Animals First Equestrian

16/04/2025

It is with great sadness and regret that British Showjumping confirm Chris Moyce passed away in hospital on 15 April following a fall in the warm-up area on the 4 April while competing at Bury Farm Equestrian Centre, Slapton, Buckinghamshire.

A well-respected producer of showjumpers for many years, including Pjort, who went on to international success with Geoff Luckett whilst still in his ownership, Chris, of Canterbury, Kent, will be much missed and mourned by the showjumping community.

“Chris passed away peacefully without regaining consciousness,” said close friend and fellow showjumper Heidi Luck. “On behalf of [his partner] Mark and the rest of Chris’s family, we would like to say Chris loved being a showjumper and it gives us some small comfort that he spent his last day doing his most favourite thing in the world. Mark and the family would like to thank everyone for all their support during this difficult time.”

Iain Graham, Chief Executive of British Showjumping, said: “Chris supported showjumping in many ways and was greatly respected by officials, staff and fellow competitors. He was always encouraging to those starting off in the sport and gave a lot of his time in helping British Showjumping activities in his area.”

All at British Showjumping would like to extend our thoughts and condolences to his family and friends.

12/04/2025

10/04/2025

Horses don’t speak human. They don't read minds. But - they DO read YOU.

They respond to your body language, your tone of voice, your muscle tension... even your breathing patterns and heart rate. Studies show that horses can synchronize their heartbeats and breath with yours, that they can smell your hormones, and feel every breath you take and muscle twitch you make.
That’s not magic - it’s biology, psychology, and survival instinct. It's not fluffy, or 'woo' - it's very REAL science.

You can’t fake your way through it. You could be smiling on the outside, but if your muscles are tight and your breathing is shallow, a horse knows. You could speak softly, but if you’re anxious underneath, they feel it. That’s why your vibe and “energy” matters - not because it’s spiritual, but because it’s SENSORY. Horses feel the truth of who you are in any given moment.

So if a horse is anxious with you, reactive, or seems withdrawn… ask yourself: What am I bringing into this space? You might be surprised how powerful it is when you start looking inward instead of blaming the horse. I've found that being a horse trainer in any context - whether you're a professional, or just a horse owner working with your horse at home - success is not about dominating or “fixing” the horse - it’s actually about regulating yourself.
Because when you show up calm, clear, and connected, the horse meets you there.

09/04/2025

FEARING THE EMOTIONS OF THE HORSE
(Or: “He’s Just So Sensitive”—Says the Human Who Can’t Cope With Emotions, Theirs or His)

Look at this horse.
Go on.
Soak it in.

Majestic.
Explosive.
A four-legged emotional TED Talk 🎤🐎

Head high.
Eyes wide.
Nostrils flaring like twin cannons of “I’M NOT OKAY.” 🔥

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
At least… until you're holding the lead rope.
Then it’s suddenly less “freedom of expression” and more
“I didn’t sign up to die in trackpants near the float.” 😬

You see, humans say they love horses.
And we do.
We love the idea of horses.
The curated, emotionally-muted, Instagram-filtered kind.
The kind with a heart-shaped star and a head tilt that whispers,
"I’m here to heal you, Karen." ✨

But real horses have the audacity to feel things.
In real time.
Loudly.
And physically.

And that’s when we panic.

Because it turns out most of us don’t fear horses—
We fear our horse having emotions near us 😱

Which is awkward.
Because horses are horses, not yoga instructors.
They don’t sit in stillness and “breathe through their concerns.”
They bolt.
They snort.
They express.
They react with their whole body, which feels less poetic when you’re standing next to a ballistic missile on hooves 💣

And we then label them “sensitive.”
As if it’s a personality flaw.
As if the goal is to transform a thousand pounds of flight animal
into a scented candle 🕯️

Now here’s where it gets delightfully ironic:

We call ourselves empathetic.
“Oh, I’m just so in tune with my horse’s feelings,”
we say, right before we try to crush those feelings
under a giant weighted blanket of avoidance 🛑

We say we don’t want to “trigger” the horse.
Which really means we don’t want to deal with the horse being triggered.
Because when they feel big feelings, we feel big feelings,
and suddenly we’re both spiralling like a bad date at a vegan cooking class—after admitting you love steak 🥩

So we try to switch off the horse.
With gadgets.
With groundwork.
With supplements.
With a small army of professionals who say things like,
“He needs to feel seen to be connected,”
or
“He’s remembering trauma from when he was a foal and it rained once.” ☔

We spend years diagnosing the horse
like an undergrad psych student at a family reunion 🧠

We treat their fear like a bug in the system—
Instead of what it is:
the system working as designed.

