HERD Human Equine Relationship Development

23/04/2024

https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/southeast/topic/silvopasture

What’s a silvopasture and what can it do for me? Silvopastures are the integration of trees and forages into a working system on a farm. ‘Silva’ is a Latin term, referring to the trees of a region, while pasture is a parcel of land devoted to livestock grazing. Silvopasture is a form of Agrofo...

09/04/2024

Some physiological and psychological reasons for a horse’s deteriorating performance, and why we might miss some red flags.

09/04/2024

01/04/2024

The horse is often a representation of what humans are missing in their own societies.

Horses have evolved to coexist with one another and be a highly emotive and community minded species, with social interaction a major priority for their success and happiness in life.

They live in the moment, acutely aware of little changes in the environment and pretty much permanently in a state that to humans would be considered “meditative.”

They typically aren’t in much of a rush and prioritize enjoying the slower aspects of life, meandering along and nibbling at forages must of the day, with some running and play, too, but it’s a small margin of their day.

People, on the other hand, have been trained to believe their value is based on productivity.

There is a level of competitiveness with each other over material things that really don’t matter.

We have prioritized work and production to such a standpoint that many of us have become so individualized and estranged from a true community.

Our world is in disarray, with so much of human community living in distress, poverty and emotional lack.

Lack that is created by, you guessed it, humans.

With the implication that you must be productive and “useful” to be deserving of basic needs like food, water and shelter.

We then project that into horses, having this expectation that, despite our choice to get a horse, the horse owes us in return for our care of them.

Care that WE willingly chose to take on.

Care that should be provided as a basic exchange for choosing to have a horse in the first place.

But, no, there’s this mindset that the horse must pay for the “rent” that is us fulfilling their basic needs.

And on days where they can’t accomplish that or are having a bad day, we often feel entitled to forcing it and punishing them for perceived “disobedience.”

But, horses owe us nothing.

And it’s time we learn something from them about becoming more community minded.

Living in the moment.

Enjoying the simple pleasures.

And letting go of having such intense materialistic priorities

Horses owe us nothing and we do them no favours by projecting the pressures of human society onto them.

We shouldn’t be getting animals who are effectively our “dependents” if we aren’t prepared to care for them, regardless of what they give in exchange.

Horses can and will give us a lot, if we let go of the material and competitive lens we see the world through and instead try to live in the moment with them.

30/03/2024

“Urgently looking for a retirement home for a much loved competition horse who will otherwise be PTS as he can’t be ridden but free to a good loving home.” How often do we read similar messages? In fact everyone feels obviously disgusted about the idea of a dog being abandoned or just discarded by his owner, especially if he's maybe old and sick, but the exact same thing is considered perfectly fine instead when it happens with horses. In fact it's simply the normality to see horses being bought and sold many times throughout their life, with people even feeling good and proud about it because "they can go to someone able to better develop their potential" and other similar shameful excuses, again to make something bad appear as good and even commendable. As if it was done just for the horses' interest, because they need another home where to happily spend their old age or where they can find someone using them better in order not to waste their potential...When the reality is just one and one alone: once they cannot be used anymore for the human's goals then they become totally worthless. Why? Simply because they meant nothing since the beginning, simply because they have always been just a sporting tool to use until it works, before replacing it with a new better one. And all of this while the equestrian world keeps speaking of horses being terribly loved like family members, so much loved to be lovingly discarded like trash just for their own benefit....no matter where they may ever end or what may ever happen to them.... So shamefully hypocritical, as always like the whole sick equestrian reality 💔

Picture source unknown

20/03/2024

12 years ago I discovered this lady and her liberty horse program that changed everything for me

17/03/2024

Lessen, Coaching & Rugzakje vullen

Wij lessen inmiddels alweer een poos bij onze instructrice en hebben al zoveel geleerd. Ik ben heel dankbaar voor een hele fijne instructrice die ons ziet en goed aanvoelt. Het is zo belangrijk om les van iemand te hebben waarmee het klikt en je met zijn 3en een team vormt!

