Lysette Smith - Candid Equitation

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Portugal
Odemira, Beja
Lysette Smith - Candid Equitation

Horse trainer and riding holidays at www.sundanceranchportugal.com Based in southern Portugal and accepts horses for internal training.

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28/10/2026

Sometimes you have to admit when something isn't working

Jamie is back in work- with my assistant Vesna! She's under my guidance but it's her putting in all the hours.

Jamie always been a complicated character, fizzing with endless energy and possibly the worst attention span I've ever come across! That said, he was very stuck on me, I enjoy his maverick ways and he was working well for me so the decision to hand him over to Vesna wasn't taken lightly.

The trouble is that he is the type who needs work every day in order to be in his best mindset to progress. It doesn't work for him to be picked up and dropped. He becomes distracted, explosive and unsure; in daily work, even if it's gentle, he's meek as a lamb and takes instructions easily. It will change as he gets older and has more miles under his belt, but for now he likes routine, entertainment and a familiar face and we have to meet him where he is now, not where he will be in a year or two.

I have had so many health problems this year that I haven't been able to be that person for him, so he spent the summer enjoying pasture puff life rather than being argued with three days a week. My thyroid has continued to be quirky, my menopause related fatigue continues to hang on like a ball and chain and I have been tied up with physio for two long term injuries (slipped disc and torn ankle ligaments) that are aggrated by too much riding. I need carefully considered saddle time consisting of short, regular bursts in the arena often ba****ck or without stirrups depending on which injury is playing me up worst and longer trail rides only on very good, well prepared days preferably around my menstrual cycle😅 Jamie needs hours on the trail, repetitions in the arena, a flexible training routine and someone as fit and energetic as he is.

Enter Vesna, who has been with us since her teens and my rider of choice for all my new starters. Old enough to be more interested in riding beyond galloping around the countryside but still young enough to look at me like I'm describing the dawn of civilization when I go all misty eyed reminiscing about dial up internet; she's ready for a more complex character, has the patience, quiet confidence and energy required and hasn't yet had the opportunity to put her own stamp on a horse. Jamie has transferred over to her smoothly and they're getting on great 😌

It's a bummer letting the reins go of a horse I like, but it frees up more time for horses who better fit my current capabilities- Dario, Khalif, Bruno and Branco are four who need short yet productive sessions with the odd pipe opener and are fine only working 3 or 4 days a week; or me randomly ditching the saddle or trotting slower because my ankle can't take rising trot today. My thyroid is getting under control, my injuries are slowly healing and I've recently been given the go ahead to start HRT! So my position is temporary but the current arrangement is right for me, Jamie and Vesna and I'm enjoying taking more of a mentor role😊

27/10/2026

Second ride on Dario!⭐️

When I said "When he's fat enough to ride, he'll be more than ready." I wasn't joking!

For the first ride we just had a little bumble about, not asking anything besides him carrying me and he chose to stick to the 10m space between A, K and the gate. He's never been ridden with nobody steering or holding him together in some way, so he basically hid in the corner- to which I said "no problem, we'll just work in the corner then🤷‍♀️" We managed some tentative trot and canter in this small space and I called it a day when he started drifting towards F.

It clearly paid off because today he came in and within 15 minutes we were cantering laps around the whole arena! We'd already answered the difficult questions during the last 3 months of groundwork and his confidence appeared to be increasing by the minute, so I took the halter off altogether and the pictures speak for themselves. It's not collected, balanced or correct but before all that you need more basic stuff like forward and relaxed and that's exactly where we are. Walk, trot, canter bridleless is a great starting point and I'm excited to crack on with developing his ridden work 😊

25/10/2026

In August we were shown a dire x-ray, sent home with a months worth of pain killers and told to take him home and make him happy. Bridge is still not dead🤷‍♀️

In fact, he has spent the weekend sh****ng the dogs over the road and even brought his girlfriends back to the house for a drink afterwards! I told him he was doing it the wrong way round, but even when he was young his ridiculous flappy ears only ever fulfilled a decorative purpose so of course he's ignoring my dating advice. "I got 3 legs and terminal cancer- bi***es love terminal cancer😎" seemed to be his response and who am I to correct him when it seems to be working swimmingly!

Anyway, he's feeling his age in that I have to 'pedal' his back legs for him sometimes if he's been lying on a hard surface for too long and his food bowl is elevated so he doesn't have to lean down, but other than that he's remarkably energetic and apparently not quite ready to go yet! We're taking each day as it comes but for now he is still very much enjoying life.

Here is with little bro Yoshi, who was absolutely mortified at the parade of random dogs his social butterfly brother casually led through the house this morning.

15/10/2026

Forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago I had my last "adventure week" guests: Mick and Sue from England, pictured here on Tali and Khalif. I was particularly proud of our horses on this occasion as Mick is a double amputee!