And when they do get emotional—
When they tell us clearly and honestly that they’re confused, or scared, or uncertain—
we get annoyed.

“Stop it.”
“Settle down.”
“Don’t be silly.”
The equine equivalent of telling your sobbing friend to “calm down” while handing them a chamomile tea and walking away slowly 🫖

But here's the twist in the comedy:
It’s the fear in us—of their emotions—that creates most of the chaos.
Our flinching, our overcorrection,
our nervous energy humming like a power line in a thunderstorm ⚡
that turns a horse’s flicker of doubt into a full-blown existential meltdown.

There’s a saying—
Fear is the mother of the event,
and humans? We’re excellent midwives 👶💥

So, what actually fixes this?

Not detachment.
Not sedation.
Not pretending your horse is a misunderstood therapist with hooves and childhood trauma 🛋️🐴

What fixes this is competence.
Skill.
The quiet confidence that comes from knowing what to do when your horse feels something.

You stop fearing their emotions when you know you can help them through it.

Because fear loses its teeth when you know what you’re doing.
When you can hold space and lead the way.
When you’ve got the tools to say,
“Hey buddy, I see you—and I’ve got you.” 🧰

That’s when you stop white-knuckling the halter clip like it’s a hand gr***de.
That’s when their snort becomes information, not a trigger for a hypertensive crisis.
And that’s when both of you can start breathing again.

To work with horses is not to remove emotion,
but to recognise it.
Respond to it.
And respect it 🙏

You don’t need to turn your horse into the Dalai Lama with a forelock.
You just need to stop acting like their emotions are a breach of contract.

Because when your horse reacts, they’re not being difficult.
They’re not being disrespectful.
They’re not trying to ruin your day or your carefully choreographed liberty session 🎬

They’re giving you feedback.
And if you actually want to be empathetic—
Real, adult empathy,
not “I bought a rose quartz necklace from a saddle shop” empathy 💎
then you’ve got to let them feel.

Otherwise, you don’t have a relationship.
You have a hostage situation.

So, next time your horse gets a little “emotional”...
Take a breath.
Loosen the reins.
And stop trying to spiritually euthanise them into calmness.

Because that’s not a horse.
That’s a malfunctioning lawn ornament 🌱

And you, my friend, didn’t get into this for lawn ornaments.

You got into this for truth.
And movement.
And connection 🐎❤️

And horses, with all their feelings, give you all of it.
No charge.
No filter.
No apologies.

And if you can stop fearing that—
If you can build the skills to support it—
That’s when the real magic starts.
Not the fairy kind.
The earned kind.
The grounded, gritty, glorious kind ✨

IMAGE📸: Incredible photography by Lynn Jenkin

➡️If this resonated, challenged, or mildly offended you—in a useful way—please share it properly by hitting the share button. Don’t be a content kleptomaniac and copy & paste it to pass it off as your own...that is super uncool😎

09/04/2025

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09/04/2025

If there’s one thing I wish more people understood about horses, it’s this: They’re not being difficult. Most of what they're doing is reflective of YOU.

They are giving you a RESPONSE. Not out of defiance. Not out of malice. But because they are wired - biologically, psychologically, instinctively - to respond to the world around them for survival.

So when you step into their space frustrated, disconnected, anxious, or unclear - they feel that. And they respond accordingly.

I see two things all the time…

• A spooky horse is blamed for being naughty, but the rider is nervous, stiff, and barely breathing.
• A horse is labeled stubborn because he doesn’t respond to a cue - but the cue was unclear, poorly communicated - and then the horse is punished for being lazy and unresponsive.

In both cases, the horse isn’t the problem. The human involved, however, is.

There’s a lot of incompetence in the horse world - but instead of accountability, we blame the horse.
We slap on harsher bits, louder aids, more aggressive corrections.We label them bad, lazy, rude, or stubborn… when really, they’re just confused, frightened, or overwhelmed.

Horses cannot be 'bad', they are just horses. People are either bad handlers, riders, or trainers. This seems to be a truth rarely spoken or acknowledged.

Horses literally can't manipulate. They, very simply, reflect what we bring to the conversation.

And that’s the truth people don’t like to talk about:
If your horse isn’t responding well, it might not be about them - it's actually in most cases about you.

So when something feels off in a session, pause and ask yourself:

Am I breathing deeply and feeling compassionate and optimistic?
Am I calm and grounded in my body?
Am I present - or is my mind somewhere else?
Am I feeling scared, under pressure, or frustrated?

