Animals First Equestrian

15/05/2026

03/05/2026

What’s your horse’s go-to summer mood? 😄🌞🐴
A) Lazy grazer 🌿
B) Energetic explorer ⚡
C) Snack-obsessed 🍎
Be honest… we all know at least ONE horse who hears a treat bag from 3 fields away 👀😂
👇 DROP YOUR ANSWER (A, B or C) in the comments
👇 Tag a friend whose horse is DEFINITELY a C
👇 Bonus: tell us your horse’s name + personality

20/04/2026

Turn. Out. Your. Horses.

Not sometimes.
Not when it’s convenient.
Not only when the weather is nice.

Daily turnout is not a luxury or enrichment add on. It is a biological requirement.

Horses evolved to move for most of the day. To walk, graze, socialize, rest, and regulate their nervous systems through motion and choice. When we confine them for long periods, we are not creating calm. We are suppressing natural behaviour.

Lack of turnout is strongly associated with increased stereotypies, gastric ulcers, musculoskeletal strain, heightened reactivity, and what is often mislabeled as “bad behaviour.” These are not training issues. They are welfare issues.

Exercise under saddle does NOT replace free movement. A one hour ride does not undo twenty three hours of restriction. Training does not compensate for unmet needs.

If a horse is “better” when kept in, that is not proof the system works. It is a red flag that the horse is struggling to cope.

Turnout supports physical health, emotional regulation, soundness, and learning. It is one of the most basic forms of harm reduction we can offer.

Turn. Out. Your. Horses.

25/03/2026

How do our horses lives look from their perspective?

If equestrians were asked this question I'm almost certain that most of them would say they felt their horses have a great life. They're fed, have a nice warm stable with a comfy dry bed, they're groomed and ridden out on hacks, competed and treat like kings and Queens. They'd say they love their horse, and they just know that their horse loves them. Maybe their horse even nickers whenever they arrive to see them, and they take this as a sign of affection and deep love.

A lot of our relationships with horses are built on dependency instead of autonomy. The horse values us as a resource- we control their lives, and are their only access to food, water, shelter, companionship; all of the things they need to have any quality of life at all. Their lifestyles don't suit them as our practices are steeped in tradition and things that misalign with who they really are. As a result they feel pressure and tension, instead of peace and fulfilment in our presence and within themselves, and our connection with them becomes about accessing essential resources instead of anything genuine.

We might think that a cosy indoor bed and a hack around the local nature reserve sounds like a great life, but that's because it aligns with what we as humans value and enjoy, not who horses are and what they need. If we were to flip the situation, and for us to be the horse, we'd find that actually, what we felt as a human was an enriching existence, isn't that fulfilling at all.

If we allow our horses to be horses, learn about their behaviour and what they need to be genuinely happy, we can be assured that if the situation was flipped we'd be just as happy as horses as we are as humans. If we do our best for our horses to meet their needs as naturally as we can- companionship, turn out, good nutrition, positive interactions and training, autonomy; when we consider things from their perspective, we can feel comforted by the knowledge that they're probably having a good time too ❤️

19/03/2026

🌸 How does an equestrian know spring has arrived? 🐎
Oh… your horse will let you know. Loudly. 😅
🌱 You check the field… looks dry… step in → instantly lose a boot
🐎 Your calm winter horse? Gone. Replaced by a dragon with opinions
🌿 First blade of grass appears = your horse forgets all training since birth
🪶 The shedding… oh the shedding… you are now 70% horse hair
🧥 You dress for winter, ride for summer, and untack in a rainstorm
💨 “Just a quiet ride” turns into an unscheduled Olympic qualifier
🧠 Your horse: hasn’t worked in weeks
Also your horse: thinks it’s ready for Badminton
Spring — when the mud is deep, the grass is dangerous, and your horse has ✨ideas✨.
👉 Tag the rider whose horse turns into a chaos gremlin every spring 😂

18/03/2026

🐎 When Your Horse Needs a Second… Will Traffic Wait? 🚙

Another really thoughtful comment was raised on my last post by Rebecca Champion-Jones, and it’s one I wanted to respond to fully because it’s a worry I think many riders quietly feel.

💬 Rebecca said:
“They do and whilst I have no issue with it, I can’t help but feel that the traffic these days won’t give you the time you & your horse may need 😔”

And honestly… I completely understand that feeling.

🚗 Roads move fast these days. People are busy. Drivers are focused on getting somewhere rather than thinking about what the horse in front of them might be experiencing.

🐴 When your horse suddenly needs a moment to look, think or process… it can feel like the whole world is rushing you.

But here’s something I’ve noticed over the years:

Most drivers aren’t actually trying to do the wrong thing.

❗They simply don’t know what’s happening or what to do.

🚗 From inside a car, it’s almost impossible to feel the tension in a horse’s body, notice hesitation in a stride or sense that moment when a horse is thinking hard about something in their environment. To a driver, everything can look perfectly under control.

💪🏻 And that’s where communication becomes key.

✋ If my horse needs a moment, I make it as visible as possible and I stay calm. Adding a level of stress or urgency to these sorts of situations is rarely productive.

👁️ Firstly, I’ll make friendly eye contact with drivers best I can - I always acknowledge traffic. Leaving them to it in these situations rarely leads to good, safe decision making.

☝🏻 I’ll raise a hand to politely ask them to pause - letting them know we just need a moment. I might also use other easy-to-read hand signals:
• “One” for one minute ⏱️
• Pointing into the verge to show that my horse has spotted something 👀
• Thumbs up 👍 to reassure drivers they’re doing the right thing

🐴 I’ll also stroke my horse - this shows drivers I’m acting in my horse’s best interests and keeping them calm.