Mick is a very seasoned rider but it takes quite a particular sort of horse for someone with no legs to razz around the countryside- it's one thing to plod around nose to tail at an RDA center, it's quite another to canter over rough terrain on horses that are very much alive and like to go! Plus neither me or the horses have ever worked with a disabled rider before! As it was, the overwhelming majority of our horses were suitable for Mick to enjoy (though Tali was the clear favorite!) including our famously exhilarating canters and steep climbs. Most of our horses were 'rejects' at some point, so for them to be trustworthy enough to take care of an experienced rider who happens to have a handful of very important and specific requirements is a particularly satisfying feeling.

08/10/2026

Dario hits the trail!🥳

It's taken a bit longer than usual to get to this point- usually I try to get out of the roundpen and arena as soon as possible and allow the hills to do their magic. For Dario I had to make an exception because he not only had a total lack of muscle but his feet had no concavity to speak of with the thinnest soles I've ever seen. Just walking the 150 meters to the arena from the field and back without boots made him footsore initially. He's been sensible enough to take out for weeks but his body still needed to catch up a bit. I wanted him at the point where he could go out and come back thinking he had a good time, not coming back feeling knackered and sore and reluctant to go next time! We finally got there and today he followed Titus and Bruno like he'd been doing it all his life with his usual open minded and brave, if slightly ADHD, demeanor ☺️

He's still too thin for me to want to put a saddle on (I'm willing to wager this is due to his teeth- and our vet doesn't do teeth when the flies are bad) so he will just come with us loose for the time being. Rest assured, when the time does come to ride him he'll be more than ready😁

25/09/2026

Four weeks progress 👌

To say I'm happy with Darios development in such a short space of time would be an understatement! He needs a few more kilos, the trimmer to come back from holiday and the flies to disappear so we can get his teeth done, but he's truly on his way. This has been a result of 5 days a week ground work consisting of 1 day over poles in walk and trot, 1 day walk trot canter, 1 day in hand lateral work, 1 day aqua training at chest height and 1 day at hock height.

Pictures are marked up noting the exact changes with captions for those who are interested.

17/09/2026

Nice little exercise I like to do with horses that have been stuck through their topline- alternating between active trot over wide spaced poles on a big circle and trotting as slowly as possible without falling back to walk on a small circle.

Using the trot rather than the walk ensures that there's energy flowing, plus trot is the easiest gait to adjust. Wide spaced poles cause the shoulder to extend as far as possible, encouraging the area behind the withers to stretch and lift as the hind legs reach as far underneath the body as needed to propel him forwards; the wide circle means the side of the body closest to the fence makes a big lateral stretch from poll to croup. Trotting slowly without falling to walk causes the hocks to flex more causing a deeper 'sit' and the poll to lift. Keeping the circle small makes it easier to correct if the inside hind swings inwards. The horse stretches right out over the poles then compresses his base as short as he can on the small circle. I do this once or twice a week as part of a rehab program I've developed over the years, interspersed with other exercises on the other days including walking in the river while the tide is at chest height.

The goal not that the horse works round the whole time, but that he changes his outline regularly, never getting stuck in one position too long. You can see the effectiveness of this when Dario stretches himself out with no prompting when we are neither on the poles or on a small circle. You can also see it's difficult for him to maintain a very slow trot currently but this is normal and I left it in the video because this is the reality of what it looks like with a horse who is still building strength and learning to use himself efficiently. I also need to be better with my timing about pushing him forward before he drops back to walk!

11/09/2026

Moments like this really make me love my job-
Darios first time in the river!

We've never had one go in with so much enthusiasm before🥹 For him to follow me and Branco right into the deep end and actually swim is incredible, never mind for a horse that hadn't even lived in a herd up until a few months ago. He's so brave and loves everything about his new life ❤️

You can really see the difference in strength with how the muscular Branco walks against the current like it's nothing while Dario looks like a spider, but he'll get there.

08/09/2026

People really underestimate the impact emotional experience has over their horses body. This is a long one, so buckle up.

I see videos online of horses showing unwanted behaviors and the comments are typically full of "kissing spines!", "ulcers!" or "PSSM!". Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we've moved away from the days where comment sections would be saturated with suggestions of stronger bits. I'm glad people are trying to think of the "why" behind behaviors and not immediately thinking the horse is naughty. Unfortunately, I also see a trend where people almost seem to WANT their horse to have a physical issue. Not in a Munchausens kind of way, but in a "I'd rather throw endless money at the vet to find something wrong than admit I don't know as much as I thought I did and change the way I interact with my horse."