✨ Self-awareness is the MOST underrated skill in horsemanship. The more honest we become about what we bring into the space, the more compassionate and connected we become as partners. ✨

Because it’s never about control. It’s about connection.
And that connection? It always starts with you.

06/04/2025

Enjoy every moment, even the messy ones🖤

04/04/2025

31/03/2025

You will never have the perfect ride.

There will always be something to improve, something to fix, something that didn’t go quite right. But that’s the beauty of riding—it’s a lifelong journey, not a destination.

The best riders aren’t the ones chasing perfection; they are the ones who find joy in the process, who embrace the lessons, and who never stop striving to be better for their horse.

28/03/2025

‘Going round and round in circles won’t keep any horses sound and healthy – in mind or body’... read more via link below

20/03/2025

Saw this excercise today on Facebook and I can say it’s a great way to get your horses swinging through all parts of their body. Give it a go and let me know how it goes for you. 😉
Can’t remember the page name to give credit.

19/03/2025

Tails tell a story

I thought I would add a little more in

Often tails are forgotten when we look at the horse we may pull them, or use them as an access point for other parts of the horse but often tails and how they sit in line with the rest of the body can indicate other things which may be happening

Anatomy

The tailbones are called the COCCYGEAL and on average there are 15-18 bones which begin at the end of the sacral bone, the first two are located internally and often the little triangle above the tail will indicate where these are or by moving the tail up and down you can usually feel where the sacrum begins as this is not as mobile as the tailbones
The tail can move up and down and side to side, it has muscles which can help with posture (slow twitch) and movement (fast twitch).
Even though there is no spinal cord here it still contains many nerves and also many soft tissue connections which reach further forward along the horse
Tails are great for communication we can tell alot by the tails movement and not just when riding, fly swatting and balance
If we look at the connection between the big ligaments that are effective between the tail and sacroiliac joints then we often find restriction in either will have an effect on the other and also a more global effect

A tail should feel like there is some resistance then relax when we work on it a bit like goldilocks and the three bears it should not feel to rigid nor to relaxed it should be just right 😁

I think of the tail as a rudder of the ship its used for balance, can indicate how your horse is feeling and we often only think of diagonals with a compensation pattern a straight line from right to left or vice versa when often when we look its usually a zig zag pattern as the horse tries to find a more normal pattern throughout the body sort of trying to right itself at each junction and more often than not if we have a tail off to one side the zig zag pattern of compensation will end up with the head favouring the same side that the tail is sat

Tail off to one side

Often this usually happens way before your therapist comes to work with your horse and its already a deep established pattern throughout your horses body, remember the tail and sacrum are interlinked so usually I come across this if the horse has had some strain around the pelvic area, maybe the horse had a slip or a fall as a youngster and that is why it is so hard to correct it as its usually been a long standing issue and a pattern is ingrained into the body, it's now the horses normal crooked tails are still not well documented as to the whys
So it's important if you see your youngster slip in the field to get it checked, often the bony landmarks hit the ground and you can see its all connected and mostly what I see is the Tuber Coxae that is most affected is the nearside and most tails I see are always favouring to the left side

Tail rigid and stiff

Again for me this may be an indicator that the horse is trying not to move things too much in this area think of the rudder of the ship if it is stuck in one position often intricate movements are hard, the horse is usually ok in straight lines but may struggle with schooling moves, again do not just think of the tail as a single entity you have to think of the connections and muscles in the tail can have connections further up the back

Clamped down tail

This is usually the polar opposite of the rigid tail but again is the horse trying to keep the area as still as possible often the engine is switched off in these horses so they often struggle to power their hind end as the easiest way I explain it to clients is pull your knickers up your bum and then try to run, it's not so easy

Different breeds will have different tail carriages, and different personalities will have different tail carriages as well but we must remember the tail is an indicator of the mobility of your horses spine, and the health of the soft tissue, a non-moving tail is trying to protect an area and like I say we come in much later so there may be no pain but a restriction and it's important we do the work in small parts to allow the horse to adjust and reset

We also have to think of the huge fascial sheets across the horse and the effects of fascial restrictions and patterns throughout the body remember we have to work on the whole horse even if we think it’s a hind end or front end or middle part of the horse for the connections of the tail go much further than the tail bones, think of the top of the tail in a little fascial pop sock

We often only think of steering is a front-end issue but if the rudder fails then the steering will never be right the tail should be able to move with the body counterbalancing the body and we have to work with what we have in front of us, often the owners have done all the vet checks and we are just trying to bring more balance to the body without it having to work so hard

16/03/2025

Something to ponder and reflect with on a Sunday, never give up, educate, reflect and regroup 🥰