Breezing Hill Farm

10/29/2024

A great visual for what happens when we don't follow with the hands particularly in walk.

10/22/2024

This was an amazing clinic.

This weekend, I attended another horsemanship clinic by Nashon Cook, which was only 15 minutes from our house organized by Ali Perkins Dressage. It was such a treat and an inspiring experience, especially since I missed out on going to the HERD camp last month where he was the keynote speaker. I feel fortunate to have had the chance to witness Nashon’s teaching style and expertise again.

His approach is a beautiful blend of deep intuitive care and wisdom, showing both horses and their humans how to set and hold boundaries, listen deeply, and trust one another. Among many insights, watching him guide an 8-year-old girl to connect with her pony through her mind and body, and empowering a grown woman to trust herself and her horse, was truly inspiring.

What stood out most was Nashon’s ability to model assertiveness with love, the importance of being yourself and being heard—both by ourselves and those around us. His words, "See the fear, love it, and tell it to f*** off," were a great reminder of how we can face fear with love and strength.

It got me reflecting on the impact of what we are holding on to inside can have on our sense of agency, competence, and self-worth—how we sometimes feel like we’re at constant risk of failure, even when doing things we know we can do. In learning new things, it can feel like an impossible uphill battle, as if the body ‘knows’ we can’t possibly succeed. But Nashon reminded me that it’s okay to embrace the process, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it feels. He said to put what you carry into the corner, don't be the bag lady like in Erykah Badu's song. He also said that each of us bring a lifetime of experiences to each moment.
For me, that means acknowledging what’s showing up in the moment in my body, and taking a deep breath, remembering I’m supported.
It’s okay that what I’m doing feels awkward and uncomfortable at times but It’s okay to move at my pace (even if I think I should be faster).
I forgive myself for not being able to do more, faster, or better and I remember that I am a blessing, and it’s awesome to be me.

I’m thankful for Nashon’s insights and love for horses, which have left me with so much to take into my personal practice and beyond.

Thank you, Nashon, for sharing your heart. The world is a better place because of it.

10/18/2024

I remember watching Walt compete when we lived in Massachusetts. An inspiration!

Inspirational words from Walt Gervais, who rode in his first long format 3-day event at 75, and was still weight lifting into his late 80s.

One time I wasn’t going to ride because it was raining, or something. Walt said something that we all need to hear sometimes---I don’t know why it’s not on more T-shirts and coffee mugs---

“Don’t be such a f@ # #$% weeny.”

10/05/2024

Focus -

Many of us are happy to complain about our horse’s lack of focus. We want the horses full attention, but we often really have no idea just how scattered our own attention is!

We notice AFTER the horse does the wrong thing, but fail to have a clear picture in our minds of what we even wanted in the first place. Many riders chase down every little thing the horse does that we don’t like, but haven’t developed the personal discipline to know what we want and ride that in our bodies.

I often compare guiding the horse to singing next to someone who is off key. You have to essentially stick your fingers in your ears sometimes and sing the song as you know it goes, instead of following every mistake the off key singer does. We follow the off key singer’s tune into its highs and lows, and then try to pull the singer back to a tune we’ve gotten too far away from to recover - but the reality is, the horse can never know the tune if we can’t sing it ourselves.

Many of us getting lessons are unknowingly hooked on a steady diet of distractions - a stirrup problem, another horse too close, too hot, too cold, need a break, my horse is too close to the gate, and so on - and so progress , or even lining out a solid beginning is difficult or impossible because we cannot focus on the task or what we want for the duration of a session.

It’s pretty amazing to experience the distractions melt away, and the problems melt away, when we really focus on the ride - the horse no longer pulls to the gate, looks for his friends, veers in the corners and so on, because we are mentally present, and physically clear. Suddenly every little thing is no longer a problem because we are truly guiding.

It’s an incredible feeling to be in the “zone” with a horse and find them more than happy to be there with us.

