Ivy Starnes - Ivy's Glide Gait

16/02/2025

You can ride with me at the Equine affair! Sign up here:
https://equineaffaire.com/events/ohio/ohio-participate/ohio-ride-in-clinics/ohio-ride-with-a-pro-2/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIfOydleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQCh54GmyUjjcIfKsYuD_GM7SKACNtzFNmpNNl3zrHZ778It7IoqnPoXjA_aem_6uBMI56XNrscbSgab3azfw

15/02/2025

15/02/2025

Yes! I want to focus on what's going well and gradually fix the things we can!

Im reading Amy skinners book and in it is a passage on teaching, and her observations of the reactions she gets when she praises a student - usually a woman, the student will be suspicious of the praise.

It's something I have noticed in my career, women will most often reject a positive observation, or when the hear the positivity they may accept, and then list the things that were ‘wrong’ or negative about the movement. Amy goes on to say that she feels that this is because generally speaking, most people have had so much instruction where the lesson is basically a long list of their faults, that when experiencing a lesson that includes positive feedback, they become suspicious. I agree wholeheartedly with this, but the light bulb moment for me came when she went on to draw the parallel between her coaching students the same way she coaches horses - wth praise and positive feedback on what is going ‘well’.

Amy says “I would never in a million years teach a horse the way some people have become used to being taught. Hanging your failures over your head puts too much emphasis on your shortcomings. Yes, I can see what your leg is doing, but we will get to that. One thing at a time.

She observes “I also thing people get used to the authoritarian type teacher who hollers every failure at you, until you accept that you are never going to be as good as them. So a teacher who compliments their improvement and draws on their strengths arouses suspicion - maybe the teacher doesn't know anything if they think I'm good.

This was a great ‘lightbulb’ moment for me. I can’t tell you the number of times I have had students believe that I am not a ‘riding’ coach because I don't just stand in the middle and yell out what’s going wrong. I teach them the same way that I teach the horses (with kindness and positive feedback), and they then believe they have to go to a ‘riding instructor’ to get ‘lessons on their riding’ because I'm not ‘seeing’. As Amy says - we do see, but let's work on one thing at a time!

As an interesting side note - did you know that the brain can’t move away from a negative, it can only move towards a positive, this is why training with positive feedback is far more effective than ‘fault detection’. If someone is saying “don't point your toes” your brain thinks “what should I do” if someone says “flatten your foot” your brain knows exactly what to do - and can take immediate action.

So next time you work with a coach who is giving you positive feedback on what is going right - perhaps listen and absorb, instead of listing all the things you aren’t doing well - we will get to that!

Thanks Amy Skinner Horsemanship - Really enjoying the book!

T

11/02/2025

Ivy and I are working on a book for young people, Ivy is illustrating the section on body language with her incredible, beautiful art. We were talking today about how important it is for kids to learn about horse body language, emotions, and natural behaviors without all the misinformation and overly romanticized interpretations of their language. In talking about this we both remembered back to our childhoods when we read stories and watched movies about horses with their magical relationship with their child. We both also had the experience of getting our horse and being heartbroken when it wasn't the magic we dreamed of.

I remember cleaning stalls and hearing stories about horses who meet their human and love them instantly, who trust them completely, and do everything they want without effort. Then, when Tank came home, I spent the first month exercising ALL my natural horsemanship knowledge on her to create that dream relationship. And it didn't happen. I couldn't understand, why doesn't my horse love me? I have waited all my life to love this horse with everything I have and she doesn't love me back? In fact, she's quite afraid of me. I couldn't wrap my mind around what was wrong with me or her or us together. Why couldn't she just love me like I loved her?

Then I found R+, of course she came around fast, behaviorally. But it felt SO transactional. “do this you get a treat”, “put up with this you'll get some food”. It felt mechanical and like she was just doing it all for the food, but I wanted her to love ME.

