02/11/2026
Our horses are what we make them.
For better and for worse, sometimes through sheer good fortune or absolutely rotten luck.
You buy a well-bred horse? He's still going to go how you ride him.
You buy a well educated horse? He's still going to go how you ride him.
You get regular bodywork done on your horse? He's still going to fall into the same postures and movement patterns in between sessions, because of how you ride him.
You have a breakthrough lesson, or have a great trainer give your horse a tune up? You guessed it, won't take long for the horse to be going just the way you ride him.
If you've read that list in a negative tone, ask yourself why. It doesnt have to be a bad thing.
Our horses will move and respond the way we ask and allow them to move and respond. Their bodies will feel how we lead them to feel when we're working, and one lesson or one massage treatment may create a massive change in our horse overnight, but the sum of our daily efforts influences whether this change is maintained and improved - slowly, steadily, consistently.
We can work to enhance the beneficial, specific impact these various professionals have on our horse, instead of despairing that we are somehow constantly UNDOING their good work and never quite being able to pinpoint why.
We'll learn how our own horse feels when something isn't right, and learn the best way to help them, and where and when to outsource that help. We learn the shape of our horse's body and mind through the time we spend with them, and that has a much more powerful impact long-term than what ANY professional can do in an hour or a weekend, whether you're working for or against what they've tried to achieve for you and your horse.
We can learn positive ways of assisting these professionals in shaping and maintaining our horse's work and feelings about work, and our horses will be working better for us, because of our own efforts, and we can learn to be proud of that as well as always striving to improve and expand our ability.
I think it's beautiful that what we build with our horse is a partnership, that we keep trying for one another. No matter how well bred/educated/conformed either of us are!
I want more of us to start aiming to feel good about how our horse is going between lessons, between saddle fits, between trims, between treatments - because how we ride them can preserve and protect their body and mind and 🌟 we have the power 🌟 to help our horse feel good, even if we aren't an internationally acclaimed trainer or a skilled and qualified practitioner in your favourite therapeutic field,
- and that's pretty special once we stop feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility and start feeling empowered by the potential for our horse to feel a little better every time we touch them 🫶