So focus is truly a human issue, and rarely a horse’s. Horses like to be guided with peaceful clarity - but we have few experiences in our lives developing that, and so guiding with peaceful clarity is a weak muscle -

Just like any muscle, it becomes strengthened through repetition.

Set up your tack, clothes and environment, and then focus on the work.

Photo by Jade Premont

09/13/2024

International dressage competitor and trainer Felicitas von Neumann-Cosel explains this important piece of the training puzzle.

09/05/2024

09/02/2024

Lockie is so insightful

"I am fine!"

"No, you're not."

"No... I am fine."

"I can feel that differently."

"Don't feel me."

"Why. You are literally on my body and next to me. I am always feeling you."

"Because I am holding back the flood of feelings that I have no idea what to do with. If I felt them, I might fall apart"

"Ok. I won't feel you then."

"Excuse me... can you pay attention to me? I am asking you a question nicely. Can you respond to me nicely please?"

"But we just made an agreement. That I disconnect to how you feel, just like you disconnect to how you feel."

"Yes but, don't connect to my feelings. Connect to my actions and commands."

"They are one and the same. That is impossible unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless I detach myself from you. Emotional death."

"Great. I'll have one emotional death please. None of those nasty inconvenient feelings. Let us just do actions please."

"Ok. But I am here, waiting for you."

"What are you waiting for?"

"For you to feel. So that we can communicate with feel."

08/29/2024

Hank is checking out the new footing. The sand they brought in is awesome! Supportive while still soft. Seems like it will drain well and not get water logged. Just in time for cooler weather! The horses will he happy for easier rides. They were starting to complain about riding in the field on terrain every day. Tired ponies....

08/27/2024

All packed and ready for sand. A one day delay on getting sand as we had to unexpectedly change quarries to get what we wanted. So sand arrives Thursday. Hoping to ride in it friday!

08/23/2024

More progress! Yesterday was regrading the base. Today was repacking the base, laying down geotextile fabric and bringing in screenings to add more base. And we put drains in each corner

08/21/2024

The first step of refurbishing the arena is finished! Removed all the sand down to the base. Step two is tomorrow- reshoot the grade to eliminate low spots that have crept in over the past 24 years.

07/16/2024

A HORSE HAS THREE TYPES OF ‘TRY’

Previously I have said that the easiest horses to train are the ones with ‘try’. By the word ‘try’ I mean they possess a readiness to search for ways to escape or evade pressure. So when we ask something of a horse by applying a little pressure the horse feels it is important enough and they are motivated enough to search through all the available options of responses to eliminate the discomfort that pressure has created. That’s what I mean by the term try and that’s what makes those horses more trainable.

I think there are 3 categories of try in the horse world and within those, there are sub-levels, which I will try to explain as I go along.

There are horses with a lot of natural try.

These are often pretty sensitive horses and the thing they are sensitive to is pressure. It usually doesn’t take a lot of asking for them to try something. One of the issues that people have with this type of horse is often an overreaction to pressure or anticipation ahead of the pressure. This is where the term “hot horse” comes from. Often their response to being asked something is disproportional to the amount of pressure used because of their worry about pressure. That’s the downside.

However, the upside is it usually doesn’t require a lot of pressure for them to search for a new idea and a way of responding to our requests. They try one answer and if that doesn’t result in peace and tranquility in their life, they try another. Then another and another, until they find comfort.

Horses like this are quick learners if handled correctly. Nevertheless, if our timing and feel are poor then we confuse them and stress them even more than before. They can quickly turn from sensitive to crazy and pass from person to person until either finding the right owner or going for slaughter. Unfortunately, this is too often the fate of retired racehorses and other victims of human error.

Sensitive horses have the potential to be the best horses, but they are not suited for inexperienced people for the reasons I have already stated. Where it goes wrong is people’s inability to recognize a try in a horse and either miss it altogether or they are inconsistent with their releases and confuse the poor beast until they have a meltdown. A lack of clarity is a huge stress in a horse’s life and sensitive horses with a lot of try suffer the most for this human failing. But given an owner with empathy, patience, and a good feel and timing, they can be amazing.

