Horse Conversations

22/06/2025

Highly recommend to watch.

The photos are quite disturbing to the sheer amount of them.

We see lots of teeth, tongue, gums and blue colors. It's so obvious that these horses are in discomfort.

The tightness of the reins is ridiculous. Especially the curb rein, which has a huge leverage effect on some bridles.. It is not supposed to be so tense at all, and sure not for such a long time.

It is not possible to not see how wrong this all is.

Don't get left behind. Spend 50 minutes of your life seeing this incredible presentation. The FEI Veterinary Committee has seen it. Some of the world's leading sports journalists have seen it. Politicians interested in regulating horse sport have seen it. The equestrian press has seen it and covered it.

Watch it now. And if you have a friend with a tin foil hat who still thinks we're talking about moments in time and a few bad apples, prepare a bucket of popcorn and make them watch it with you.

Link in comments

20/06/2025

Very good questions - sit with it 🙏

Recently, I sat with a University professor managing a small research program involving equine behaviour, welfare and management and several of her masters and PhD candidates to discuss the state of the horse industry as a whole.

It was a rich, layered conversation, one that’s still sitting with me days later.

I’ve always believed that education is the key to change.

That if we could just share evidence-based information, raise awareness, and teach better practices, we could shift the paradigm.

That once people know better, they’ll do better.

But during this conversation, a difficult question circulated: Maybe education alone isn’t enough?

Because the reality is, people don’t always change just because they’ve been given better information. Sometimes, they knowingly ignore what they’ve learned.

Not because they don’t care. But because implementing knowledge is hard.

It requires looking in the mirror and admitting:

“Maybe I was wrong”
“Maybe I missed the signs”
“Maybe there’s a better way and I haven’t been doing it”

That’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable.

So instead of making changes, many people stay stuck in cognitive dissonance. Rather than changing behaviour, the mind often tries to resolve this discomfort by justifying or denying the evidence.

“He’s just being difficult”
“It worked for my last horse”
“This is how we’ve always done it”

And so, despite the abundance of credible information, the suffering continues.
Our industry has deep-rooted problems.

Affording the care horses truly need can be overwhelming. The cost of adequate nutrition, bodywork, appropriate tack, responsible training, and appropriate living environments is high. As we raise standards, we also risk making the sport less accessible, particularly for newcomers. So people compromise. They rationalize. They do what they can afford or what feels easiest or most familiar.

So if education isn't enough … What is?
This question keeps me up at night.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen incredible change through education. In our student community, in our graduates, in our clients and followers on social media, there are countless people who have welcomed the information and implemented it with courage.

They’ve done the hard work. They’ve looked in the mirror. They’ve stepped out of their comfort zones. And they’ve made things better for their horses.

But for those who resist, who know better but don’t do better, what will it take?
Maybe it’s not just education we need.

But where do we start?
Do we start by making space for discomfort and showing people they’re not alone in it?

By highlighting the why, not just the how, because transformation is always rooted in purpose, not pressure?

To those who’ve leaned in: we see you. We’re proud of you.
To those who are still resisting: we’re not giving up on you either.

For now, I don’t have the answers.

But I do know this: Change doesn’t start with perfection. It starts with awareness.
And the willingness to keep asking the hard questions.

18/06/2025

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived humans actually caring about the home they lived in, including all the living beings, besides themselves.

But here on earth, 2025, during an event solely held for human pleasure, the humans call it “drama” when horses are being pulled out of the event for not being healthy and fit enough to compete in a sport so dangerous, it carries serious risks of injury and death.

I call it a tragedy, that again, one horse died, being announced just as a little side note at the end of the article. But I would thank the judges personally for taking the others out, before same could happen to them. It’s not a drama, it’s a sigh, a step in the right direction. They should bring it like finally, judges start to do their jobs properly.

But I guess, because it’s all famous names again, I am the minority.

The critics are right, it’s not just the elite riders. It’s the media, too. And the people supporting them, that keep the mistreatment and harmful mindset in place.

15/06/2025

Love this ❤️ it’s an art we live and so much more than just training. So much more than just theory.

Reward Based Training is simple in theory, but so complex. I think a lot of people experiment with positive reinforcement, but don’t get a thorough education in it and end up criticizing it. Which, to me, proves that it really is an art and has a lot more to it than being a cookie dispenser.

It is not simply click for what you want, give reward and get exactly what you want. In fact we don’t want a robot and also reward our horses when they don’t perform what we want.

We have to see the world the way our horse does, understand their behavior, needs, and environment, then apply positive reinforcement to the individual. And every horse has a different learning history and things they are predisposed to that makes them a unique challenge. Because positive reinforcement is not a method it can be applied in so many different ways and that is the ART. It’s very individual.

Behavior is ever evolving and every click can shape new things. It truly takes timing and skill to train and put behaviors on cue as well as teach concepts that a negative reinforcement trainer would just use pressure for.

That’s why I think a lot of people think clicker training has no “feel” If you’ve built a level of skill as a traditional trainer, it can be hard to step back and go through the foundation process. At first it does feel a bit mechanical because you are a beginner. But don’t you remember learning to ride? Or if you’ve worked with young horses, what’s it’s like to give an untouched horse an education? It’s quite simple and mechanical at first. The feel comes later as you’ve established your language and can play around with things. You have to work a little bit, but the you start to see how nuanced it can become only after you’ve absorbed some of the basics.

There is a distinct rhythm that happens when you’ve mastered timing and precise food delivery. It creates clarity and allows the horse to be confident. The session just flows. And then you learn more and more behaviors and link them together to do exercises just like you would with traditional training.