I remember one night, we had only been using R+ for a little while and Tank would not come into the barn for bed, it was cold raining, in my mind I saw this as a challenge to our relationship. If she loves me, she'll follow me through fire, she'll trust me to guide her! We fought for over an hour, I wrestled her, pushed, pulled, bribed her with food, used whips, I circled her endlessly outside the door (like trailer loading), I fought until we both hated each other. Eventually she just pulled free from me and ran away and I let her because I was so mad. I sat in the barn crying, because our dream relationship wasn't real, wasn't possible. As I was sitting there I saw the target on the floor. I had already tried bribing her with a bucket of food, but she wouldn't go in. Why would the target work? But I walked out to where she was grazing on some nice grass in the field behind our house and I showed her the target. She followed the target inside, a few steps at a time, click, treat, a few steps... She went all the way inside. Why? Why the target but not me? Not the full bucket of food?

That's when I realized that relationships are classically conditioned. It sounds simple, but it's a deep-rooted law of nature. How we feel when we are with someone, how something makes us feel, determines how we feel about them/it. At that time I had very mixed conditioning. I was unpredictable, unsafe, and I took her choice and control from her. The target had 1 clear connection, the target never hurt or chased her, the target never forced or stopped her, the target is just clean comfortable, safety and control. It took a few years of me working hard on myself for our relationship to reach that level, where I became the cleanly conditioned, source of safety, comfort, choice, and friendship. Our relationship reached the dream state. Tank is NOT perfect, nor will she ever be, she told me she will not be ridden, I've respected that (we have some suspicions of some physical stuff which might be why).

Now I watch this phenomenon over and over. A kid will come and work with a horse and it always starts transactional. The horse does good things to earn good things, everyone has fun because the things they're doing together is fun, nothing bad happens, but the horse is focused on the game and the food, not the human on the other end. Then one day comes when the student's car pulls up and their horse runs over and whinnies. The horse spooks and runs to their safety human. The horse is engaging and playing a fun game with their kid when we realize, hey there's grass everywhere and a bucket of food right there, but they're still choosing US. The time we give the horse a jackpot to end the session and they follow us out the gate, leaving the jackpot behind, because they want to keep playing with us!

The dream is achievable, it IS there! It's not a fantasy! But it takes time, consistency, and positive associations. Your horse will still be a horse, doing natural horse behaviors, including spooking, bucking, or bolting sometimes, sometimes they'll dive for grass and ignore your cue, sometimes they'll give you trouble with something you thought you had down. Like all relationships, we have ups and downs, we are still individuals with our own wants and needs, but we will see those magical flurries of your horse choosing YOU.

11/02/2025

It was my pleasure to be there for these moments! Mary MillerJordan AndFamily is an inspiration! She will be performing and teaching at the Ohio Equine Affaire, Inc. (Official) !!!!

09/02/2025

Does anybody want to see me do a "Horse trainer reacts to heartland" video?
I've never watched it.

22/01/2025

Every day I see R+ trainers judging other R+ trainers, especially when things don't go well. We MUST stop this. We must stand together, build each other up, support, guide, and have each other's back. I'm so sick of seeing "well I could have...", "if it was me...", "I did that already..." stop and have empathy. Every one of us is doing the best we can with the tools we have, we all grow our toolbox in a different order, we all learn and absorb and see things from different directions. We are all working with different horses.

I've worked in rescue my entire life, and there's one thing I can tell you about EVERY horse I've trained, traditionally, naturally, or with positive reinforcement, "They are all different"!!!! They are all individuals with different timelines, different paths, different goals. We are on their time, not ours. You may know a trick to get this done faster, that may work with some horses, but not all. Some horses need strict, careful R+, without aversive slip ups, some are laid back and tolerant of messy handling. Some horses meet people, learn about R+ and thrive from minute 1, some take years to overcome anxiety, trauma, fear, or frustration. Every horse and human pair is approaching their relationship in their own way and on their own timeline, there is no room for judgement. Only ideas, suggestions, and lots of emotional support.

We also need to remember that behaviors are easy to teach. Anyone with a pocket full of hay pellets can train a behavior (even if we didn't know we were!) I have children, little baby humans, training complex behaviors to a variety of horses. With R- we can teach behaviors easily too, any idiot can force a horse into compliance. That's easy.
Emotions are the hard part. Emotions are the part that takes time. They take whatever time the horse requires - some will come around fast, some may never fully come around, always holding on to some of their baggage. Emotions can't be forced, you can shut a horse down with force, you can break them and get behavioral compliance with force. But you can't get an open, willing, trusting partnership with force. This needs to be given by the horse to us, by their own willingness to let us in. We need to EARN the right emotions. Emotions have their own timeline, no two horses can be compared.

