Resilient Equine

03/26/2025

702 reasons to NOT “bring your horse home”…
1.) horses are not meant to live by themselves, so having one by itself rarely ever works. If you have two they get so buddy sour you can’t do something with one without the other going nuts. Three is also inconvenient and gives few options for mixing pairs and preventing issues. So four is really the bare minimum to keep together
2.) Feeding twice a day is a minimum- even if they have access to hay/grass, plenty of water, and get no grain, you need eyes on them absolutely twice a day minimum. What if they are injured? Or a bird drowned in the water tank and it’s hot and the water is now full of bacteria?
3.) Horse care takes way more time than you think. If you think you’re going to save time by not having to drive to the barn, then I know how naïve you are on how much time it’s going to take to care for your own horse at home.
4.) Ever try self board?? Yay! That’s an adorable start, but you ain’t the one fixing fence, hauling out the manure pile, probably not ordering hay, and you ain’t making the tractor payment (doing maintenance on the tractor)
5.) think it’s gonna be cheaper??? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 it’s not. I promise it’s not. Most boarding barns actually subsidize the cost per horse, and they are buying in bulk. Keeping one horse is way more expensive than keeping 20 when you look at the cost per horse.
6.) Do you like having ANY amenities???? stalls if a horse hurts themself, or it’s freezing rain for a week? A hot water wash bay? Or even just an area with lights so that you can even see your horse in the winter?
7.) Do you think you’re just gonna ride out in the pasture? Because that only works for about a month until you tear it up so bad that the footing is absolutely dangerous.
I guess it would work if you only ride twice a month during perfect weather days. Not only does a small basic outdoor arena cost about $30,000, but you absolutely need a tractor and a good quality arena rake if you want to maintain it.
8.) Did I mention Tractor payment? Small tractors that can barely do the job are dangerous. Get more tractor than you think need.
9.) Do you ever go away? Kiss that goodbye. Or expect to drop some serious cash on a quality horse sitter. Want to go out in the evening? You’ll need to schedule that around evening chores.
10.) Right now you might love when you get the arena to yourself, but when you are by yourself ALL the time, its easy to lack direction or motivation.
11.) You’ll miss barn culture and riding buddies, and getting away from your spouse for a couple hours. There’s a reason why time flies at the barn!
12.) Mud.
13.) The tens of thousands of dollars you spend trying to get rid of mud, just to have more mud.
14.) have fun dealing with a manure pile on small acreage. It’s not enough to get anyone commercial to haul it out, but way too much to not have a place to go with it. 
15.) Lack of instruction. It’s hard to get an instructor to come to you.
16.) No one to share farm call fees with…
17.) IF you can even get a vet or farrier to come to you!

I know I’m 685 reasons short, but I promise they exist!!!! This is just a start! (And I’m sure others will leave their reasons in the comments.)

03/01/2025

02/27/2025

Mhm mhm mhm.

02/22/2025

What happened to Natural Horsemanship?

Well, it is still around. That thing is still thinging. There are folks working with it that do good work for good people, all around the globe. But for some of us, it was not enough.

For some of us, we found Natural Horsemanship at a time when it appeared to be a valid alternative. The alternative to just, getting on and riding, the alternative to methods that ignored the way horses thought. Ten, fifteen even twenty years ago, to utter the words "Natural Horsemanship" in some equestrian environments was enough to make your heart beat with fear. Fear of being seen as a weirdo, of social exclusion, of being dismissed by people who thought it was rubbish, felt it challenged their business or world view, or thought it undermined traditional training.

Somewhere between then and now, at least in the eyes of the people I know, Natural Horsemanship has found its way into the category of "traditional practices".

It is the big pink elephant in the room. Name any celebrity horse trainer today, and you can point to a part of their history where Natural Horsemanship influenced them. Some are talking about it. Some are pretending that never happened.

Blackballing the mentors and ideas of your past does not make them go away.