👍 And you know what? Most drivers are actually very patient when they understand what’s being asked. Some even stop to ask questions.

🙂 A big smile and a thank you go a long way. Those small interactions matter:

🔹 They help drivers understand horses a little better.
🔹 They make the next rider safer.
🔹 They slowly build a culture where people realise that sometimes, a horse just needs a moment.

🙈 Of course, not everybody will respond perfectly. That’s reality. But in my experience, when you clearly communicate, most people are far kinder and more patient than we sometimes expect.

😇 Because the truth is… people are rarely trying to do the wrong thing. They just don’t yet know what the right thing looks like where horses and riders are concerned.

🫶🏻 Love always, Hx

18/03/2026

Client story - “dangerous” horse 🐴

These stories are shared with permission but names have been changed to protect their privacy.

I was called out to see Harry as his owner Faye was at her wits end. Harry is a very large young horse who she bought from a reputable sports horse dealer. Upon coming home he was quite strong to lead to/from the field and he started to become difficult to mount and nappy when ridden. The usual comments of “he’s just trying it on/you’re too soft with him/he’s too big to be getting away with that” started.
Faye had a bodyworker out who found a few tight spots but said there was nothing significant to worry about. When his behaviour further deteriorated Faye went to the vet where they couldn’t find any lameness but he was diagnosed with stomach ulcers and given the appropriate treatment. He scoped clean after 4 weeks but his behaviour continued to be challenging. The vet told Faye that he thought this was “definitely behavioural” now and he was just a big young horse who she needed to get a professional trainer to sort out.

She booked a session with a well-recommended behavioural trainer. Harry had developed a pattern of panicking and ripping the rope out of your hands while being led to/from the field. Their assessment was that Harry was extremely dangerous because he’d learned he was stronger than Faye and he didn’t see her as a good leader. The trainer put a thin rope halter on him and immediately set to work making him move his feet and back up and come forward, if he didn’t respond quickly enough he was met with a short, sharp yank on the rope. The trainer then led him out towards the field, as usual Harry started to panic, the trainer yanked his head round sharply to the side with their full weight on the rope. Harry turned towards them and then went to leave again in a panic. This escalated until Harry was rearing, eventually he gave up and complied. The trainer then spent the next 45 minutes walking him to and from the field, yanking on the rope at any sign of anything except compliance. (I know all of this detail from the owner and from the videos posted on the internet as a success story).

Faye felt uncomfortable with how Harry had been treated, but also felt thoroughly berated and embarrassed by everyone saying his behaviour was her fault for being too soft. After the training session Harry was more compliant to lead but he became increasingly difficult to catch and put a headcollar on. This is when Faye contacted me.

Harry was very worried when I met him, he could not stand being touched anywhere near his poll, whilst I referred her on to a different bodyworker we needed to do some “crisis management” in the moment so she could safely lead him to and from the field. We basically got him eating feed out of buckets, and walked bucket to bucket, when he was calm we went a little further until he could do the whole field walk with bucket stops along the way.

The new bodyworker referred him back to a different vet to image his neck. He had significant bony changes in several parts of his neck. I cannot imagine how sore he was during that training session. All of his stress and behaviour was pain-mediated.

Harry has had his neck medicated and is now undergoing an appropriate, gentle rehab program to see if they can get him comfortable. He is enjoying enrichment activities with Faye and they have several tools in their toolkit to help him manage when he gets anxious. She spends a lot of time hand grazing him down the track to the field to try and improve his horrible associations with the place. It is difficult for horses to trust that those scary, painful things aren’t going to happen again in the same environment.

We have got to stop justifying yanking horses around by their heads, if that is the only way we can control them then we need to make better choices about the situations we’re putting them in. It is so normal to pull horses around without much thought. It almost seems as if people think the horse “deserves” it by choosing to be “rude” when they’re just scared and anxious and trying to get to safety. We seem to see lameness as the only sign of pain or injury after an “incident” has happened, I think a lot of horses are walking around with really sore polls and necks just from being pulled around like this. The horse’s poll and neck are not made of concrete, there are delicate structures everywhere.

You'd be surprised how many "dangerous" horses are no longer dangerous when we listen to them and stop setting them up to fail.

Next time you’re leading your horse take a moment to really think about what you’re doing and what your first reaction is if he hesitates or gets tense. Do you always have a bit of tension in the rope without realising? Do you immediately grab or start pulling if he hesitates? Do you yank a bit out of anxiety if you think he might be about to spook? If we can be consistently thoughtful and soft around how we handle our horses, we have a much better chance of our horses feeling safe and relaxed with us. 🐴

I am in the middle of writing my "Is it pain or just behavioural?" webinar, I'm not 100% on the date yet but you can express your interest here: https://fb.me/e/4lgKQXK3N

15/03/2026

🐴 Behind every pony-mad child is an amazing horsey mum.
The mum who wakes up early for the yard.
The mum who stands in the rain at shows.
The mum who learns about rugs, feed, and farriers.
The mum who carries tack, snacks, water bottles and half the yard.
The mum who says “it’s just a pony for the kids”…
…and then secretly falls in love with the pony too. 🤎
Today we celebrate the horse mums — the taxi drivers, photographers, grooms, sponsors and biggest supporters.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible horsey mums out there. 🐴💐
👇 Tag a horse mum who deserves a huge thank you today.