.

Where do I draw the line?

If someone asked for my help, and we are many months or years into cooperation, and they consistently won't let go of a problematic practice despite my best efforts to engender new practices, and then they demonstrate a poor or rude attitude to me at a personal level around my feedback, I draw a boundary. My boundaries are immediate, hard and clear. But I put huge effort into someone else before I do that.

But I do this out in the open. And if I go too far and become harsh or judgmental on them personally, I apologise.

But I do not condone, that this growing community, become another Ethically Swinging Horsemanship community that is famous for being elitist, judgemental, or poor in their behaviours towards others. I have felt that first hand, had death threats out of such communities. It is the reason those communities do not grow.

Be good in community.
Control your judgement.
Exercise respectful discernment and support of others.

07/10/2024

Food for thought…stick with the original aid you asked with!

Horse Tips

Too many people ignore the horse's try when he is learning because of the hurried human agenda or task fixation. By doing so, they do not realize they are teaching the horse to be defensive, resistant, and avoidant.
📸 credit Unknown

07/07/2024

I didn’t get to catch this before the clinic as I was running like a chicken with its head cut off, but…

This video from Mark gives everyone a little taste of what we have to offer here at Tough Diamond Ranch, the new home of Serendipity Dressage.

Keep an eye out for upcoming events here, there’s lots of excitement being planned! ❤️🙏🏻

07/04/2024

Happy 4th of July, everybody!
🙏🏻❤️🇺🇸🌊🐠

07/02/2024

What an opportunity it was to host Mark!

Australian horse trainer Mark Langley was in Okeechobee County June 28-30 as part of his USA Horsemanship Tour.

06/26/2024

Just a little preview of what we can look forward to this weekend - come audit and get your own amazing take aways from Mark Langley Horsemanship Clinic

Key Takeaways from the Mark Langley Horsemanship clinic at Fable Farm this weekend.

“Lessons in Importance”