The second category is with horses that have very little try in them.

These horses are not inspired to search very hard for answers to questions that pressure presents to them. I believe two types of horses exhibit this behaviour.

The first is the stoic horse. These are horses that came out of their mother with not a lot of “care factor.” They absorb pressure and trouble and store it up inside until their cup of worry is ready to overflow, then they erupt – and erupt big. But in the lead-up to the eruption, they appear to be calm and quiet and not care. A rider can add layer upon layer of pressure and they shrug their shoulders as if to ask if we were talking to them.

A lot of people who have had bad experiences with sensitive horses eventually become attracted to the stoic horse. They feel safer because these horses don’t have a hair trigger when we get our feel or timing wrong or we present too much pressure. These make the perfect kids' pony or babysitter for a novice rider.

The downside is that every time we want to teach them something new or change their thoughts or established patterns, it’s a lot of work.

The second type of horse that often shows very little try is the shutdown horse.

These horses often start as sensitive with a lot of try but become shut down with very little try because of poor training. Through insensitive training, they have learned the futility of having or expressing an opinion. Unlike the horse born with a small care factor, these horses have a lot of care factors, but it is drilled out of them until they mentally disengage from us and what we ask of them.

The most common way I have seen of killing a try in these horses is through drilling the work over and over and by flooding it with pressure. Flooding is where pressure is presented to a horse and not removed until the horse submits. An example might be to throw a rope over a horse’s back and keep throwing it until he stands quietly before you stop throwing the rope. A horse can learn to eliminate the pressure of the rope by not moving, yet the rope may still worry him. He is learning the futility of resistance and the futility of searching. It builds a mental and emotional wall around itself to keep people out. It is really difficult to have a good relationship with a shutdown horse because it will not fully mentally engage with humans.

There are other ways of turning a sensitive horse into a shutdown horse (such as continued poor feel and timing, impatience, use of ever-increasing driving pressure, etc), but the important point is that while these horses may appear just like those with a small care factor, they actually have a large care factor and can be very sensitive. It is the combination of their sensitivity and our poor training techniques that cause a horse to shut down. This potentially makes them very dangerous when they erupt.

The final category of a horse’s try or ability to search through its options is the one where their established behaviour or set of responses to pressure are tightly linked to their perception of life and death. This is beyond being sensitive because instead of searching through the options to safety and comfort, as a sensitive horse is prone to doing, these horses will repeat the same responses and behaviours over and over in fear that a change will get them killed. They are so convinced that what they do is the reason they have lived so far, that all other options are off the table. Unlike the horse the stoic horse or the horse born with a low care factor, these horses choose to not try through their certainty of what it takes to survive. It is their survival instinct that suppresses their trainability.

This category of horse is hard to work with and in my experience is best handled with incredible patience and by going back to the absolute basics. Nothing is overlooked. Each micron of change is covered step-by-step and consolidated before going further. It is important that these horses feel confident that each little change is the best path to safety and comfort. If you leave a step only half done and only half certain that it was the right step, the horse will revert and fall apart at some point.

I have sometimes said that the thing we most like about a horse is also the thing we most dislike. A sensitive horse with a lot of tries can be taught to work off a thought, which is fantastic. But equally, they can have a hair trigger to a meltdown and that can be a problem. On the other hand, a stoic horse with very little try can be solid and can absorb a lot of trouble before overreacting, which makes some people feel safe. However, good luck trying to get them to be soft and responsive in the way a sensitive horse can be.

Of course, most horses are a mix of categories and don’t fall strictly into one or the other. In an ideal world, I’d be looking for a horse that had a lot of try and a little bit of stoicism. But until then I’m happy to take responsibility for the amount of try my training puts into any of my horses.

Photo: An example of two individuals, each ‘trying’.

