Steelehorse

Steelehorse • UK based Horsemanship Trainer •

12/02/2025

Mr Incredible has benefited from a weekend spent working on his mindset to help improve his body and performance in the horse racing industry. The potential this horse has 🔥 Thank you to & Sandy Thomson for trusting my training. This is another example of applying horsemanship to a specific discipline. It doesn’t matter what the discipline it shows the same approach can be applied to them all, the only thing that changes is what the horse physically has to do.

04/02/2025

A recipe for liberty 🤔

- 3 cups of patience ⏳
- 2 cups of observation 👀
- 1 cup of action ❤️

Do less, watch more, mainly wait.

The biggest mistake iv made as a horseman is always assuming I needed to know another way to ask a question.

Training horses is all about communication. As is any conversation between two people.

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your question is if you ask it at the wrong time. Very few people will stay engaged with a conversation where the other person is just waiting for their turn to speak without truly listening. And everybody hates being interrupted or having their train of thought disrupted while processing what’s been said in order to answer correctly.

We know these things like we know the sky is blue. We navigate the subtle nuance of communication everyday.

It’s no different with horses.

Very often the reason our training doesn’t deliver the results we desire is not that we are asking for a movement incorrectly or poorly applying a methodology of horsemanship during the active asking portion of interaction.

We rush. We concentrate on ourselves and on how we felt. We fail to hear the other side of the conversation.

Let’s break it down 💪

3 Cups of Patience ⏳

Journey before destination. Fall in love with the process and treat the achievements that appear along the way with surprised wonderment.

I’m sure you like me don’t instantly master new skills. I like to take a pause once given information to process before acting. In my experience horses are the same.

Wait after giving signals to allow time for delayed or unsure responses from your horse.

Pause and praise between attempts even when we see minimal or no progress.

Your horse doesn’t know nor care that it was your 2025 goal to achieve liberty circles in canter by the 1st of March. They will progress in their own time, it’s your job to make the most of that time.

And above all to make sure your horse feels they are being given the time to flourish

Give it ten minutes and it will take an hour.

Give it an hour and it will take ten minutes.

2 Cups of Observation 👀

You most likely are asking for spanish walk correctly but are you moving slowly enough with your signals to genuinely see the effects they have on your horses mind and body?

Do you watch your horse intently when asking them for a movement or is your focus internal on your body and how you feel?

The more we watch, the more we learn.

In this instance take things slowly genuinely means move your arms, legs and aids (whip, rope, flag) SLOWLY. This gives you more time and a better chance to notice the flick of the ear, that slight tilt in the rib cage or the change in their breathing.

Every interaction with our horse is a chance to observe and gather information. Things don’t have to go the way we planned for us to learn valuable lessons about our horse and how they interact with and respond to the world around them.

Rush and you’ll miss it. Miss it and miss out on connection.

1 Cup of Action ❤️

Of course you need to know where to point at, when to step and how to best utilise your aids.

No one is pretending you can teach a flying change or a bow without knowing the process or the method ( www.benatkinsonmethod.com I would recommend 😉) but let’s link this back to the idea of communication and conversation.

The method we learn to train our horse is the equivalent of a child learning to speak. First it’s sounds, then words and finally sentences.

But the conversations that leave us feeling connected with others are so much more. They’re bolstered by empathy and emotion.

A person we can spend all night talking to knows when to back off or avoid a topic we aren’t ready for. Equally they know when to push to help us grow or discover aspects of ourselves we never knew existed.

By harmonising our method (action) with a hunger to listen (observe) and a default setting to take things slowly (patience) we can achieve anything 🙏

Photography credit to JShpicture

I will be teaching in the Derbyshire/Yorkshire area on Thursday 27th March. I haven’t been up in that area for a while b...
04/02/2025

I will be teaching in the Derbyshire/Yorkshire area on Thursday 27th March. I haven’t been up in that area for a while but plan to start coming back up if there is enough interest in lessons. I use natural horsemanship methods to help horses become more relaxed and confident whether it be for hacking, dressage, jumping or another discipline. The combination of natural horsemanship with dressage focusing on the brain and biomechanics of the horse help to produce a happier horse at their job. My philosophy is “if the mind wants to do it, it’s really easy to teach a horse anything”.
I specialise in problem horses including young horses, sensitive horses, bad loaders, groundwork/manners and more.

Drop me a message if you have any questions or you’d like to book a lesson on this date.

The number 1 place for all your natural horsemanship equipment; Hybrid head collars, lead ropes, 14ft training ropes, ro...
04/02/2025

The number 1 place for all your natural horsemanship equipment; Hybrid head collars, lead ropes, 14ft training ropes, rope reins, flags. If you see me training with a piece of equipment that’s not standard in the equestrian world then it will more than likely be from The Horse Education Company. A wonderful company with top quality products that are practical and last for years aswell as looking smart. Check them out!

Here’s one you might all enjoy! A behind the scenes of the day Bodhi and I won the the BD winter regionals. It’s very mu...
27/01/2025

Here’s one you might all enjoy! A behind the scenes of the day Bodhi and I won the the BD winter regionals. It’s very much a raw account of the reality of competing and our thoughts, feelings and emotions on the day! I think it’s safe to say both Holly and I are competitive when it comes to horses and competing!

The day, test and emotions of winning our first BD winter regionals. In only our 3rd ever outing Bodhi and I headed down to Onley Equestrian Complex to do th...

Lovely to be back in Portugal at the 2025 Lusitano Stallion Grading. Good luck to Natalie Ayliffe and her horse Pele HF ...
24/01/2025

Lovely to be back in Portugal at the 2025 Lusitano Stallion Grading. Good luck to Natalie Ayliffe and her horse Pele HF who is being graded tomorrow 🤞

08/01/2025

This sums up the difference between boys and girls 🤣

Merry Christmas to you all  🎄 thank you for your support this year in all that we do!
25/12/2024

Merry Christmas to you all 🎄 thank you for your support this year in all that we do!

I apologise for it being so late but here’s a little snippet of our time at Horsemanship Showcase - The Horsemanship Eve...
22/12/2024

I apologise for it being so late but here’s a little snippet of our time at Horsemanship Showcase - The Horsemanship Event of The Year. I mean we were there for 5 days and it was manic! I managed to get like a couple of hours documented but it really gives the impression of the show, what it’s like as an equestrian performer and trainer and the camaraderie between trainers that this show has created! This is the show each year that brings the best together, one we can get the creative juices flowing and put on a hell of a spectacle. Massive thank you to Horsemanship Hub - Horsemanship Showcase for putting this event on.

Join Holly and I at our final show of the year performing with your horses in both educational demonstrations and artistic evening performances this year inc...

19/12/2024

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