Warwick Schiller's Attuned Horsemanship

09/08/2025

For anyone near Waterford, Virginia, they're having a book club discussion about The Principles of Training!

Interested in exploring how to communicate with your horse in a ways they understand and to develop your horsemanship?

Join us as we will be diving into The Principles of Training by Warwick Schiller on September 15th.

To sign-up please do the following:

- Email [email protected] or message POM Equestrian Digest
- Venmo the $45 membership fee. This covers the book and supplies for the meetings
- Join us at 6:30pm at Peace Of Mind Dressage on September 15th for a great discussion and engagement as we learn from one of the top trainers about true horsemanship

We will meet every other week at the same time on Monday nights. The group is also a partner of the Ground Handling Class hosted by Peace Of Mind Equestrian Academy. These classes are held every Sunday at 11:00 am. Check out the Equestrian Academy page to sign-up.

Please reach out with any questions or to sign-up!ans

09/07/2025

My wife Robyn and I are just back from Iceland where we spent an amazing 6 days on a Globetrotting - Horse Riding Holidays ride.

I fell in love with the Icelandic horses, not only for their smooth gaits, but they are such friendly little guys, and the scenery was beautiful.

09/05/2025

"WHY I TEACH HORSES TO TRAIL RIDE ALONE FIRST"- and other tips to prevent problems later on.

I'm a big fan of teaching horses to be trail ridden alone first, before they are trail ridden with other horses. Some people trail ride with another horse first to "give them a good experience" but I personally feel if your horse can't trail ride alone, he's not ready to be trail ridden.

This all starts with my basics in the arena, and those basics include being able to walk, trot, and canter, on a completely loose rein, with no steering, and have them use the whole arena.

If you ask a horse to go in the arena and allow them to go wherever they want, they will tell you what they are attracted to, and this is usually the closest horse to the arena. Until this attraction is no longer there ( and resolving that is one of the keystone parts of my ridden work with horses) trying to trail ride alone is going to be problematic. So in reality I solve the trail riding problem, before I even go out on the trail.

Some people might say " It's ok, I always ride with a friend", and that's fine, UNLESS your friend has to suddenly leave for some reason (and over the years I've heard plenty of stories about people having problems when their friend had to leave for one reason or another).

In 800BD a Greek philosopher named Archilochus said "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation".

Knowing what occasions will probably arise is a horses lifetime helps me prepare them for those things happening, before they happen. One of the things I do with a young horse is have them turned loose in the arena while I ride other horses (older, seasoned horses) so that they learn that in that situation, the energy and movements of other horses have nothing to do with them. Later on during their training I will also ride them while another horse is loose in the arena, so they learn loose horses running around have nothing to do with them. Then, if they end up being a show horse (or a trail riding horse) and the inevitable happens and someone falls off and their horse starts running around loose, it's nothing to be concerned about.

In this video Im riding Chance on the trail, with Robyn riding Rey, and have have Robyn and Rey leave us so I can show you how Chance (who was taught to trail ride alone) is not fazed by it at all.



Aero - More Than Feed

09/04/2025

Some sage advice for the horse world

09/01/2025

Some truth here from podcast guest Peter Crone - The Mind Architect

08/23/2025

I’ve just spent a few days in Sweden with Emelie Cajsdotter . Emelie has a sanctuary for 65 horses, and 85 other animals including chickens, sheep, ducks and goats. She also uses the sanctuary to run her school for Empathic Interspecies Interbeing.

If you’ve never heard of Emelie, I suggest you listen to episode 115 of my podcast The Journey On Podcast, because trying to explain how Emelie shows up in the world is pretty impossible.

I was there with filmmaker Sean Fee to film Emelie for the upcoming Rekindle documentary. Poor Sean has the challenge of distilling down the essence of Emelie into her part of the film.

At our podcast summit in England last year, Jennifer Zeligs said to me “you will not survive this conversation”, meaning at the end of our interaction, I will not be the same person. After being with Emelie for a few days and listening to the absolute wisdom that comes out of her mouth, I know I didn’t survive those conversations.

Listening to her is like listening to a prophet, and every time she topd a story the rest of us would just look at each other and shake our heads …



Aero - More Than Feed

08/19/2025

Levels of sentience

I recently posted a short video interacting with a horse who had until recently had a great deal of separation anxiety. Part of that separation anxiety was a lack of interest in people. As the connection to himself, and his connection to people gas changed, he has started to be a little more interactive.

In the short video, which went viral and had close to 5 million views in a week, I was waiting for him to interact with me. I mentioned a quote from My Octopus Teacher creator Craig Foster, who said “As I rule I never touch an animal unless they touch me first”.

The comments fell into 2 camps. One camp said things like “I work with feral cats and it’s the same thing”, “consent is important in all interactions”, etc etc

The other camp said things like “this bloke is a complete idiot”, “I’ve been training horses for 40 years and this bloke is an idiot”, “the only reason he touched your hand is he’s looking for the treat in your pocket”, that will take forever”, “that won’t work on my 20 stall barn “ etc etc.

What really divides those two camps is their awareness level of the sentience of horses. Once you understand how sentient they are, your perception is forever changed.

I’m currently in Sweden filming with Emelie Cajsdotter for the Rekindle documentary, and yesterday she received a call that one of the horses was stuck in a bog on the edge of a lake where she is kept for grazing. She lives in this pasture with a grey gelding.

How they knew she was stuck was the property owner was in his house vacuuming and he heard a horse whinnying outside, he went out to investigate and found the grey gelding whinnying and pacing outside the house. He went out and the grey horse led him down to the lakes edge and there he discovered the mare stuck in the bog.

They called the fire department out and they got her out of the bog, but she was hypothermic, and couldn’t get up. We drove an hour from Emelie’s to where she was, and got her warmer with blankets and warm mash, until she was strong enough to get up again.

That grey gelding that went for help stood there by his friend the whole time we were with her, and once you witness those sorts of things there’s no going back.

It’s not just horses but all of life. If you’ve ever read about Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto’s experiments on water crystals after either positive or negative affirmations. Or read The Elephant Whisperer. Or Carl Safina’s Beyond Words. Or any of the thousands of books about the subject, then there’s no going back.

I spend a lot of time (or have until recently) answering comments on social media and it has taken up a great deal of my headspace, and it’s only just dawned on me that some of the people I’m interacting with have no idea of the level of sentience of horses, and because of that they can’t pick up what I’m putting down.

For that reason (and the advice of some mentors) I’m not longer responding to comments on social media. I’ll still keep posting, but further interactions will be limited to other avenues.

Pic of the white horse hanging with his friend while the crew gets the mare strong enough to get up.