05/29/2024

Well said

02/23/2024

Cooper is available for on site partial lease in Oxford. Straightforward walk/trot/canter and jumping cross-rails and low verticals. Best for a pleasure or hunter/jumper type rider. Not for beginners. Intermediate level rider is best. Weekly lesson required.

09/26/2023

Super cute all-around type. 9 yo, 15.2 paint/thoroughbred cross. Monte is a sensitive soul who is working to gain confidence and learning bend and balance. He is looking for a long term partner who can be a strong but quiet leader he can trust to continue his development. Monte enjoys working over trot poles, trotting through weave poles, riding patterns, etc. He likes working out obstacle type puzzles. Mid-4s but the right match is crucial for this guy. In Oxford.

07/24/2023

Gracie. 16 yo 16' ottb mare available for care lease. Best suited for flat work only. Currently in Oxford.

07/23/2023

Gracie is available for lease. 16 yo, 16' hand ottb mare. Best for flat work only home. Has basic dressage training. If you have a dressage background with an educated seat and can coordinate seat, leg, rein aids, she could be a super fun mare to play with. Prefers to live out. Good ground manners. Good for vet, farrier
Currently in Oxford. PM for full video and more info. More short clips in comments ad Facebook doesn't seem to want me to post more than one.

07/22/2023

Love this guy's work! And I am happy that my farrier keeps up with these innovations. We are using the 3D pads on a few horses at our barn

We didn’t just wake up one day & decide open heel metal shoes were creating problems with horses feet!

About 12yrs ago I decided to buy Metron software to start evaluating the feet of my clients horses. This started me in a direction that I had no idea I would be heading in, nor where it would end up. We had no agenda, we had no goal, other than to try and improve as a farrier for the benefit of my clients horses.

On purchasing Metron (hoof measuring software) I was looking forward to measuring the feet of my clients horses to see if I could make some small tweaks to improve them. Boy was I in for a shock!

After a month I thought, based upon the objective data I was gathering, that I was the worst farrier in the world!

I could not believe the difference in how the foot looked to me standing above it & when I put the feet on blocks & took actual photos.

What looked quite acceptable from 6’ above the ground was not at all acceptable from on the ground.

The more of my horses feet I evaluated, the more I was disappointed in the look & proportions of the feet.

Everything, & I mean everything, was too low in the heels, had broken back alignment & what seemed like too long of a toe.

Many years ago I had a fair bit to do with the Cytek shoe, but quickly found this shoe caused more problems than benefits. But it did correct the long toe, sort of.

So now I went in the NB direction & read everything & anything on NB, which was very similar to much of the Cytek info.

I started trimming heels back & setting shoes back etc. Often the owners would say their horse is improving somewhat but we got very little, if any, improvement in the feet.

Infact, we often got quite a bit of distortion in the toe quarters & a few other issues as well. I was setting the shoes according to NB guidelines, but I now believe these guidelines & the shoe design was what was creating the problems.

I had started to look much harder at other owners horses feet & other farriers work & I found that no matter the farrier, the feet were all very similar. The heels were very under run, the hoof angles were low & the walls were rasped away (the same as my horses)

I asked so many people if i could take photos of their horses feet for my own benefit, to try to learn what I could do from supposedly better farriers. But on measuring these feet, they were just like my horses, and in many cases worse.

I even started asking a few farriers about what I was seeing, incl discussing it on forums online. Nobody seemed too concerned about it & the most common comment was ‘keep ur heels short, as a long heel is a weak heel!’

I started to ask some of the vets to X-ray my clients feet for me, with me paying for plenty of them, just to get more information. Sadly, a number of vets wouldn’t do it as they felt farriery wasn’t a reason to X-ray. The few that did the X-rays sent me the worst X-rays ever incl one set where the feet were held in the air whilst the X-rays were taken.