If we, as innovative horse people today, are walking, it is because Natural Horsemanship crawled. They pioneered a way forwards that alternative practices could not only be "effective" but also be a successful business model too.

So, where is Natural Horsemanship today? This page is called Emotional Horsemanship. And to many, that lumps me in the Natural Horsemanship category. I remember declining a clinic invitation because they asked for a Natural Horsemanship clinic. Still, as recent as my last clinic tour, and as recent as the very last lesson I taught (25 minutes ago), I am approached by people who remark with surprise that what we are teaching with Emotional Horsemanship is really NOT natural horsemanship, according to how we imagine it.

"It really is something different!" Someone said at a clinic. I giggled, because I am been trying to tell you all. But sometimes you just gotta see it for yourself.

I am very grateful for the Natural Horsemanship pioneers. I won't list them by name. But I am grateful for the doors they opened. I am also grateful for the ways that their monopoly of the industry has divided up into tens of thousands of smaller businesses, rather than 1-2 huge conglomerates. It was the democratic evolution of their innovation... that it eventually was de-centred away from powerful men, and into the hands of smaller communities.

But just like you, there came a moment when I was practicing, teaching and training with Natural Horsemanship techniques and principles, that I stopped myself. I started to think beyond what I was doing.

I changed my standards for what constituted a good training.

I was taught that a good training was the EFFECTIVE training that got the result as quickly and tactfully as possible.

In practice, I saw that the NHMS techniques were indeed by design, functioning in a manner to create RESPONSE in the horse, sooner rather than later.

I also watched as the same rope swing that released the horses stuck body and emotional inertia, saddled them with emotional baggage. I stuck around those horses long enough, asked those same horses enough questions in enough environments, that I discovered what that baggage often was.

And the baggage these horses had, had nothing to do with the INTENTIONS natural horsemanship espoused.

The intention was to replicate natural horse behaviour, and create a bond with a horse that replaced force and pain, enabling horsemanship to continue in a safe and kind manner to the horse.

I found out, that in many cases (but not all) that bond was forged in fear. Fear of varying degrees of severity, a spectrum of fear. Sometimes it was the horses realisation that their human was mostly harmless, but not entirely, enough to put them mildly on edge around people. On edge enough to never have steady feet or a long thought. Steady feet and long thoughts often are confused as lack of response or respect. They are not. And often the horses just outright feared what comes next if they do not respond- now.

Not all fear is fear for your life. You can fear for the loss of a varying number of things. Loss of your comfort, your knowledge, your place in the world, your social connections. Loss of your physical safety, loss of your autonomy. All these things can be feared.

To anyone reading who is already annoyed with me for talking about it, I want you to know, I am definitely not talking about you. I am talking about what I used to do. And if this shoe doesn't fit you, don't wear it.

So, for the above reason, and many other reasons I won't get into now, I began to question if Natural Horsemanship was the revolution I wanted to form my entire personality around. I discovered it was not, for me. And certainly not the the horses I was meeting.

So I took what I could, salvaged what I could, and moved into a lifeboat.

In that lifeboat, I floated here and there. I spent some times at varying islands, different methods, eventually those islands and their natives gave me reason to get back in the boat and move on. Why was there so much hostility... everywhere? A strange abundance of hostility and an odd lack of critical thinking?

I kept paddling.

On the way though, I met some lovely folks who jumped in my lifeboat with me. They put their shoulders to the oar. They brought their tools. We collected what we needed to have a sound ship.

Eventually, when I came to create my first online course, I realised that this ship could sail on its own.

I realised I no longer needed natural horsemanship. I took many of those techniques, and edited them. Edited out any aspect that could create fear, small or large, and chose a different foundation.

The foundation is that of care. And not a trite, fluffy, no-substance type of care. And not just horse keeping- though quality horse keeping is the foundation of all quality training.

Care informed by deep scientific work, robust trial and error with thousands of horses, and the authentic connection between what we say, and what we do.

Because I will no longer stand in a room that tells great stories about the horsemanship, but when we actually look at how those words translate into action...