Paardrijden is meer dan alleen maar dressuur oefeningen rijden in een bak. Paarden zijn soms zulke spiegels en voelen feilloos aan als je je niet goed voelt, lichamelijk of geestelijk. Ik weet nog heel goed dat vroeger in de paardrijlessen je paard gewoon moest doen wat je vroeg er werd niet gekeken waarom hij het niet deed of waarom je als ruiter iets niet goed kon. De lessen die ik nu krijg zijn met een holistische blik en lijken soms meer op coaching, want alles staat in verbinding met elkaar. Cortado vind de stap moeilijk en gaat snel krabbelen. Inmiddels weet ik dat het vaak vanuit mij komt, zit ik erop met een vol hoofd, hoog in mijn energie en zonder focus of ben ik stijf in mijn onderrug. Dus gaan we niet aan de slag met Cortado maar met mij, hoe confronterend soms ook.

Ik les niet volgens één methode en ik weet ook niet of je volgens 1 bepaalde methode kunt rijden. Lesgeven en paardrijden is maatwerk en per combinatie verschillend wat werkt. Wat mijn instructrice heel mooi uitgelegd heeft, zie het als een rugzakje vullen. Je neemt van alles iets mee en dat stop je in je rugzak, loop je tegen iets aan dan pak je iets uit je rugzak en zo kan je voor alle situaties iets gebruiken.

In het begin moest ik regelmatig een “gekke” oefening doen en dan vroeg zij daarna wat voelde je? Euhm geen idee! Na een paar keer ga je vanzelf bij alles wat je doet opletten en voelen wat er onder je gebeurd en word je zoveel bewuster. Soms is het heel technisch trainen en echt millimeter werk met je houding en hulpen maar zo gaaf om te doen. Waar ik vroeger tijdens het rijden snel afgeleid was en niet in focus kon komen heeft Cortado mij geleerd om in het moment te zijn met volle focus!

Heb jij een fijne instructrice? En wat is een leuke uitspraak van haar waar je veel van geleerd hebt?

Hoofdstel
📷

17/03/2024

Fear -

Before I had my daughter, I rode anything. I was always trying to prove myself as a c**t starter and trying to be just as tough as the guys that did it. After I had my daughter, I became immediately aware that there is a tiny helpless person dependent on me to stay alive. I wouldn’t call what I experienced fear, but an intense realization that my life is no longer just my life- whatever I do affects my family. I couldn’t afford to be tough anymore, I had to be smart.

I can’t afford to get hurt, or my family doesn’t eat. So that means swinging a leg over just anything is a thing of the past. I’ve had every kind of wreck you can think of, and I would say what I experience now isn’t fear of myself getting hurt, but the fear of being unable to care for and feed my family.

I think fear is something most people feel ashamed of, and a lot of big names brush off. While fear can be debilitating, it also can be something that signals us that we need to take care. If you’re on a green horse and you’re a green rider, your fear is absolutely reasonable. If you’re on a safe horse and scared to death, it might be time to get some support and learn some good ways for you to manage that.

If you’re experiencing fear, it’s helpful to look at e situation. Is it warranted? It might be. Your horse might need more training, you might need some too. Fear can be dissipated by developing an appropriate tool set for the situation, or picking appropriate horses to ride for your skill level. It’s never a bad idea to seek the help of a coach, therapist or trusted friend to decide what’s reasonable to be afraid of and what’s not, and further develop your skills.

I don’t feel afraid on the horses that I personally prepared for riding, because I know what to look for to keep myself safe. Would I feel afraid hopping on a tight, out of control or upside down horse I hadn’t prepared? Most likely. And that fear is there to keep me safe, keep me doing good preparation, and keep me and my family cared for.

17/03/2024

My last post got a lot of people asking, how do you teach your horse to tie? There is a lot of bad and flat out dangerous advice on teaching to tie. To head some of that off, it’s essential to look into the building blocks of tying

Before tying, here are some essential skills a horse MUST have. Without these, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

1- the horse must give to pressure.

Pressure is a dirty unpopular word right now, but pressure has a wide variety. Pressure can be getting punched in the face, or being touched by a light hand. Nobody likes being pushed or shoved- Massage techniques use pressure, and they feel wonderful. It’s all in how you present it. This all starts from the first Haltering, teaching horses to yield to pressure in a way that feels so good to them, it is rewarding.

When they are tied, they will need to understand how to yield to this pressure so they can follow the line within the confines it provides without getting hurt.

