30/05/2025
No Guru. No Gimmicks. Just Layers.
Over the years, I’ve gone from riding horses to unravelling them—layer by layer, like a dirt-covered onion with opinions 🧅🐴. What began as a casual hobby quickly spiralled into a full-blown forensic investigation of everything from behaviour to biomechanics to herd dynamics, with the occasional brief holidays in Overthinkingville (population: me) 🧠⛺. Apparently, once you start paying attention to horses, they return the favour by showing you everything you didn’t know you didn’t know. It’s both magical ✨ and mildly humiliating.
I began, as most do, with the Standard Model of Horsemanship: lead, ride, rug, feed, repeat 🔁. If a horse was “tricky,” there was always a solution—get lessons, bigger bit, fancier gear, lunge them into submission. We called it “training.” I thought that’s how it was done, mostly because that’s what everyone else was doing while nodding confidently 🙄.
Then a horse came along who didn’t just refuse to play along—he tore up the script, lit it on fire, and handed me the ashes 🔥📝. And that’s when the real learning began.
I discovered that horses actually learn things 🤯. Not just learn about things—but learn through things. Wild, right? I’d spent years doing stuff to them, and now I had to figure out how to do stuff with them. I got curious. I got better. I started spotting gaps in their understanding and learned how to build bridges instead of battlegrounds 🌉. I even built a business out of it. Turns out, I’m quite good at helping confused horses make sense of our nonsense.
But then came the mare.
The one who couldn’t learn that she’d be okay. Not just whether she could do the thing—but whether she could cope doing it 💥. Confidence, I learned, isn’t a side-effect of click-and-reward or a byproduct of pressure-release. It’s a whole internal ecosystem. And when that ecosystem is out of balance, no amount of cheerleading or technique will stick. In her case, the cause? Pain. Subtle, sneaky, unseeable. Her body couldn’t do what her brain knew it should, and her failure to gain confidence was the only breadcrumb she left behind 🧩.
By this stage I thought I’d reached the summit 🏔️. Turns out, I was still at base camp, holding a stick and calling it a compass.
And just when I’d stabilised that paradigm shift with a cup of tea and some deep breathing—enter wild horses 🐎🌾.
No saddles. No stables. No five-step plan to connection. Just horses being… horses. Grazing, breathing, moving as one—wired by nature, not rebranded by humans 🌿. And it hit me square in the prefrontal cortex: I’d spent years working with horses without ever really meeting the horse (note: Thank you to Kerry M Thomas ❤ )
It was like discovering your housemate of 20 years has a secret identity, and you never thought to ask what they do on weekends 🕵️♀️. I’d helped horses cope with the lives we gave them—but I never stopped to ask what life they were meant for.
I thought I understood “herd dynamics.” I could talk about alpha mares and hierarchy and "herd bosses" with the best of them—which is to say, confidently and inaccurately 😬. Turns out, a lot of what we call “natural” is just domesticated dysfunction and that's the only horse behaviour we are exposed to so we "think" it is normal 😵💫.
But these wild horses? They were functional. Their instincts were firing like a well-tuned alarm system 🚨. They were dialled in, not spaced out. When I energetically projected my desire to be their friend and guardian and emotional support human, they said, “No thanks. This is our family. This is our life. We already have a system. You are… not part of it.”❌ (True story 😆)
And just like that, the domesticated horse looked different to me 👀. I saw how captivity doesn’t break their instincts—it triggers them. Their brilliance becomes their burden. Because when flight is your superpower, suburbia is a psychological maze full of plastic bags, squeaky gates, and people who believe “groundwork” means walking in a circle until your soul leaves your body 🔄🫠.
But here’s the twist: those same instincts that make horses reactive also make them remarkably adaptive 🧠⚡. Nature didn’t just give them alertness—it gave them learning. Which means the problem isn’t their wiring. It’s whether we honour it.