I recorded a podcast on this subject with fellow oarsman Michelle Knapp. She too was deep into the NHMS world, and she too, found her way out to something else.

I want to thank the people who have already listened, and wrote me to let us know how helpful it was for them to hear this subject spoken about plainly. We are here for you.

02/05/2025

The horse industry is confused. Two camps have begun to appear; Horsepeople who employ horses in jobs, and Horsepeople who have horses for the love of having horses. The confusion is often pitching these two camps against each other.

Folks who rely on horses for ranches, or in sport, for their livelihood, often look at leisure owners and their horses as spoiled, indulgent perhaps.
“Good for them!”, they say.
“But my horse needs to respond when I need them to respond.”
Sometimes, there is a sneer, often the condescension is hidden or couched better. Most often however, there is just plain detached bewilderment, that there exists millions of horses and horse people for whom the purpose of the horse is undefined to the folk who rely on horses for a job.

Camp 2 is often no better. Folks who have horses in their life as an elective pleasure, or artistic hobby, can often look over at horses employed in specific tasks and see pressure, pressure, pressure. Problems, problems, problems. Clutch pearls and grabbing pitchforks. Lighting flaming torches and embarking on witch hunts in which the “witch” is some obscure ethical yard stick folks decided they had the right to measure other folks with. Lambasting the rider of the ranch horse and the producer of the sport horse with curses against their character and with noses in the air, making sworn statements to never subject their equines to the same treatment.

I know this because at varying times in my career- I have been both people.

I have not been a working dancer for a long time. I have spent more time working with horses than I did in the dance industry. I consider myself a horseman since childhood, who had an interesting brief sojourn in dance, so that I could learn what it felt like to be;
- a creature of movement
- without a voice
- working often with violent leaders, yet forced to perform.
- Or, working with incompetent people who wasted my motivation on their endless, self absorbed anxiety or allowed my talent and training to die due to not knowing how to employ it.

It was the best possible empathic preparation for horses.

I have been both “horses”. I have been both horse people.

To the horse-folk who employ horses, I know safety is your number 1. Often, safety is the reason we hold onto practices which can wobble between violence and being effective. Like, we retain the right to force compliance in the same of safety, by any means necessary. A friend of mine who recently attended an Olympic level equestrian clinic was shocked to discover that relentless whipping for refusal of a task was “The only way to do this”. Because refusal of a task, in some circumstances, can mean death to the horse and the person.

But I want you to know, safety is EVERYONE'S first priority. And there are options that don't involve violence to the vulnerable animal in our employ.

What you don’t know is that I spent more than a decade of my short life on again-off again, working trail horses for the public in the last untouched wilderness of Europe, the Sierra Nevada National Park of Andalucia. I found my heart horse there, he is below my window now.

I have seen horses fall off cliffs, with clients on board- because they did not have sufficient training. I have had to “Rock Climb” to go and rescue those horses, on my own. I have seen horses flip over backwards on people who then needed helicopter evacuation, because the lead horse wouldn’t go forward in a crucial moment. I have known people lost legs, because they got stuck in equipment on a bucking stallion, spurs cutting the leg free from their body. I have had clients lose their lives, months after I tried to intervene and begged them to prepare their horses better.

Today, I work mostly for the private owner. Not ranchers, not sportsman. I work for private owners, many of them are horse pro’s. As a horse pro, my horses are also my livelihood. If I cannot demonstrate my work to a high level in tutorials on my own horses, I get no international clinic bookings, produce no courses, book no lessons. And this is my sole income, that employs now six people together with me. My horses have jobs too. But I have developed a job structure that centres my horses always before the results of the job... because I chose to make that career change, and chose to do it this way. I walked away from traditional equestrian work for this reason.

One of the biggest misnomers is that “folks like me” abandon the Doing-ness of horses, because our horses no longer have to perform a day job according to what day jobs have looked like for generations. Yet our horses need all the same skills all horses need. A rider is still dead, regardless how they die. Anybody who elects to swing a leg over requires a safe horse to work with, regardless where they are in the world or what they do.

