27/11/2023
Our horses life is not their training, their training is not their life. But all of it needs to work seamlessly together.
For the last 12 weeks, 80+ horse people from all around the world have been exploring a deep dive into a group coaching program that explores a fundamental question; āAre you at home with your horses? Are your horses at home with you?ā. In this program Iāve taught intermediate groundwork techniques from first contact to the mounting block. Plus, very deep dives into emotional neuroscience. From the theory we drew direct connections to the practical techniques explored. The insights have surprised us all, myself more than others. The results ranged from controversial blogs on my public page that ended with death threats (truly) to transformational experiences with my students.
One student said to me quietly at the end of a lesson yesterday
āIāve never had such a good year with my horses thanks to youā
Juxtapose that with death threats. You can imagine a itās a confusing time for me. At confusing times I bring it back down to the fundamentals. Whatās really important?
A theme that has come up again and again in this program is a theme that I believe is the final frontier for cutting edge horse training.
Horse care.
Though I can teach you explore care and nurturance within training as a foundation, I speak not about our emotional care of our horsesā¦ but horse keeping, horse care.
Their lifestyle, environment, and the other hours of the day outside of training.
Sometimes I forget to say the obvious. Forgive me. But here are a short list of assumed and fundamental understandings, that are so important to me that I rarely talk or teach them (does a fish know itās wet?)I think they are important to all our horses.
Species appropriate lifestyle
A horse requires forage, friends and freedom. Based on the biology of their gastrointestinal tract, their circulatory and musculoskeletal system, forage needs to be ad-lib, or if fed in meals, not fed with fasts longer than 2 hours until the next forage is dosed. The forage needs to be clean, low in non-structural carbohydrates, and appropriate for non-ruminant livestock (not cow hay)
A horse requires friends. Over a fence line is better than nothing, but itās not a long term success plan. A horse needs other horses, carefully and gradually introduced, and properly matched, so that they can be the social animal that millennia designed them to be.
Horses need freedoms. Freedom from and freedom to. Freedom from pain, fear, discomfort and freedom to, make choices about how to move, when and where to eat, sleep, play. Freedom to design their time and explore according to their wishes.
These things are very important. As an owner and professional whom, like many of you, was at the mercy of public boarding businesses, or ad-hoc private arrangements until only a few months ago, I have experienced the highs and lows of trying to give my horses these above species appropriate non-negotiables without the luxury of having my own place.
Iāve experienced wonderful locations, private and public where me and my horses were given every grace and opportunity to enact sufficient and quality care. And Iāve experienced highly compromised and even dangerous horse keeping situations. Here is what I have learned that I wish to share with you:
Do the best until you know better. When you know better do better.
AND
Do the best YOU CAN. When you CAN do better, do better.
So, if we find ourselves in an less than ideal horse keeping scenario, become radically honest about that. And understand that you are on borrowed time. Consolidate and stabilize your horse, and look for an alternative. Meanwhile, communicate and request, try and exhaust all possible options at your fingertips to improve things. Ask for additional turn out. Ask for more hay, or ask if you can buy more hay. Ask for cleaner water, better fences.
Heck, I once made my own arena at a public boarding facility out of a disused paddock. I asked permission. I spray painted the tree stumps yellow so I could avoid lameing my horse on them, and spent an entire Sunday dragging a pallet across the old earth to Harrow it. Just so my horse had a better place to train with me.
This last year, after a long and rather arduous journey, I found a small, perfect, affordable little farm in probably one of the last pockets of countryside in Western Europe where horse keeping is not a financially exorbitant exercise. It has consumed every waking moment of my life the last 12 months to move the horses across country, into the farm, and invest in equine infrastructure from scratch to keep them here in a really good way. I see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Despite heat waves and hurricanes, my horses are well in a mixture of modern and traditional environment set up, with ad-lib hay, shelters and more on the way to improve their quality of life
Be resourceful. Ask for what you want but be prepared to get a No. Be prepared to lose friends, or contacts, in your relentless pursuit of giving better for your horses. Because often it is just human social constructs which stops horses living better lives. And sometimes to give them better, you have to break social rules, or reform them if you can.
And please, if your training is being used as a compensation tool to make up for inadequacies in horse keeping, do that with skill and awareness. But know that it is a potentially inappropriate long term strategy and youāre on borrowed time. Keep your horse healthy, and dream of a day when training is about abundance for your horse, not basic needs or management