And then you become hooked, because you see how much is possible ❤️

13/06/2025

In 2022 I wrote in my post to the FEI :

This year we have seen, so far, many unhappy, muzzled, poked, kicked, slapped and even fist hit horses in the name of "sportsmanship".

We have seen a Grand Prix rider who gets disqualified during the white tissue test.

We have seen falls and fails and injury. We even have seen horses go too far.

We ALWAYS see pain faces, worried eyes, flared nostrils and whale eyes. No matter the discipline, too harsh tack and too harsh methods are applied - from young to old.

What kind of rolemodel is this?

We see rollkuhr and hyperflexion - still. We see fake collections and wrong extensions.

This is not sportsmanship and it's by far not horsemanship.

Now, 3 years later more and more scandals have come up.

I will give you a broad summary of media reported mistreatment (meaning they are hundreds of thousands more behind closed barn doors)

The Olympics 2020: The German athlete and her trainer repeatedly hitting the horse Saint Boy she's supposed to jump in the pentathlon. They've been disqualified.

Brazil, 2020: A private video is leaked of olympic rider of Brazil abusing the pony of his daughter. He's been suspended for 3 years. He stated to "have overreacted a little" but having made "a conscious choice for correction"

The US, 2020: The national show jumper is being suspended for 10 years because he as being found guilty for using electric shocking spurs on his horses repeatedly.

New-Zealand, 2020: The olympic rider and trainer is hitting a horse from another rider repeatedly from behind with a branch to cross a water obstacle which the horse is clearly afraid of. Suspension for 4 months.

Slowakia, 2021: The show jumper is being suspended for one year because he used spikes on the inside of his horses boots to encourage leg raise.

Abu Dhabi, 2021: The show jumper has been suspended for 4 years because she repeatedly used spikes on the inside of her horses boots.

Australia, 2021, show jumping competition: The German rider starts hitting his clearly distressed horse Good Luck repeatedly. He got suspended for 4 month with a 4.000$ fine.

Switzerland, 2023: The olympic rider has been found guilty of severe animal abuse on his two horses Castlefield Eclipse and Lord Pepsi and is being suspended for 7 years.

Denmark, 2023: The pony Nørlunds Vincente has been excluded from all future competitions after it was discovered that his tongue has been partly amputated to avoid penalties from sticking out the tongue.

2023, Operation X showcases the immense abuse happening at Helgstrands Stables.

Colombia, 2024: The olympic rider has been found guilty of animal abuse after private videos leaked him hitting and systematically restricting two horses in training with harsh methods. He has been suspended for an undetermined period of time

Canada, 2024: Two dressage rider are being suspended for animal abuse after former employees dare to speak up about it.

UK, 2024: A private video leaked the olympic rider hitting a horse from a trainee with a whip from the ground up to 24 times in one minute. She is being suspended for one year with a (ridiculous) fine.

Australia, 2025: The olympic rider is now suspended after a video leaked him whipping a horse that refuses to go forward and states "it was a rescue mission" showing no empathy, insight or remorse.

Several incidents of blue tongues, barring show jumpers and unalived eventers not included.

This show one thing: the abuse is systematically. The governing bodies are not in the business of preventing - even worse, a whole lot of censuring and hiding is going on and it's increasing.

This is not a joined fight for more horse welfare, it's a desperate act of soothing fragile egos.

There is just no psychological healthy way to talk your way around this.

The sport may go.

12/06/2025

Ah, had these laying around in my files somewhere (and there’s still more 😝)

My coping mechanism when it comes to compassion fatigue about this industry where horses live 15+ years on stacks enduring a tremendous amount of suffering because “looks”, the FEI doing their best censoring proofs and efforts to show up for horses, top level riders still going for rollkuhr and spur abuse, barn managers only caring about profit instead of health and horse owners refusing to learn positive training because it would be too inconvenient to be carrying around treats so they rather fall back on force disguised as “respect”.

So tell me, who’s respecting the horses and their dignity?

09/06/2025

These numbers are what scientists have found in observing horses (up until now)
Yes, they are capable of 17 different face expressions and show around 90 different behaviors - all to communicate.
So when your horse speaks, can you read it?
Learning the Horse Language
is learning to see and to become aware. Everything you want to know about how they are feeling, you can learn to see.
These expressions are well documented and sorted in the Equine Ethogram.
It’s a dry summarisation, listening all the expressions and quite hard to read.
Thats why I translate them into illustrations and fluent videos.
When we want to decipher their expressions we look at their ears, eyes, muscles in the face, jaw, the nostril, lips and the chin.
Together with their head position and overall body tension we can make a complete picture.

We look at the amount of tension and the angles.
Stiff ears for example are a sign of tension. When the ears show the opening to the back or are laying flat in the neck, it’s probable to assume negative emotions.
Pointed ears forward are attention towards a certain trigger - not yet defined. Together with tension in the eyes or mouth, this could be a sign for anxiety. A relaxed face with pointy ears can also be positive excitement!

Floppy ears can be a sign for relaxation. But again, when the rest of the face or body are stiff, with wrinkles above the eyes and tightened nostrils, the expressions rather resembles a pain face.

You can find a complete, detailed conversation about Face Expressions in the Module “Body Language”. Part of the module is a download sheet for homework so you can observe your horse and write down what you notice.


Not sure what your horse is saying?

Share a photo or video and ask your questions in the community!

We are all in the same boat of learning and growing to become the best owners/trainers for our horses.

So, are you joining us in our transformation?

See you inside!