If we have any luxury that perhaps was not a part of society until now, it is that of time. We do not have to force compliance in any sort of time frame. That gift of time allows us to spend a little longer asking the horse some questions. Often the answers to those questions are
1. This horse shouldn’t be ridden, ever. No matter the training.
2. This horse is not ready for riding.
3. This owner is not a good match for this horse.
4. This owner is not acting in a responsible manner.
5. This horse is over-faced by the owners expectations.
6. This horse is genetically, or medically, not healthy enough for what the owner wants out of the horse.

And in those circumstances “people like me” are often able to keep and safe-guard those horses that others would deem “useless” and sell down the river to God knows what fate.

Yet, anyone who elects to ride horses, needs horses who are trained and communicative. But not only riding. People die on the ground plenty around horses. Unless we release horses to sanctuaries where they are without human contact, all domestic horses need the same skills, all horses need.

Electing to teach them without devices that induce pain or discomfort if the horse is in conflict with the aids or request, is not bypassing safety. It is guaranteeing it. I understand that good handlers can use potentially volatile equipment without harm. But folks who are not equestrian professionals shouldn’t use tools that are volatile, and the most time poor owner in the world- the Working Equestrian Professional, often doesn’t have the time or energy to get those tools right for their clients, or their own horses.

A rancher might be able to tinker with a tool all day, and the next. A recreational owner might get 20 minutes after work. A working equine pro might not touch their own horses for months or years, if they still have their own private horses.

So turns out, ALL horses everywhere are often under the same pressures in different guises. When all is said and done, all of us have work to do for our horses. All of us.

Professionally, I won’t put tools in the hands of folks that don’t have the time to get them right or that should be handled by pro’s. I won't let people play with fire on my watch. Techniques that induce excessive pressure, yet remove the time required to finesse those techniques, can ruin a horse real quickly. A recreational owner who pi**es off their horse, or hurts them regularly, or uses them inappropriately, is headed for disaster too. Titanic.

In fact, I met people working trail heads and Guiding in the mountains who were in grave danger with horses and had no idea. I have met with clients in stables all over the world who were struggling, regardless of their background, or desired outcome. I have also seen exceptionally happy and well trained horses in every category.

I saw a gaping hole in the industry, that the "newer" people were without leadership, teachers, or methods that understood them. “Harriet the Hacker” and “Rachel Recreation” cannot thrive with tools and techniques designed for “Rob the Rancher” or “Sam the Sportsman”. They are oil and water. Some systems of training before us have tried. And largely failed to honour the horse. They tried to augment ranching/sporting traditions for the now growing base of the industry. And crashed and burned. Yet private aspirational ownership is on the rise. And they are paired with horses who are often struggling.

This is big work in the industry. Are we tired of binaries and partisanship that patronise the way “people who are not like me” work with horses?

Until the recreational owner and the trainers that focus on them are seen legitimate by traditional horseman, the industry is headed for an iceberg. Hubris. Look at the FEI, lemmings in jodhpurs running for a cliff.

Until the recreational owner respects the 5,500 years of tradition that came before Henry Ford invented the internal combustion engine, and learns to understand honoured practices AND redact the violence out of them, we are all headed for a dead end.

So what is the answer? How are you doing better by your horse, and yourself today? You tell me below.

01/28/2025

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01/25/2025

Deworming for bots is essential ‼️

I hate bot larvae.
I see them quite often at whole horse dissections and when the larvae detach from the stomach wall, they leave behind deep holes.

These holes are about 2 mm deep.

The part of the stomach that we see is the non glandular part. It is the upper part and is not acid secreting.
You can just about see the glandular part which is pinkish in the photo.

Bot larvae seem to choose the non glandular part but I do see them at the margin between these 2 parts which is called the Margo plicata. Rarely they are found in the glandular layer as that part has a very low pH is acidic due to hydrochloride acid.