Another thing is the judgement calls of when is it ok to use force/R-/punishment? These are JUDGEMENT calls, we can't judge this when we aren't in the moment. There are times I've used force or allowed professionals to do things to my horses I never thought I'd permit, in the name of an emergency. Some of them I regret and beat myself up for often, some of them I understand, accept, and have learned from. There are times all of us are going to be pushed to go outside of our ethical comfort zone because life and emergencies happen.

Outside of the moment we might think "why didn't you just...", but that takes an outside perspective, in the moment we look at what's in front of us and make the best decision we can. With time to research, time to talk to other professionals, time to study our options, we might make different decisions, but back against a wall, we do the best we can. We must change the culture of attacking people when this happens. We need to empathize, "oh man, I get why you thought that would help, I tried that before to, but you know what I learned I might try in the future?" We all need to keep learning and be open to it - but judgmental attacks aren't teaching, guiding, or supporting anyone.

Every one of us in the R+ community are fighting an overwhelming waterfall of cultural expectations and judgements, we do not need to be adding that to each other.

21/01/2025

I said goodbye to Swagger this morning.
Here's my prayer for Swagger:

𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒
𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠
𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒
𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑏𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒

𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢
𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒

𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑦 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦

Swagger left my care this morning and I hope he brings love and gentleness where ever he goes. He carries a part of my heart with him and I hope this love is spread throughout all the world.



I want to thank everyone who has reached out. Your kindness and support have been amazing. I will be mostly off social media for a while, so if you need to contact me, you can email or message me.
Thank you everyone who has supported me and Swagger!!! You are all amazing and I cherish your friendships!

21/01/2025

Protect Swagger's Home - Urge Heart of Phoenix to Do Better

18/01/2025

SWAGGER’S GOODBYE
I have very sad news, the rescue that I got Swagger from is taking him back and taking his training in another direction. I am heartbroken. This is something I have been trying to avoid for the last two months. As you can imagine, the stress and sorrow from this news has been overwhelming.

I’m grieving because I had planned on adopting Swagger and doing all his training, and as you can imagine, through 20 months of building trust with him through gentle training, I have developed a bond with him. And now that he trusts and feels safe with me, it just makes the pain even deeper that he’s being taken away right in the midst of this beautiful journey together.

I debated about even posting this update because it may come across that I’m criticizing the rescue group. But because I have so many people on social media that have followed Swagger’s progress, and many that have supported us financially and emotionally through his long journey, I do owe those followers an explanation as to why I won’t have him any longer.

How can I not not post about Swagger leaving? So many of you gave money and encouragement, that made you part of the “Swagger” team. I truly could not have done it without your support. So it would be grossly unfair for me to just go silent and merely say Swagger is gone without any explanation.

I can only reiterate: I’m not posting this to bad-mouth Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue; again they do amazing work and I wish them nothing but the best. Which makes this so much harder to write, because I merely want to give the facts as to why this is happening.

If you do reach out to the Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue, please be kind. They do amazing things for horses and don’t deserve any negativity. I have wanted Swagger’s training to be beautiful and gentle and I want everything associated with him to be the same.

I can’t stress enough that this is not a post to villainize the rescue. I am beyond grateful for the additional time to make progress with Swagger, as I only recently learned that the rescue usually only allows 6 months to hit the training milestones.

Both me and Heart of Phoenix want only the best for Swagger, this is just a matter of training differences and a differing opinion of how much time is needed for the process to be a healthy one.

And so I want to stress the facts about my foster relationship with with Heart of Phoenix:

The reason given by the rescue as to why they are taking Swagger back is because “I didn’t hit training milestones”, which I was never given at the beginning of Swagger’s training. I did sign a foster contract, but at no time was there ever a time limit given for me to do his training.

The rescue does not pay for anything to do with Swagger. I pay for his board and feed and supplements and enrichment and training with my own money. I have spent $15,000 in the 20 months I have had him, for which I am not compensated by Heart of Phoenix.

I have spent well over 200 hours training him, not counting his care.