2- the horse must lead WELL. This means not just wearing a halter and following you, or being drug around. It means knowing what the lead rope means for each individual foot- you can place a foot wherever you want, whenever you want- slow it down, speed it up, stop it, back it up, whatever. When I come across a horse who leads well, I get excited, because this is rare. It’s what so many horses are missing, and it is so important.

3- the horse has to feel safe enough to stand still. If your horse is dancy prancy all the time and nervous, tying is a set up for failure. They need to be in a good frame of mind regularly and feel calm enough to stand still. Groundwork is a great place to start to get this

4- the horse should be forward thinking. If they’re braced up, pull on you and feel like a brick in a halter, they are not going to be reliable to tie safely. They need to learn forward and calm is always the answer to tie safely.

5- don’t hard tie until the horse has the idea of tying started. I like to loop the lead rope around a good post and hold the other end of it so if the horse gets scared or in trouble I can slip just a little slack enough to help them. I don’t tie unsupervised at first, and I set the horse up for success- they should never ever practice pulling back, and they will not learn to tie reliably by becoming freaked out enough to pull backwards. Horses pulling back to “learn about pressure” have been thoroughly unprepared, and horrific damage can happen to their neck and poll. Just don’t.

6- set them up for success. Start out with a buddy in a safe place to tie where they can’t get tangled into anything or in trouble - imagine the worst case scenario and work to eliminate those risks before tying. Don’t leave things they can get caught in within reach, especially their mouths. Don’t tie low enough they can get a foot over the line.
Start for short periods. Turn them back out when they’re calm, even if the first session was two minutes, that’s a success.

Success is built on the foundational pieces being done well day in and day out. You don’t teach a horse to tie by tying them, you teach them to tie by teaching them the little pieces that go into tying, and doing those well.

26/02/2024

🗯️ „Es ist an der Zeit, den Schutz unserer Pferde endlich wirklich ernst zu nehmen. Wir brauchen Richter, die das Fachwissen haben, falsch ausgebildete Pferde zu erkennen und entsprechend zu bewerten, anstatt sich von exaltierten Vorstellungen blenden zu lassen. Die Zeiten der Lippenbekenntnisse und Verharmlosungen sind endgültig vorbei“, mahnt Reiter Revue-Herausgeber Martin Richenhagen in seinem Kommentar zur aktuellen Situation. Er war früher internationaler Dressurrichter und ist Träger des Reiterkreuz in Gold.

🕕 Für ihn ist es an der Zeit, klare Kante zu zeigen und eine offene und konstruktive Auseinandersetzung zum Wohle unserer Pferde zu führen.

👀 Den ganzen Kommentar liest du auf www.reiterrevue.de

26/02/2024

When designing your PP track system, you will want to make sure you keep the horses’ activities in mind when deciding the width of the track. Areas designed for forward movement - leading to a destination - should be more narrow than areas with designed for horses to linger for rolling, camping, water, eating hay, etc.

Photo by

26/02/2024

This is a very very specific meme but this sums up what goes on in my head when people get mad about the idea about legalizing the option to ride bitless across all disciplines 😂

26/02/2024

The horse industry has a very skewed idea of what brings control and safety when it comes to riding horses.

Often times, the belief is that equipment brings control and safety.

That a bridle and bit will stop bad things from happening.

And, yet, there’s thousands of videos of horses bitted to the nines, bolting through all of that harsh equipment and launching their riders.

These videos are laughed and glorified. Riders are made to feel better and more powerful for the dangerous behaviour they can ride through, normalizing it and encouraging it in a way that is so much more insidious and dangerous than anyone promoting bridleless and bitless riding.

The emotional state of the horse is what creates danger.

A stressed, anxious and possibly in pain horse is dangerous and the most prone to running through aids and rocket launching their rider.

And yet, these are the types of horses that are most often having more equipment added in lieu of actually dealing with the cause of their behavioural issues…

The horse in the picture below I’ve ridden bridleless just about everywhere.

On open beaches.

On mountain trails.

Through equestrian neighborhoods.

Through public trail parks.

Over jump courses.

You name it, he has done or probably will do it.

Throughout this, he’s bolted on me exactly 0 times.

And it’s not for lack of ever getting scared but the way he regulates and handles his fear bridleless means that he doesn’t feel the need to escalate.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of videos of fully tacked horses reacting far more dangerously and uncontrollably than he ever had bridleless and yet, it’s often projected onto us that what we’re doing is “dangerous” because of the lack of equipment.