And just when I thought I had reached a nice, balanced place with all this—along came Tami Elkayam Equine Bodywork.
While I decode behaviour and external expression, Tami dives into the deep tissues and anatomy of the horse and speaks fluent fascia 💬🧬. Where I build communication through behaviour, she builds it through biology. She taught me that tissue talks—and your touch can either soothe it or send it into full-blown DEFCON 1 🚫🖐️. She showed me how to read the horse’s movement, even when they aren’t moving, and how my own sensory system could be trained to listen like fingertips reading braille. [Note: I will admit here that this did involve a lot of Tami putting my hands on horses and asking me if I “Can you feel that?”. And me saying “I think so” while secretly panicking because I felt nothing before finally I felt enough tissue to feel something 😂].
She taught me that every single thing we do—the feed, the feet, the tack, the terrain, the exercise, the thoughts we had at breakfast—all of it feeds into the horse’s nervous system 🔄🧠. It’s a full-body conversation, 24/7, and you’re participating whether you mean to or not.
Tami also reminded me that every time I teach a horse something, I’m asking them to do something nature didn't necessarily create them to do. And that comes with risk. My job isn’t just to teach—it’s to protect the process 🛡️. To recognise when I need to back off, modify, or support. Because safety isn’t just a concept—it’s something a horse feels.
Now, I know some of you might feel overwhelmed by all this. You might think I feel overwhelmed by all this.
I don’t.
Because when you stop needing to know everything, the not-knowing becomes wonder instead of worry ✨. I don’t feel lost—I feel bloody lucky. Lucky to be learning. Lucky to be part of the conversation. Lucky to still be here, peeling back layers with muddy boots and an open mind 🥾🧠.
So yes—I’ll keep learning. I’ll keep listening. I’ll keep calling out red herrings, rabbit holes, and rebranded fairytales that promise magic and deliver mediocrity 🎭. I’ve been blessed by the horses I’ve met, the people I’ve learned from, and the lessons that hit me like a sack of feed when I least expected it 🪣💥.
And I’ll keep sharing it all. The good ideas, the bad ones, and the ones that just need a firm tap with the “this could be better” stick 🔨.
Because the horse deserves better. And we can do better 💛.
And now, a few closing notes for the back row philosophers, bored scrollers, and Facebook comment warriors:
👉 If this resonated, hit the share button. Thoughtful horsemanship isn’t built on silence and side-eyes. It’s built on brave conversations and brains that like a bit of friction 🧠💬.
🚫 Please don’t copy and paste this and pretend it’s yours. I wrote this. With my brain. And my time. Plagiarising me is not the flex you think it is 🚷🖊️.
🙃 I discuss ideas, not people. So if you’re reading this and thinking “Is this about me?”—take a breath. Probably not. But if it feels uncomfortably close to home… well, I’m not a psychic, but I’d take that as a gentle cosmic nudge ✨🫣.
📍 And if you think we shouldn’t critique ideas because they’re linked to people—pull out a map. If you don’t live in North Korea, you are not banned from having public discussions. This is not a gulag. It’s a conversation. Welcome to democracy 🗺️🗣️.
🎻 And finally, to the tone police:
✔️ Yes, I make you think.
✔️ Yes, I’m cheeky.
✔️ Yes, I know my stuff.
❌ No, I’m not writing for everyone.
I’m writing for people who want to do better by their horses and enjoy a laugh along the way 🐎😂. If that’s not you, that’s okay. Scroll on. There’s an entire internet full of other stuff for you to enjoy 🎶🌈.
I’m not your guru. I’m the person who makes you drag your favourite ideas out onto the porch and give them a good whack with a cricket bat 🏏. (Hat tip to Tim Minchin.)
Now go forth—and get curious about your horse. 🐴💡
IMAGE📸: Wild horses in Kosciusko Natural Park rejecting my subliminal messages for me to be their friend. They didn't want a human, they strongly preferred the world they had evolved to thrive in ❤
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