The reason being, vets as a whole did not take podiatry X-rays, they xrayed for pathology. This meant their blocks were not suited to obtaining good podiatry X-rays.
Thankfully things have changed & most vets take great podiatry X-rays these days & understand the value of them.

Also, the cost was huge & not many could afford it, the reason I paid for so many.

This prompted me to get my own X-ray license for taking podiatry X-rays only. I put my own conditions on my license, which is that I can only X-ray feet (I did this to seperate me from vets) & as per the regulations I am not allowed to diagnose pathology.

My business model at the time was to only work with farriers ie if a client contacted us we would ask them to get their farrier to contact us & we will organise the rads at a time that suits.

After 7mths we had over 30 horse owners contact us, but not 1 farrier follow up. We had a lot of calls saying they’ve asked their farriers to call, but the farriers had no interest.

So we decided to change tact & do X-rays for horse owners. This was met with immediate interest & the business started to take off as there were so many owners with horses that had problems with their feet. We were in demand & the business started to develop quickly.

Sadly, although we only took X-rays & marked up the X-rays, never judging the feet nor giving any direction about what should be done, we copped a huge amount of abuse from so many farriers.

We were a little shocked at this, as in our minds we were giving the farriers all the information they needed to do the best job possible, which is what we thought all farriers would want!

So we had to endure quite a lot of hatred by many vets & farriers, but our direction remained true as the horses welfare supersedes it all.

So now we were getting objective data from both photos & xrays & it made us realise that other than protection, traditional farriery & open heel shoes were just not working for most horses & their feet!

We had photos & X-rays from everything from national level horses down to low level pony club horses & from all environments & disciplines. All of the data showed a single ‘very obvious factor’, which was that caudal foot was failing ie the heels had run forward, the toe looked long, PA was low & boney column alignment was very broken back.

It was around this time I started taking an interest in barefoot trimming & urethane shoes. The results I had seen were much more positive than metal farriery. But my concern with barefoot was the pain & suffering so many horses were going through in their ‘transition’ stage. I personally, was just not willing to do this.

I was also quite put off by Dr Strassers methods, which again did not sit well with me due to the low angles & poor alignment. She also could not/ would not answer a number of questions I asked of her.

But I was starting to see some good results with urethane shoes, which was promising.

We actually became quite sort as a farrier after as we could do the analysis (X-rays) & we were willing to use a number of different approaches, other than steel, which was quite rare back then.

The concerns I had with the urethane shoes were around weight, nail holes & shapability. They fit ok shaped feet, but often we weren’t shoeing ok footed horses & this created problems.

And what did all this mean? Why was I now so confused? Why was the farrier industry opposed to so much when their open heel shoes seemed to create so many problems? Why was it that on my travels I was seeing the best farriers in the world shoeing horses with the very same problems I saw in pretty much every hoof, yet there’s no attempt to correct it or even discuss it as a problem? If traditional farriery was so good, why could we not prevent these problems?

My head needed straightening out so I sought out one of the best around, Sylvia Nemeth-Kornherr from EPC Solutions, to try & sought out a few of these things.

This was one of the best things I’ve done and Sylvia was so great with her time. I think we were meant to have a single 2hr Skype call each week for 12 weeks, but we ended up having 2 sessions each week that sometimes went 4hrs. I am very grateful to Sylvia & still call her one of my very good friends.

I was doing so many more X-rays & so many more requests for corrective shoeing at this stage, with people even travelling from interstate, which seemed crazy.

My thoughts now were largely divided between the differences between open heel metal shoes, designed for protection only, barefoot that was the most natural & altered the loading to the hoof in comparison & the urethane shoes I used that had more similar loading characteristics to the barefoot horse.

This prompted me to start looking at the back of the foot & was when I started to see the soft tissue displacement & prolapse of the frog. This was something I had never really noticed before, nor had I ever read anything about it. Obviously we knew about contraction, but this was totally different & sent me further into the direction I was heading.