This industry needs to stop projecting their equipment-centric ideas of control onto those who’ve put the work in to have responsiveness without it.

I feel more safe knowing that if my bridle fell off or a rein snapped, I wouldn’t be totally and utterly screwed, on a now careening out of control horse.

I have communication even in the absence of equipment and that makes me feel safe and, frankly, it’s my goal with every horse I have. Some take longer than others, but it’s still a goal.

Safety is created through partnership and relaxation.

If you’re relying on equipment almost entirely for safety, remember that it’s your personal choice based on your ability and choices and it’s not your place to project that perspective on people who’ve given you no reason to feel they’re unsafe other than the fact that they use less equipment than you.

Some people can’t ride their horse in a snaffle without losing control.

That doesn’t mean riders in snaffles are guaranteed to be out of control when they’ve put the work in to create responsive horses.

The same goes for bitless riders.

AND bridleless riders.

Even with equipment, control of a 1000lb animal is mostly an illusion. No matter how harsh the equipment you use is, if they wanted to, they can and will overpower you.

And so, I will always stand by the fact that the safest horse is the calm and relaxed one.

My horse happens to be the most calm and relaxed bridleless and until he gives a reason for people to feel that he is a safety risk because of this, it would be lovely if people who haven’t attempted to successfully create a rideable bridleless horse would stop projecting their fears onto us where it isn’t applicable.

The same goes for bitless, too.

Just because you can’t train a horse to calmly and safely bitless doesn’t mean others can’t.

So, stop projecting and wait for them to become a safety risk that exceeds that of what we already see in bitted horses before we start complaining.

Otherwise, we are all being hypocrites because the industry encourages and glorifies dangerous riding provided it’s with a fully tacked and bitted horse.

Seriously, go look at any equestrian fails compilation and count how many of the horses are bitted versus bitless or bridleless.

Go scroll through tiktok and mark down the dangerous riding you see and come back to me with an itemized list of what tack the most dangerous horses are wearing.

The answer makes it pretty clear that the worry of bitless and bridleless being “dangerous” is a manufactured one that probably comes from people who haven’t and don’t want to make the effort to learn how to do that safely.

26/02/2024

26/02/2024

26/02/2024

Many traditional horse keeping and training practices can result in poor horse welfare. To assist reform and identify novel opportunities to facilitate improvements in horse welfare, this study sou...

26/02/2024

03/02/2024

Still one of my favourite illustration. I will often use a plastic banana to demonstrate those movements and talk about the "banana bend" 🍌 😄

Do you find them helpful...?!

03/02/2024

Boy has there been some DRAMA!

Let me lay out this scenario. If you were in the subway, and someone came down the steps sweaty and out of breath and laid down on the subway floor to "rest" would that be normal? Even if they didn't collapse, they just laid down.... that's someone who is not ok.

Hopefully you would think something was seriously wrong because that's not normal. That is not a place a person of healthy mind and body would choose to rest. I don't need to know the specifics of what happened leading up to that, but I know someone sweaty, laying on the subway floor is not ok, and I would help them. I would talk to them, get them water, and ask them who I could call for them, and if they couldn't respond.... I would call for help!

The same goes for a horse. If a young horse with a saddle on for the first time, in front of a huge crowd, with lights, and speaker systems, lays down recumbent, that is not normal. A prey animal's nervous system would not allow it to do that unless it was way over threshold and giving up it's will to survive.

I am truly disapointed by the number of people who thought that was ok, and that she "did it to herself", "threw a fit", "was being disrespectful", "laid down on her own", "took a rest".

We've been desensitized and lost empathy. Call me a "tree hugger", a "snowflake", that's totally fine and does not bother me in the least. But I just hope that if I didn't have a voice, and was struggling, someone would help me, as opposed to make up reasons to blame me for the situation.

03/02/2024

Ableism vs The Inner Citadel

"When setting out on your journey, do not seek advice from those who never left home" - Rumi

The inner citadel is the place we retreat to in our head, the safe space where we sit in our biases, away from unwanted opinions.

It's the place that shelters us from the storm but coincidentally it's also the place that stops us from further development.

