Totally Tack

18/11/2025

Well it was very nearly goodbye Sophie Seymour Equestrian forever today 😳😳 I have just spent the last 4 hours in the most unbelievably stressed state trying to stop a hacker from accessing my entire life!!

My email got hacked, they knew my password, and then from my email this hacker got into EVERYTHING, and started changing my password to everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

Email
Facebook
Instagram
TikTok
Amazon
YouTube
PayPal
Deliveroo
Just eat
Dropbox
Shopp
Even things I haven’t used for years or even think about like Depop and Shein.

And then payment requests started coming out of my bank account. Honestly I’ve never been so stressed!!! I am so careful with things like this I have no idea how I’ve been hacked!

I think the only thing that saved my entire online data from never being retrieved again was that I saw the notifications come though as I was on my phone so I IMMEDIATELY started changing things and stopping payments/freezing my card.

I THINK I have sorted it. I managed to get my Instagram and Facebook back going through Meta Verified. Everything else I’ve spent hours going through two factor authentication to get back. The hacker put something on my emails to forward everything to their own inbox so I managed to find and stop that too. The only thing I can’t change is an email keeps popping up in my Drafts from the hacker, I keep deleting and it keeps coming back up immediately so there’s obviously something set up to do that. Does anyone know how I can stop it?

Genuinely a really terrifying afternoon feeling like my whole identity was being stolen 😭😭 tip to you all - change your passwords regularly!!

12/11/2025

31/10/2025

🇬🇧 We will remember them! 🇬🇧

30/10/2025

Time to stand up and be counted...

24/10/2025

What a horrible person 🤬

Man jailed after horse dies from "total neglect"

A Monmouthshire man has been jailed for 18 weeks after his Skewbald pony suffered a "painful death from total neglect" 🐴⚖️

Anthony Manson, 67, from Tintern, failed to provide the horse with a "suitable environment and diet" and did not protect the animal from "pain, suffering, injury and disease".

Cwmbran Magistrates' Court heard the offence was "so serious because it caused long suffering to the animal and the total neglect caused a painful death".

Manson pleaded guilty to an animal welfare offence committed in October 2023.

He has been disqualified from owning all animals except for dogs for life and must pay £14,067.30 in costs and a surcharge following his release from prison.

The defendant also uses aliases including Tai, Ibrahim Mohammad, Ibrahim Vilafane and Antonio Angel Villafane.

22/08/2025

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

09/08/2025

The Illusion Of Safety 🐴

Safety is often the biggest justification people use for being rough and hard on horses. The idea that if we don’t square up to the horse and put them in their place they will hurt us. Any behaviour we deem undesirable on the ground is fixed by moving the horse’s feet and chasing them out of our space either backwards/sideways/forwards with a stick/rope/flag. I used to train like this, I was constantly driving horses away from me either by pushing their shoulders/quarters or sending them forward with pressure behind them.

I don’t treat horses like this anymore as I have come to realise it isn’t ethical or necessary. I now focus on getting the horse into a trainable state before we start asking questions and then setting them up to succeed so we don’t get into any dramas.

I have since realised that training for compliance and obedience like I used to can actually make horses more unsafe to be around. I’m going to tell you 3 little stories to give you some food for thought.

🐴 Years ago when I was training with strong pressure the horses I worked with would often kick back towards me when they spooked or exploded, I didn’t give it a huge amount of thought beyond “that’s just what horses do”, it didn’t occur to me their instinct was to kick back at me because I was the stressor always driving them away. I used to solve this by always disengaging the quarters and making the horse face me.

I haven’t thought about this much since I started training differently as I very rarely have horses explode like that around me anymore, however I was in the arena with Dan loose one day. I was stood halfway down the long side and he was at the far end of the arena. He spooked and came galloping down towards the gate, I winced and sort of cowered away from him as he was coming past worried he might kick back as he came past me because my brain was still thinking “that’s just what horses do naturally when they’re spooked”. To my surprise, despite him being really upset and stressed, he didn’t continue to the gate, he stopped dead right next to me and waited for me to reward him.

It seems so obvious looking back but this was a big penny drop moment for me. Why on earth would a horse want to kick back at me when they were “fresh” or stressed if they didn’t find my presence aversive?

🐴 I have a client who has a large 2yo, she was having trouble with her being pushy and hard to lead so she sought the help of a horsemanship trainer. He came out and showed her how to use a flag to make the filly “respect” her space, if she got too close she was told to flap the flag hard until she backed off and they did a lot of disengaging the quarters by flapping the flag towards them.

She did her homework diligently but the next week the filly had a spook, span away and then kicked out at her owner. She had never ever kicked at her before. Her owner expressed concerns to the trainer who told her that the filly was “testing her” and to be firmer. The next time she tried the filly got away from her and actually jumped out of the training space with the long lead rope trailing, it took her 20 minutes to be able to get near her to unclip the rope.

This filly didn’t need to learn “respect”, she was learning to navigate the world, finding everything a bit stressful and was now having a scary flag flapped at her by the person she used to feel safe around and couldn’t understand why. We have since done some work together around leading safely and learning to down-regulate before she feels the need to leave the situation and she is now leading quietly out on short walks off the property.

🐴 My last story is about a horse who came to one of my obstacle clinics, she was a large horse who came in with her eyes on stalks dragging her owner all over the place. Her owner said she had done similar obstacles before and the mare was obediently going over them by the end of the session after a lot of rearing and pulling. The horse wouldn’t even entertain standing near the tarpaulin and her owner was confused because in their other clinic the horse had been walking over it with “no issues” by the end.