This had me starting to weld ‘frog plates’ into my metal shoes for the first time ever, to better support the back of the foot, with almost instant results. I was also thankful for my time with barefoot trimmers & my use of products like Artimud & DIM.

I remember taking photos of the first cple of horses I tried them on only 12 weeks apart & seeing a more similar positive result with the urethane shoes, which also had caudal support.

This is how my focus on caudal support in shoes began, which was due to the positive results on those first few horses.

For the first time I was seeing & documenting the hoof going in a more positive direction.

From there I have tried a myriad of ideas & continued to increase my knowledge & data base of information (we have now take podiatry X-rays & assessed more than 2000 horses)

I have since constantly evaluated my work & results objectively using X-rays, photos & Metron mark ups. This has allowed me to refine my work & know what works best for most horses, the reason for our consistently good results.

The things we work on most, with very few exceptions, based off all of the data & experience gathered over the last 12yrs is;

- Caudal support is so important due to the load sharing & stimulation across the back of the foot.

- The collateal grooves are important to supporting the coffin bone so make sure to use DIM & a support package that includes these structures ie bar shoes & even heart bar shoes are less effective.

- Although I got excellent results using metal frog plates, especially in the hind feet, a flexible caudal support package seems to work best ie 3D pads or similar

- Creating comfort for the horse is most important for so many reasons, but especially improving boney column alignment & postural adaptations.

- Maintaining strength in the hoof capsule. I too have been guilty of rasping the hoof over the years, but these days I rarely rasp the hoof capsule at all. Maximising strength in the walls & toe are imperative to obtaining & maintaining good strong feet.

- The trim is what most people get wrong, so work on better understanding the foot & getting the most out of your trim

- The toe has been blamed for most things in farriery, but it’s the back of the foot that is the cause of most problems. Traditional farriery & open heel shoes do not maintain health & integrity in the back of the foot due to less than ideal loading. This has created a number of poor trimming ideals, which were mostly developed to try to prevent the caudal foot from failing.

So if we seem to get a little short at those who say, ‘I know ur wrong as I’ve been shoeing 20yrs’ or ‘ur wrong because I once saw this exact opposite thing happen’ or u want to tell us we are wrong, but u don’t take photos &/or have nothing to support your comments, this is why.

We have spent so much $$ & countless hours over the past 12yrs objectively evaluating not only our own horses, but 2000+ more horses in & around our area.

When u think there are a lot of peer reviewed studies completed on 10 horses, it shows that our data base is pretty extensive & comprehensive.

We still don’t have all of the answers, but we are definitely a long, long way ahead of where we were 12yrs ago & our horses & clients are reaping the benefits.

07/08/2023

When it's 90 degrees out but you want to ride your new lesson horse....

07/07/2023

Gracie (one of my new lesson horses) being a good girl and ignoring the guinea flying up behind her!

06/12/2023

Dressage saddle needs a new home. 17.5 inch seat. Medium tree. Totally reflocked a couple of years ago and has not been used a lot since as I retired the horse I was using it on. It works great for high withered horses. It's a super comfortable saddle and puts the rider in a well balanced position. It even has adjustable stirrup bars. Leather is a little worn but is in very good condition. Brand is Equine Inspired. $2,000 obo.

05/07/2023

Quimby had a successful show at Cool Breeze Farm today. This was our third show and he was the most relaxed he has been. I even braved a couple of flat classes. He coped really well with horses cantering up behind him. He did get irritated when one particularly frisky horse was cantering sideways and bucking close to us but he held it together. Broke the canter for a few strides, but recovered. Jumps classes went well but he would be better with a warm up round. He was busy looking outside the ring during his first round! But happy that he gets quieter and more rideable each time we go out.

04/24/2023

Quimby has found his forward, adjustable canter! Now I can raise the jumps! Hoping this carries over to the dressage ring. It's a big canter to fit in that space!

04/20/2023

Cutie pies

04/18/2023

And Abby's canter is improving by leaps and bounds!