I really feel bot latvae are a problem because when they detach, the holes left behind are at risk from the acid splashing up onto that area. This I believe could destroy tissue and cause ulcers.

My showcase of my hoof and whole horse dissections:
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01/24/2025

Equines and losing their herd mates.
Most equines don’t process death in the same way we do, but its important to understand how they look at it.
Firstly its they way they understand it, they can watch it but it does not mean much, it’s the smell that tells them. So horses should be allowed to smell their departed friend, this is two part, firstly its for them to work out they have died, second part is they will be smelling for adrenalin and endorphins. Generally animals don’t fear death but they fear pain and the process of dying, which if most people are honest is the same for us, most people don’t fear death it’s the getting there, when its your time most people just hope its instant or they go in their sleep, animals are often the same.
You can put a horse down with another one watching and they will often finish their bucket of food before they go to investigate why their mate is laying down. Then they smell a lot around the dead one and if there is no adrenalin or endorphins then they died quickly and were not attacked, so nothing to worry about, even though they saw it the nose overrides all other senses, (hence why horses dislike the wind, stops them smelling in one direction)
So how do we help the horses, ponies etc accept the death of a herd member.
Time is the most important thing, giving them long enough to investigate.
The best thing is to put down the horse in an area that’s safe to let their heard mates into afterwards loose.
This is because some horses run “tests” to check they are dead, this will involve walking in arcs up to them, running away in short bursts (trying to get a flight response) grazing next to dead ones head, pawing with hooves, sometimes biting. If there is some blood they will often put on their nose or taste it, again checking for adrenalin or endorphins to ensure that they are safe and it was not a lion hiding in hedge that killed it. They will then walk away grazing and return about 3 times, after this they accept it and just walk away.
The time it takes varies on the position in herd of the one that’s dies, (one that has been pushed out of herd due to being ill the others will only take 20min to accept as they were expecting it, on other hand if it’s the leader of herd that unexpectedly died, accident etc, it takes far longer as no one is giving instructions so the upset is 2 fold this might take a hour and a half to accept whilst sniffing)
Also the breed is big factor, Shetland ponies for example only take a few minutes (they appear hard and uncaring often due to this) where a thoroughbred or Arab takes on average 45min to accept.
Leading a horse up to dead one tends to slow process down or sometimes they don’t understand at all as they will try to feed of body language of the one who’s leading them and we are not good at horse body language. If there is no choice due to are its still better then not showing them at all but its best done with long lead rope and keeping it as loose as possible to allow the horse to jump around as remember this is partly how they work it out.
The more horses in the herd the quicker they will figure out that’s one died but its nothing to worry about as they will look to each other.
Some special cases, donkeys are terrible at being so attached they one died they will pine to death, so they need another animal for company when their mate goes and we find they should have a least 12 hours with their deceased friend, this is why when we put down donkeys we recommend they we put it down one day and we will come back next day to collect, even trough this means 2 trips.
Mares when they lose their foals (or if foal pts ) again if we have put foal down and you are not going to foster mother then its best to do it and leave foal in stable for example where mother has free access, it can take her up to 48hr to realize her foal is dead and not just sleeping at which time she will bury it and its then safe to remove it without causing any upset.
All of this is why we allow at least a hour and a half for every horse we are putting down but are prepared to wait even longer if needed, 2 part it ensure the euthanasia is never rushed so we can ensure its instant and best as it can be but also the grieving process is vital to any other horse that are part of hear if they were attached. And the more time they have with their field mate who passed on the better.
If you have very closely bonded herd I’m always happy to discuss what’s the best way not only for the one who’s going but also for what’s best for their companions.
This photo shows a group of horses checking out their sadly deceased field mate, no stress just working it out and accepting it.

*edit*
I will add that the times I have said are different horse to horse and it's the time it takes them to normally understand the their friend has died and not just injured or sleeping.
Once they accept this they will then start to greve, like people some horses will take a few hour, some a few days and some a couple of weeks to get over a major change to their herd. But it's much better when they know what's happening to the other option my friend is missing and they will keep looking sometimes for months..