What had actually happened was the horse had given up and complied but had such a horribly stressful experience they had created a really scary, negative association with the tarp. So on being presented to it again months later all the horse remembered was how scary and horrible it had been. Every time she tried to even get the horse within 10ft of the tarp she would barge very quickly and determinedly through her shoulder and leave without pausing.

I told her to stay well away from the tarp and we did some work with low value food rewards. When I felt she was calm enough I asked the owner to just walk as close to the tarp as she could without the mare trying to leave and feed her there. We finally got her to stand and wait rather than panic and leave. Eventually she took a step forward and we continued to reward until she was stood right in front of the tarp, loose rope, nice and straight and considered sniffing it. After a few more breaks she walked straight on and was happily searching for food on it, completely calm.

The previous training made this horse more reactive and dangerous because instead of thinking she would have time to assess, she assumed heavy pressure was going to be put on her straight away so she was just panicking and trying to leave.

There is a price to pay when we simply train for compliance, we are not benign to the horse in these interactions, the pressure is associated with us. I want my horses to look to me when they feel stressed or worried, not look to get away from me. If your horse is kicking back at you, running away from you or even going to the lengths of jumping out of the training area to get away from you, please re-think what you’re actually training and what kind of associations you’re creating. 🐴

Pictured is Paul getting to grips with the tarpaulin, obviously not the large horse in the story 😅

07/08/2025

06/08/2025

About time it was taken seriously

In an outcome marking one of the most significant sanctions issued by the Fédération Equestre Internationale Tribunal and announced today, a 15-year suspension has been imposed against U.S. dressage rider Cesar Parra for actions violating the principles of horse welfare. Parra has also been fined ...

04/08/2025

Is your horse’s back truly broken…
…or just misunderstood? 🤔

Most cases of kissing spine aren’t a death sentence, they’re a postural SOS.
Your horse isn’t weak, lazy, or resistant.
He’s trying to carry himself the only way he knows how, until you show him another way.

The real cure?
🔄 Retraining how the horse uses his back, not just managing the pain.

Let’s rebuild strength, unlock mobility, and rewire the nervous system.

💬 Have a horse with a KS diagnosis or suspect something’s not right in their movement?
Tell us your story below — or check the link in bio to find out how we help horses like yours every day.

01/08/2025

**warning**

If you're too heavy you should lose weight
None of this 'I ride light' nonsense... you still weigh what you weigh.

I watched my weight for years to make sure I didn't get too heavy. My horses made it quite clear if I was too heavy for them.

Today I've put on my brave pants because equine welfare is important to me.... as is being kind, compassionate, supportive and understanding to my fellow riders. This topic is emotionally charged, but it's a conversation that is necessary and sticking our heads in the sand won't help ourselves or our horses.

🧠 Fat Shaming vs. Equine Welfare: Let's Clear This Up 🐴

In the equestrian world, conversations around rider size can quickly become uncomfortable. But here's the thing: talking about load limits isn’t about fat shaming — it's about equine welfare. There’s a big difference between targeting a person’s body shape and discussing what a horse can physically carry without risking pain, injury, or long-term damage.

📣 Your amount of body fat or how much you weigh does not need to be discussed. In fact, a tall muscular person can weigh more than a shorter person who has higher adipose tissue (bodyfat).
This is not a conversation about anyone’s worth, appearance, or character. It’s about physics and biomechanics (which is measurable and does not change), and the welfare of our horses.

📊 The Research Is Clear
Multiple studies support the 20% rule: horses should carry no more than 20% of their bodyweight, including tack and rider. Beyond this point, horses begin to display observable signs of stress and unsoundness — regardless of how balanced the rider is or how well the saddle fits.

🔬 Key Findings

✅ Clayton (2020) found that even with a balanced rider and appropriate tack, horses showed increased gait asymmetry, higher heart rates, and signs of discomfort when load exceeded 20% of their bodyweight.

✅ Greve & Dyson (2013) observed that exceeding this threshold often led to lameness, saddle slipping, and altered movement patterns, even in well-conditioned horses.

✅ Powell et al. (2008) demonstrated that horses carrying 25–30% of their bodyweight had significant increases in muscle soreness, heart rate, and fatigue compared to those carrying 15–20%.

⚖️ Yes, There Are Other Factors Too
It’s not just about the numbers. Factors like the age of the horse, their back health, fitness level, the type and duration of activity, and rider skill and balance all matter. A fit, skilled, and light rider may impact a horse less than an unbalanced one — but weight is still weight, and the research shows even the best riders cannot eliminate the risk once past the 20% threshold.

🤝 No Room for Bullying
There is absolutely no place for abuse, bullying, or humiliation of riders. Conversations around appropriate rider-horse matching must be sensitive, kind, and thoughtful. It’s essential to create space for honest, supportive discussions without shame.

🐴 But We Must Do More to Protect Our Horses
Our horses can’t speak up when they are struggling. It is our duty to advocate for them, to keep their welfare front and centre, and to ensure they are not placed in situations where physical harm is inevitable.

If you’re unsure whether you're within your horse’s safe load limit, consider:

✅ Weighing yourself and your tack

✅ Knowing your horse’s actual weight (not just guessing)

✅ Speaking with a vet, bodyworker, or qualified saddle fitter

✅ Exploring different breeds or horse types that better match your riding needs

🥰Let’s keep these conversations kind, factual, and horse-centred.
Protecting our horses is not up for debate.