Many have suggested taking legal action, claiming that I’d have a strong case of lawful possession. But I do want to maintain a good relationship with Heart of Phoenix – which is why when they contacted me to say they were taking him back, I offered to adopt or buy Swagger. That way he finds a home, which is the whole purpose of an equine rescue. And I could continue training him and giving him the trust and safety that I believe he needs to thrive. But that request was denied.

And I want to mention that I have been compliant with their wishes – maybe not as compliant as they’d like, as I’m sure they weren’t happy that I, and others on my team, begged them to let me keep Swagger. And despite their refusal, I am not seeking legal action or resorting to threats in order to maintain the relationship with the rescue. Nor is this post an attack on “Heart of Phoenix”. I want to be professional about this, even though I’m hurting.

… So next week, they will take him away from me and I won’t do anything to stop them.

Since the beginning of Swagger’s journey, I have documented and shared our journey with raw openness – I wanted my followers to see the good AND the bad. I have shared his progress and my mistakes.

I have shared both fun cute moments and times when Swagger was very scared. I wanted to share my journey with other horse lovers in hopes that it would encourage them. I wanted it to be real. It is possible that one of the drawbacks of showing this kind of training progression is that there are many who didn’t agree with me and my methods. They didn’t understand my heart and how I wanted my relationship with Swagger to reflect a beautiful trust built on language and connection. There are those who voiced their comments publicly and those who have contacted Heart of Phoenix to complain. It is sad that this kind of openness gets punished.

To be able to adopt Swagger, the rescue said that he would need to have his hooves trimmed, teeth floated, vaccinations done, be able to be loaded in a trailer, and get the freeze brand. I was just 2-3 weeks away from being able to get all of that done.

I can file down Swagger’s front hooves and have managed his back hooves so they don’t get too long. I can halter him and do needle injections and am just a few weeks away from being able to do sedation, vaccinations, teeth, and full hoof trim, but the rescue is unwilling to grant more time than they already have.

Swagger is a very unique horse with a huge amount of fear of people and anxiety. This makes him different from most domestic horses and many wild horses.

I did accidentally break one rule in the contract pertaining to giving pharmaceutical medications (fully vet approved and prescribed) (more on that in future posts). I didn’t know that was in the contract that I signed 2 years ago.

Heart of Phoenix did offer for other horse trainers to help with Swagger, which would have meant using negative reinforcement training – which I, in good conscience, couldn’t do with Swagger; only because that was not the path I wanted to take with this horse. And we were making progress! He was learning so many things! We have learned from each other and were building exponentially on the behaviors we had.

He puts his hoof on the hoof stand completely at liberty and lets me file his hooves down! It’s amazing! He tries so hard for me! I can stick a needle in his neck for an injection completely at liberty!

He can be loaded into a trailer.

He has horse friends over the fence that he plays with every day (I have tons of footage of this).

My vet and farrier approve of his progress. The boarding barn he is at approves of his training and care.

Swagger is safe and happy and healthy and I desire to give him a forever home and see just how far we can go together.

Yesterday I attempted to have the vet and farrier at the barn to do full sedation to allow us to complete Swagger’s care (teeth, feet, vaccinations, etc), but, even though he was ready and calm earlier in the week, the cold wind made him extra spooky and we weren’t able to do it yesterday. With a few more weeks, I believe that could have been achieved with very low stress and no danger to Swagger or humans. I was trying to get this done to show how close Swagger was to completing all their training goals. I was doing this to try to show that I could meet the criteria to adopt Swagger.

I know that this post will not get me Swagger back. I’m sickened to lose him. I do not want to say goodbye next week. I do not want to put him in that trailer, knowing I will likely never see him again. My journey with Swagger is over.

Swagger is so sweet and has a beautiful soul, and I pray that his next home is a safe and loving one. He deserves only the best.

15/01/2025

First clinic of 2025 is booked!
New Hampshire, August 22-24.
Hosted by Gaited Horses of New England.

GHNE will host nationally renowned Gaited Horse Clinician, Ivy Starnes, this August 22 – 24. The clinic will be limited to 8 horses and rider teams to allow ample, individual attention to each horse and rider team. Each day, the clinic will begin with a one-hour classroom session with videos. Each...