How can it be a good thing when you ask your horse to do something and they say ‘no’? This resistance can be anything from a lack of response to your cue right up to behaviours such as bolting, rearing and kicking. And that’s always a bad thing, right? Well, actually, it can be safer, […]
Why Your Horse Saying ‘No’ is a GOOD Thing Read More »
Behind-the-scenes view of how we train our horses when we’re out hacking and dealing with real-world scenarios. All of our training is done using positive reinforcement, or clicker training. We aim to keep the horses feeling good and enjoying the things we do with them. Both horse and human need to happy about the exercise
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Taking Freckles cross-country for the first time, I wanted it to be an experience he enjoyed and that boosted his confidence and our relationship. It can be so easy to overface our horse or expect too much of them and end up in a bit of a battle. My approach is always to take it
Making XC Jumping a Positive Experience for My Horse Read More »
Trick training is a great way to have fun with your horse, build your communication and practice your training skills in a no-pressure way. This video gives you a quick overview of the steps I use to clicker train horses to play fetch. It’s simple, fun and always makes me smile – enjoy 🙂 For
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Gymnastic Groundwork Series Part 6 This final instalment in this series is all about lunging using my Around a Round Pen technique sometimes called the Reverse Round Pen. To demonstrate this, I’m working with my QH Freckles. Lunging is a great way to give your horse more space to move and to teach him how
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Gymnastic Groundwork Series Part 5 Teaching your horse to stand on different surfaces builds their awareness of foot placement is a great way to improve body awareness and confidence. Using soft mats and surfaces means that your horse has to use their little stabilising muscles and you can really see their body working to stay
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Gymnastic Groundwork Series Part 4 Poles are a great way to build your horse’s body awareness and confidence. For many horses, this starts with despooking exercises to ensure that they’re not anxious about the poles or afraid of stepping over or touching them with their feet. You can see some of the exercises I’ve done
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Gymnastic Groundwork Demo Series Part 3 Lateral exercises where your horse is going sideways as well as forwards are really useful to build your horse’s suppleness, strength and straightness, which is why they’ve been used for thousands of years in both in-hand training and ridden work! But, how do we teach them using positive reinforcement?
Horse In-Hand Work: Teaching Lateral Movements Read More »
Teaching your horse to move different body parts independently is important for body awareness, communication, finding balance and as the foundation for lateral movements such as shoulder-in or haunches-in. Basically, you’re teaching your horse to isolate different body parts and put it on cue so that you can ask for: Lateral Flexions – where your
Horse In-Hand Work: Start Teaching Isolations Read More »
How do horses communicate their preferences or willingness? How do we make sure we’re listening and respecting them? Consent comes down to emotions as it’s about how your horse feels about certain situations. Giving horses a voice and enabling them to communicate with us is a key part of building a great relationship and connecting
Horse Training: Using Start Buttons and Consent Cues Read More »
Listening to your horse means being able to read what he’s saying through his body language. Horses express fear, joy, confidence, anxiety, confusion and frustration through movements and actions – when you watch for these behavioural signs and respond to them, you start to open up the conversation between you and your horse. Even though
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This video shows you how to calmly and simply start liberty training with your horse… and then how to build progressively to exercises like liberty lunging, in-hand lateral work, horse agility and freejumping! Liberty is simply working your horse loose, without ropes or reins. We want our horses to choose to work with us at
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