- The flag is scary but the rope is more important. If you follow it you are safe, it provides clarity.
- When we enforce our personal bubble boundary it is not about sending them out of our space but teaching them about proprioception - where are they and we in space and relation to each other.
- Move horses slideways not sideways. Needs to be without brace and balanced. Suppleness.
- Don’t hold the rein still to make it move its feet (yield hind quarters while blocking the front is never good because incorrect loading of inside leg). Overused maneuver.
- Teach them that when the rope is still they are still. It creates the island.
- They need to be educated on how to manage sensory input - because inevitably something is going to scare them and they need to know what to do.
- Destination training and targeting is bad training for horses - can’t find safety in themselves if they always think they need to be somewhere or with someone (the horse that creeps into your space or always wants to be close to you). You aren’t going to be with them in the trailer.
- Don’t allow rewards to reinforce anxiety (if they’re stressed out then leaning on you is a reward but they haven’t learned to self regulate). Don’t release just because they are scared and getting big, keep asking.
- Can’t have connection without education. Connection doesn’t make them safe if they don’t know what to do when they are scared.
- Need self regulation before interdependence. Education first, then connection.
- Flag technique: sweep the leaves and then walk where you’ve swept. Casual random moving of the horse. Slow backing to get them listening carefully to you.
- Hind quarter yield is avoidance behavior - so don’t teach it! It encourages worry and brace. It’s what they do when scared and don’t want to address the worry / go toward something. Don’t teach them to load the hind and spin away.
- To have collection the horse has to have more impulsion than you (you can’t push with so much energy because their impulsion will always be less than you if you’re driving).
- I want my horse to be collected not me be collected - horse needs to have more energy than me and I need to be able to sit there and ride it.
- Horse has to idle above you - so we can’t stay high energy all the time in order to bring the energy up. Keep our energy level and let the horse increase and decrease.
- Don’t push them down the pecking order. Don’t bring your boundary to the horse. The fair leader doesn’t bully and take its boundaries to other horses. Fair lead horses are friendly and fair and have clear boundaries that they reinforce.
- If you don’t know the answer to the question you’re asking, the horse will never know. You need to know where and what you want your horse to do as confidently as you know that 1+1=2.
- The noisier the trainer the duller the horse, they learn to tune out.
- If you don’t wake her up you have to chase her. They can’t be somewhere else, tuned out, or “taking pictures” outside the arena. You and what you’re asking needs to be important (not ignored).
- Trailer is a flag on wheels - unpredictable, noisy, scary. If they haven’t learned to deal with scary things and confinement/boundaries, it is not fair to trailer them and a wreck might happen during the ride.
- Don’t have a horse lean and sniff. Need to sniff on a loose line, otherwise the legs stretch and they are imbalanced.
- You will put them in a scary thing or situation at some (or many points) in their riding career, and if they don’t know how to manage themselves while scared you will get a flight response that can be dangerous.
- Have to work on education not just connection (casual curiosity is NOT what teaches a horse to get out of fear). Its like saying “be brave” without telling them what to do when they are scared. Our job is to teach them how to do their job and make decisions under pressure because they will always have pressure.
- Teach about pressure using enforcement of boundaries and how they can deal with it.
- Push the horse into pressure rather than away or their response to pressure will always be to run away from pressure.
- If you load a horse onto a trailer with a flag you have to unload with a flag. Prefer no flag for this.
- If you can’t interrupt a soft thought it’s going to be harder to interrupt a hard thought. Many little interruptions in good and bad moments teaches them how to redirect their thoughts. Becomes a habit that is not associated with fear or bad moments.
- Don’t push a horse like a wheelbarrow.
- Let them lead out sometimes (enables them to go onto trailer) and react to inside rein. Lead them past you. Trot them up.
- You can’t put good literature into bad literature. Have to go back to the beginning and rewrite the first chapter. Adding good training onto bad is like one author writing the first two chapters and then the next writing something that doesn’t track with the beginning of the story. Disconnect.
- Relationship doesn’t fix horses - it’s important and one piece of the puzzle - but doesn’t fix bad education. Good education fixes bad education.
- When you see where horses look for pressure you know how they’ve been trained. Do they expect to be chased? Where have they learned to brace?
- The rope is a direction not a trap. Boundaries are for direction and not an offensive movement into their space.
- Springy boundary for foal, sideways leading in stall and use mom to keep off the milk and help move him.
- With young horses and foals, teach them to bounce off their own pressure. You don’t create the pressure.
- Teach horses to search for softness and responsiveness not escape.
- Don’t over handle or desensitize young horses too much. They learn to shut down and brace and it stays with them over their lives.
- Don’t take anxious horse into an environment you can’t control - until you have educated them about how to deal with fear in an environment you CAN control. If you take them before they re ready it will 100% push them past their fear threshold and accomplish nothing but giving them a negative experience. Don’t take a horse to a show unless it can calmly manage pressure and fear because there will always be something that scares them at the show.
- Using a flag (or anything else) to spook/break a horse out of a brace is you controlling environment. You stop when the horse needs it.
- Worst thing you can do to your horse is put them in an environment that over faces them you can’t help them in - too many stimulants and not enough support.
- Use graded exposure - create scenarios that are slightly over their comfort zone and then let them find clarity - make horses uncomfortable in increasingly difficult moments so they know how to find comfort later in stressful environments.
- Horses go up and down in energy and anxiety all the time. We cannot and should not try to keep their energy at the same level. If we did it leads to micromanagement and doesn’t teach them how to behave / self regulate when they aren’t being micromanaged.
- Law of opposites - back up if they won’t go forward then they will want to go forward - same with yields with hand on neck and ridden turns in the arena. Put pressure on and then let them find their own balance.
- Can’t break the Berlin Wall “freeze” with a toothpick. You need to get big to break up a big, habitual freeze response. Can’t stop until it releases even if it takes longer than you think it should.
- Using lots of your own energy keeps a brace in there (we fill the gap rather than them).
- If they are going through motions of obedience but not there mentally make your interruption bigger.
- Island hopping - training is the hop, space to process is the island. Make sure you give them enough islands to learn.
- In seeking perfection we don’t offer safety (they need to learn even if it isn’t perfect the first time).
- Horses don’t know answers to our questions because we don’t have the answer in our own minds. Don’t ask without knowing. If you don’t know you can’t tell them they’ve done the right thing and there is no clarity and they stop trying.
- Brush the hip without moving your own feet. Horses should move around us, not us moving around them. Mounting block.
- Flag shakes them out of freeze but doesn’t move them anywhere in particular. Don’t chase the horses. Doesn’t have to be a flag (can be lead rope slapped on leg).
- Lift the front end at the bit and then pour them out a little to the side to create slide.
- Too many people cut off the thought of straight line too fast. We do too many circles. Let them follow the feel of the rope to the outside of the large circle and find their own balance.
- Claustrophobia training for horses is creating pressure or boundaries and teaching them how to behave when they are stuck. Not with brace and panic.
- Horse won’t process the danger of something while running away from it. Need to face what scares them even if it’s from very far away.
- Lots of little reminders are bad for a horse. More space and bigger corrections. Otherwise they tune it out or become reliant on us to know what the expected behavior is.
- For a dull horse, wake him up and then leave him to think while awake. And repeat.
- Big energy from you doesn’t mean run away. A horse needs to know this early on. Don’t chase.
- Getting big means listen not sending them away/chasing. It’s asking for attention and for them to acknowledge your importance.