Alchemy Dressage

03/06/2026

Update on my weeks 🥰 please message for details and other options!

🌟 Monday 8th June - Sunday 14th June 🌟

🧡 Thursday 11th June 🧡

🤎 3pm

💛 4pm

🧡 Saturday 13th June 🧡

🤎 2pm

02/06/2026

"When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.

As you see him, you will see yourself.

As you treat him, you will treat yourself.

As you think of him, you will think of yourself.

Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.

Everything you teach you are learning...

Teach only Love - for that is what you are."

~ A Course In Miracles -

29/05/2026

What does it take to get along with a horse?

I know a lot of horse people who are exceptional riders, or good at getting horses to DO something - even spectacular things that require a lot of talent and education.

But what does it take to get ALONG with a horse?

Our experience with horses is very reflective of our inner being. Many of us seek horses for comfort in a tumultous world, or control where we lack it, maybe developing them to fill a desire to BECOME something. Most of us probably are unaware of just how much we are using them to fill emotional voids and therefore finding (or not noticing) our relationships with them incomplete, devoid of deeper meaning. We can maybe get horses to like us cheaply - they like coming to feed but don't stick with us when the going gets hard. Or we can make them do stuff if there is a level of threat, but not without. We struggle to find that middle ground.

To truly GET ALONG with horses is not to be permissive or dominating. That conversation misses the boat entirely - it's far, far deeper than that.

--It means having the ability to look conflict in the face without wanting to cover it up, run, blame someone else, make a big fuss, comfort ourself, and so on. To get along with horses, there will be times of conflict between us - and if this is uncomfortable, we will struggle to guide the horse or really hear what is needed. We don't need to seek conflict - there is no need to be contentious, but there will be times this comes up, and we need to be able to stay emotionally stable to deal with it.

--It means the ability to hear no without falling apart, one way or another. Some people take no as a personal affront - either becoming angry at the insult, or feeling like they've failed. A reason for self pity. And others take a no as a reason to lose all backbone, to melt into a passive and wishy wet blanket that inevitably becomes an obstacle to the horse and not a support. No wonder horses continue to evade, bite, and say no to this person - this person is, in fact, in the way.

--It means the ability to maintain self discipline and focus without drilling the horse - to push oneself to ride better, focus more, continue honing their skill, without making it the horse's problem. Someone who is hard on themselves without punishing themselves - someone who can separate what is rider error from causing the horse to suffer for it, drilling over and over until they get it right.

To get along with horses requires self reflection - a steely dedication to looking at ourselves honestly without self deprication or blame, without using fluffy and popular language that sounds ethical (but is actually meaningless) to let ourselves off the hook from actually growing.

It is quite difficult, in fact, to get along with horses - it's quite easy to sit next to them, to let them be in our space, to get them to tolerate us or look forward to the perks we bring (but not us), and probably even easier to dominate them. But it is no easy feat to be in the presence of a horse and make them feel better with our presence than without. And if you look around at the struggle we have at getting along with each other, and liking ourselves - it's easy to see why getting along with a being who reflects all this back to us, could be so hard for us to learn to earn PEACE with, not just share space without structure or action.

29/05/2026

This is nice.

28/05/2026

Updated times for next week 🥰 the only Monday I'll have availability for the foreseeable future.

Getting ahead of the game with life getting busier - you know the drill 😘

🖤 Monday 1st June 🖤

💙 1pm

🩶 2pm

💙 3pm

🖤 Thursday 4th June 🖤

💙 1pm

🩶 2pm

💙 3pm

28/05/2026

I choose willingful participation. 🐴

I used to stand at the bottom of a hill and watch a herd of horses choose to come to work.
The gate was open. They could have gone anywhere.
They never did.

Most people come to positive reinforcement because they want a kinder way to train. That's a valid starting point. But having worked with horses through this lens for many years, I've come to understand that what we're really doing is something far more profound than just swapping out pressure for cookies. 🍪

It starts in the brain. 🧠

Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist who spent decades mapping the emotional architecture of mammals, identified what he called the seeking system — a dopamine-driven circuit that compels animals toward curiosity, exploration, and engagement with their environment. This isn't a reward system in the simple sense. It's an anticipation system. It fires not when the animal gets the reward, but in the pursuit of it — in that moment of leaning forward into possibility.

When we work with positive reinforcement, we are directly activating this system. The horse isn't just learning that a click or a "good" means food. It's entering a brain state characterised by engagement, curiosity, and a genuine desire to interact and problem-solve. And here's what matters practically — a horse in that state is neurologically primed to learn. Attention sharpens. Behavioural flexibility increases. The horse begins to offer, to try, to search.
That's a very different animal to train than one operating from avoidance.

✨ But what I find most fulfilling to witness is what happens over time.

When the seeking system is activated consistently — session after session, week after week — something starts to shift that goes beyond the training itself. The horse begins to associate you with that state. You become the cue for curiosity. You become the person who makes interesting things happen. And slowly, without relying primarily on aversion, coercion or escape from discomfort, a relationship builds that is genuinely oriented toward you — not because the horse has been conditioned into compliance, but because being with you has reliably felt good in the deepest neurological sense.

And then something else happens that I think is underappreciated in training conversations.

The horse that is allowed to learn — really learn, through active seeking and problem solving — begins to develop confidence in its own competence. They know things. They can do things. There's a quality you see in these horses that I can only describe as self-assurance in their work. They carry themselves differently. They engage differently. Dare I say, they become proud. 🌟 And the work itself starts to become meaningful to them, separate from the food reward that initially drove the seeking.

This is important, because it means the food is a tool, not the destination. The destination is a horse that finds genuine satisfaction in the process of working with you — in the thinking, the trying, the succeeding. ❤️

💡 This is why I believe the emotional origin point of training matters so much.

There are moments in horsemanship where pressure is appropriate and necessary — I'm not dismissing that. But relying on it as the primary emotional engine of training has a cumulative cost. It shapes not just behaviour but the animal's entire orientation toward work and toward people. When you layer positive reinforcement alongside — when the seeking system is consistently activated — you change the entire emotional texture of the relationship. They become invested in it.

When we build from the seeking system — from curiosity, from anticipation, from the genuine pleasure of learning — we build something that doesn't require maintenance through pressure. The horse isn't looking for a way out. It's looking for a way in.

That, for me, is the whole point.

💬 What are you noticing in your own horses as you work this way? I'd love to hear what shifts you've seen — in the training, or in the relationship. Drop it in the comments below!