01/19/2025

In OT school I had a professor thrill us (😉) with the phrase “proximal stability equals distal mobility” very often.

I had no idea how much value that phrase would really hold in my work, and I don’t even treat humans anymore. 😆

👉🏻Proximal - situated nearer to the center of the body

👈🏻Distal - situated away from the center of the body

If you’re not stable at your core, you don’t have much control over the movements far away from your core.

🏄‍♀️ If I’m on a surfboard, I’ll give you a terrible high five.

🖐🏻If I’m on concrete I’ll give you a fantastic high five.

The translation from what I see in horses is this:
Spine and core stability equals correct leg and foot placement.

If the spine is out of balance, both the nervous system and the soft tissue suffer.

The nerves exit the spinal cord and go to work for the rest of the body. If there’s a problem at the exit ramp, the rest of the nerve won’t be working correctly either.

The soft tissue gets tangled and torqued just by trying to protect its own spine. The tensegrity is compromised for the sake of protection.

Foot placement is the last of your horse’s priorities if they’re trying to stabilize their spine (that you’re sitting on) and core.

They might stumble or trip, they seem like they’re not listening.

🏄‍♀️ If you’re asking your horse to give you a high five while they’re on a surfboard, good luck.

I can accidentally land a high five every now and then from a surfboard too. But mainly I’m just trying to stay upright.

All correct movement comes from a balanced spine, supported by a strong core.

✍🏻 Proximal stability equals distal mobility.

01/19/2025

Do you know that a vast majority of plastic buckets we use with horses still contain BPA?

Buckets containing BPA (bisphenol A) are harmful for feeding and watering horses for several important reasons:

1. Chemical Leaching
BPA is a chemical used in the production of certain plastics, particularly polycarbonate plastics. Over time, especially when exposed to heat, sunlight, or wear and tear, BPA can leach from the plastic into the food or water inside the container. Horses may ingest small amounts of this chemical when drinking or eating from the bucket, leading to potential health risks.

2. Endocrine Disruption
BPA is a well-known endocrine disruptor, meaning it can interfere with the body's hormone system. In both animals and humans, BPA can mimic or block hormones like estrogen, leading to hormonal imbalances. For horses, hormonal disruptions could impact their growth, fertility, and reproductive health, and may even affect their behavior or overall wellbeing.

3. Long-Term Health Risks
Prolonged exposure to BPA has been linked to a variety of long-term health problems, including:

Reproductive issues: BPA exposure may cause problems with fertility, gestation, and the development of offspring.
Developmental abnormalities: Especially in younger horses, BPA exposure can interfere with normal growth and development.
Increased cancer risk: Some studies suggest that long-term exposure to BPA might increase the risk of certain types of cancer.

4. Compromised Immune Function
BPA can also weaken the immune system, making horses more susceptible to infections, illnesses, and overall stress. A compromised immune system can be especially harmful to horses in high-stress environments or those with pre-existing health issues.

5. Degradation of Plastic
Plastics containing BPA tend to degrade over time, especially with exposure to UV rays from the sun or extreme temperatures. As the plastic breaks down, it may release higher amounts of harmful chemicals into the food or water, and the material itself becomes more brittle and prone to cracking or breaking. This increases the likelihood of physical injury to the horse if they come into contact with damaged buckets.

6. Possible Toxicity
Although the amount of BPA that leaches from plastic into food or water is typically low, even small doses over time can accumulate, leading to potential toxic effects. Toxicity symptoms in horses could include gastrointestinal upset, changes in behavior, lethargy, or neurological issues, depending on the exposure level.

7. Availability of Safer Alternatives
With growing awareness of the risks of BPA, there are now many safer alternatives available, such as BPA-free plastic containers, stainless steel buckets, or rubberized buckets. These materials are durable, non-toxic, and do not pose the same health risks to horses.