If we abscond into the place in or head when someone challenges our modus operandi, we are not going to grow;

But equally when we have a strong moral compass and we are exposed to people that do not, the inner citadel preserves our morals whilst the storm passes over.

We then have ableism in the context that unless someone is capable of doing a specific task, they cannot pass judgement on other people doing said task because the able people are superior in some way, shape or form.

And what we see in the horse world now is the clash between ableism and the inner citadel -

You do not need to be able to ride a horse to be able to determine that the horse is having a tough time emotionally or physically.

You can cite all the sources on determining pain/conflict behaviours/in appropriate head and neck positions/lameness etc. You quite simply cannot argue a counter point. We have enough evidence.

From an ableistic point of view, if exposing a horse to the level of stress that many horses exhibit at elite competition is the requirement to get 'to the top', I don't want it. I am not prepared to do that to an animal and I am not prepared to learn to do it.

Maybe this is my inner citadel which saves me from the discomfort of trying and failing?

But paradoxically, maybe it's my inner citadel that also sees other people riding their horses in horrible ways that saves me from joining that camp of horsemanship?

And then when we rummage a bit deeper, maybe the people that are out there competing, whilst their horses are hyperflexed and showing overt pain and conflict indicators hide in their inner citadels - this is all they have known, and this is safe, so they can keep doing what they're doing and continue to confirm their own biases.

And maybe I'm being ableistic because I know how to create relaxation and I can see when the relaxation stops... and I do something about it to get the relaxation back.

So when I see someone not training their horse through that lens, I kind of don't care for their opinion.

And if the argument is that to compete a horse at a high level, they will be stressed because of the emotional strain and the physical demands of the competition... and that the horses are ridden in tight reins because competing is stressful... are we not just saying that we suck at training horses?

Because if the horses were *that* well trained and the riders *that* good at training then what we would actually see are relaxed, happy horses, moving in good posture.

But maybe I'm missing the point?

Maybe it's my inner citadel ❤️

03/02/2024

My reputation may shortly become the ‘boring horsewoman’. I mean there are likely other names too, just not fit for public consumption.

This is because so much of what I do is about taking away mystery and illusion and breaking things down into their component parts. To my simple mind this is extremely important and liberating, but it’s not very rock and roll.

What got me thinking about this was a post about the aids for Shoulder-In. In the comments someone posted that the aid for shoulder-in is ‘The outside seat bone’. This could well be true, ON A HORSE WHO ALREADY KNOWS THE AIDS FOR SHOULDER-IN. Apologies for shouting but this is the cause of so many problems for so many horses and people. It’s this kind of comment that gets people feeling like failures, and horses into a confused fankle.

——————

Because what’s being described there is the ‘ideal aid’. The subtle, tiny, non visible aid we can use when the horse knows the exercise, can easily execute it and we can easily ride it. It’s not where either of us begin. However, when we read that the aid for shoulder-in is the outside seat bone and try to use that on a horse that hasn’t been taught the building blocks of this exercise, we both become failures at the first hurdle. I’m backing my youngster currently, and I can use my outside seat bone as much as I like, it’s not going to produce shoulder-in. One day it might, but not now.

We have to actually start where the horse is; keeping in mind (and body) the ideal aid, and offer it first, but understand that our horse needs an explanation concerning all the seperate elements of shoulder-in alongside this.

—————-

At the beginning your horse is going to need you to explain;

- How to change his balance front to back
- Lateral flexion without tension
- Mobility of the shoulders side to side
- The basic code of the legs to step under with the inside hind

These are your broad brush aids, not your fine brush strokes, It’s not forever, but it’s a logical start.

Over time you can also develop his ability and understanding regarding axial rotation of the rib cage, raising the base of his neck, stabilising the inside foreleg and abducting the outside foreleg, sitting more and pushing more with the hind legs.

These things progress over many years giving your horse time to gain strength, mobility, power and poise. Your aids get smaller and smaller and your horse offers more and more. And ultimately you can offer a feeling with your outside seat bone which provokes Shoulder-in. But it’s not where we start, it’s the ideal and end game, not the education along the way.

As I said, this a very dull approach relative to the dream of the outside seat bone, but in my experience it means both horse and rider get to understand the deal.

To note, this photo is a couple of years old now- things are much better now than they were then. That’s just the nature of learning l