Breezing Hill Farm

11/03/2025

Very thoughtful article

Forced Exercise is Inflammatory and Damaging.

It does not matter the exercise. It does not matter the movement. Be it a good solid 20 minutes of long trotting, a walk on a 20 meter circle, a Piaffer, or your very best Renvers. All physical exercises become inflammatory to the body when a horse is forced to do it.

Who decides, who knows if they are forced or not? I do not.

The horses do.

This is not my opinion, I share my colloquial understanding of long held facts about exercise physiology.

We all know the benefits of exercise. All studies point to regular, strenuous, effortful exercise as being key markers in longevity, health and wellness outcomes. When we regularly load and stress our bodies, raise our body temperature, and put effort into hard physical skills, especially when we feel uncomfortable doing them... there is a cascade of benefits created by the body. The body rewards you for stressing it.

With dopamine (key to activation), endorphins (euphoria, pain suppressant), endocannabinoids (calm, euphoria), serotonin (mood elevator, anti-anxiety), norepinephrine (energized, clead-headedness), brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF (Brain growth and memory improvement), epenephrine/adrenaline (short term power, sharpening focus). Plus a range of anti-inflammatory processes clear the body of toxins, lymph fluid, strengthens bone, muscle, tendon... we benefit this way and so do horses, when we regularly put our bodies under stress in exercise.

I call this the "Body Rewarding Itself". Horses that have broken their own resistance ceiling will have a good relationship to the reward that comes afterwards, and this looks and feels like a horse with a work ethic.

The problem is- consent is key.

The same mechanical exercise or movement, when done through fear, duress or force in such a manner where the brain does not opt-in but does it because they have no other choice... all of those rewards are replaced instead with their dark cousins. Inflammation is now your norm rather that anti-inflammatory processes. Fatigue and fogginess is now your friend rather than focus. Metabolic dysfunction instead of regulation. The list goes on.

Equine vets are currently experiencing a crisis in the health of horses who have worked hard all their lives. Almost unexplainable metabolic and autoimmune diseases are plaguing these horses necessitating chronic medication use and early death.

I believe forced exercise, done in the name of the horses own good, to be one of the contributing factors to this.

Which is why the whole notion of light-force and diet-dominance is still so silly in my mind. Because if you are interested in your training having long term health benefits for your horse, mandating that you have earned your horses voluntary buy in to the exercise should be priority number 1. Not a luxurious or inane afterthought of hobbiests or people whose "kindness kills".

I will say it again.

Involuntary, forced exercise or movement is inflammatory and damaging to a horses health.

The same movement done voluntarily is anti-inflammatory and beneficial to a horses health.

Same rule applies to you.

Which is why the rhetoric of even quiet force is so dangerous. It is giving people permission to continue extracting movement out of a horse that slowly breaks down their health rather than build them up.

10/27/2025

Thank goodness I stopped Abby before Scotty beamed her up! 🤣

09/18/2025

Love this before and after of Abby!

Shoutout to our online student Vanessa, who has been showing up for the Strength, Agility, Balance & Mobility through Play work week in and week out, relentlessly, and whose awesome partner in crime is unrecognizable 😍😍

We LOVE teaching you and Abby so much!
Look at this transformation!!! 😍😍

All achieved at liberty through play & mindfulness!

No pressure-and-release, no micro-management, no reverse psychology 💘

08/22/2025

Abby is starting to develop a "dressage" canter, which is impressive given that she only found a freely forward "huntery" canter a couple of weeks ago. Just a few strides and just starting to develop when I rewarded her effort but a really good try from her! Giorgia Ghizzoni

08/20/2025

Abby is developing a really nice canter. A huge milestone for a horse who has struggled with canter for years. A lot of liberty work using balls, barrels and exercise mats to encourage movement has opened up her body and reminded her of how she can move. The Hatha Equus approach has worked wonders for Abby.

07/27/2025

I've definitely felt this

Real suppleness starts with the acceptance of guidance and the rider's aids. Not obedience... acceptance. Without real acceptance, obedience will come with a mental brace, even if only slight - and this inhibits the body's ability to TRULY be loose and supple. You can't out-muscle an emotion, not matter how "obedient" you think you can get the horse. Suppleness is an inside job, because it starts with acceptance.

07/25/2025

One of the biggest lies I think we're sold as young horsepeople (or old horsepeople, depending on when you join the party) is "that's just the way he is".

There's a training horse boarded quite near our farm that I've gone out to work with almost daily for the last two months or so. Recently I went out to work with her and happened to be riding at the same time as a young boarder. She had her horse on the lunge and was starting to saddle up as I was finishing my ride.

I couldn't help but notice her struggle. The mare circled and fussed and couldn't manage to stand still while she tried to saddle her. Over the course of more than fifteen minutes she struggled to get the horse tacked up, repeating "ho, whoa, ho girl" over and over as the horse wound around her. By the time I'd dismounted, untacked, hosed my horse off and returned her to her paddock, she still wasn't finished.

As I walked out to my truck, I paused at the gate and watched for a moment, debating as to whether to offer some assistance. I finally asked her if she would like some help.

"Oh, this is just the way she is" was her reply.

There was so much conviction behind those words. In her mind, she was simply stating fact. There were no alternatives. This was the way of the world and nothing was going to change that. Nothing COULD change that. It just...was.

There was a time when I also believed this was true - when I was told my lesson horse for the day or my personal horse was just quirky. That thing they did? That was just habit, just something they'd always done. Very often, the next words uttered were instructing me to either ignore it or somehow push the horse through it. Those things became part of the fabric of my understanding of that horse, the same way I knew that they were bay or a mare or a gelding or had front shoes. It just WAS, and there was no reason to question it.

Now, I question a LOT of things.

One of the brilliant things about horses is their ability to adapt. Indeed, this ability is much of what makes a horse a horse and not some other creature. Horses are constantly learning, figuring and molding to their caretakers, their routines, their environments and their handling. It is - to a large degree - why their domestication has been so successful. It is the reason why one person can have great success with a horse and another can barely lead it.

And yet, the idea that something a horse does "is just how they are" is still such a pervasive idea.

At this point I believe there is always a reason. Our empathy dictates whether or not we consider that there is a reason. Our curiosity determines whether or not we decide to go in search of that reason. Our ability factors in to our success in finding that reason. Our determination is linked to how far we go to figure out that reason.

But no matter how you slice it, there's always a reason.

07/17/2025

Equitation Science International embodies the philosophy that horses are blameless participants in training, and that it is the responsibility of humans to provide clear, consistent, and informed guidance.

We strive to modernise horse training with the latest scientific data on the natural behaviour of horses, their learning processes, human and equine biomechanics, handler and rider effects, and attachment.

When horse training is aligned with these elements, it becomes optimally successful and safe, thus greatly improving horse welfare in the equestrian sport.

06/10/2025

The newest additions to the farm!

06/08/2025

Abby, starting to look like a dressage horse.