Now, before you come for me, if there's something wrong there's something wrong🤷‍♀️ But what about when those ailments are successfully treated yet the behaviors remain or even escalate? You did all the injections, all the medication, all the rehab and yet here you are, still getting yeeted from A to C because a gazelle farted in Namibia. You took care of the result, but you still didn't get to the cause 🤷‍♀️

The thing is that serious soundness issues don't start as serious soundness issues. They start as small postural changes. These small postural changes happen from the moment we approach our horses. The most example I've seen over the years:

You do everything from the left so the horse is naturally more wary of things on the right. This causes the horse to always have his head turned slightly to the right, using it as a subtle barrier to stop you going on that side. This pushes all his weight down the left shoulder and onto the lateral side of his left front hoof. The hoof wears faster on this left side due to the uneven weight distribution and now the horse is lower on the left front, with the thoracic sling dumped forward and the back begins to drop and twist subtly to the right. You notice your horse is hard to bend to the left, but no worries- just keep at those biomechanically cancerous 20m circles and half arsed leg yields your highly qualified instructor has been doing with you for the last 3 years, he'll learn eventually! You get "the back man" out and that helps for a few rides.

You continue with the circles to 'help' the bend. Unfortunately the more you do, the more your horse overloads his left front and the weaker he becomes in his hind end. He begins bucking in his canter transitions because it's the only way he can organize his hind end. Anticipating this, you shorten your reins to keep his head up- he can't canter at all like this, but he can't tell you that, so the only thing he can do is slam the brakes on every time he gets to the gate. You push him forward and then it happens- he rears. Finally, you listen and get him checked out and the horse is found to have a ligament injury on the left front and four bothersome spinal processes. You're flabbergasted at the financial hit but relieved it's something fixable. You diligently do the rehab and the day finally rolls around where you can get back on board. To your dismay, as soon as you ask him to leave the gate, the horse goes straight up, even higher than he did before now that he's sound with a mobile back. You get the vet back out, saddle reflocked, back man out- none of it helps and there's two options. Put the dangerous horse down or get me to come and look at it. If the second option is chosen, I take one look at your horse, immediately see this head tilt to the right and spend the entire session getting hour horse ok with me walking around to the right. It feels like a waste of money, you want to RIDE your horse! But then you start to notice things- he's suddenly standing square. He's standing still without fidgeting, he's stretching down and forward while moving and is that an inside bend starting to develop? You decide to stick with me afterall and despite your skepticism after your last disastrous post rehab ride, the first ride goes beautifully and you have your horse back. Because the issue didn't start with pain from kissing spines and lameness, it started with a defensive postural change which has now been taken care of.

How your horse feels about what you do with him affects him physically. You can do all the technically correct exercises and spend all the money on diagnostics in the world, but if your horse still feels tense or defensive about what you're asking he will never move or even stand without some sort of compromise in his body. Relaxation in all your interactions isn't everything, but it's a damn good start!

Here's Dario learning how his topline works for the first time in his life

04/09/2026

Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better

A common mistake people make when working with horses is expecting progress to be linear. As if you complete a couple of modules and then you continue to the next one without looking back. To be fair, it often is just like that! With young horses who have excellent bodies, no emotional trauma and trainable characters, I've never had to backtrack.

For Dario, it's a different story. He's already 13yo and has a catalog of baggage like years of being stabled 24/7, aggression issues, poor conformation, terrible feet and restrictive riding. On arrival he was crippled- not an inch of his top line moved, he was lame on no particular leg and physically could not canter. We put him on a strict trimming schedule and Valentina the osteopath worked her magic and we then left him in the field to just be a horse for a couple of months in the hopes he would come right. It worked and so he was cleared by the vet to begin groundwork.

Initially in the roundpen he was very willing to turn in to the middle and stop, so I went ahead with hind quarter and shoulder yields and other stuff on the rope. I thought he'd be quite straight forward. However, as his body loosened up and moving became easier, he went from being unable to canter at all to cantering for 3 steps at a time, to eventually being able to canter a whole lap. At that point he decided that actually he prefered cantering to stopping! For a couple of sessions I lost the brakes completely as he cantered around and around, head up like a periscope, not looking pretty at all (pictured) but apparently just reveling in the fact that cantering was possible. I simply sat down in the middle and let him get on with it. It's a horse that has spent many years with his every move policed, controlled and restricted either by humans or by physical limitations; now he was finally able to run, unencumbered by ropes or discomfort- why wouldn't he want to make up for lost time and run to his heart's content! He found it difficult to settle down afterwards but again, previously he was never able to enjoy going fast and so he didn't have the emotional control skills to know how to calm down after getting his energy up. For the next few sessions I allowed him to run until he realised it wasn't so exciting anymore and actually quite knackering.

We're now at the point where he's figured out that stopping is just as important as cantering and so we're just about ready to go back on the rope and get back to where we were a few sessions ago. It wasn't a step backwards, it was a necessary deep dive into a step we'd only covered at surface level.

*Apologies for sporadic posting. My ankle has healed enough for me to do groundwork and ride for short periods so I'm back in work, I am having intensive Portuguese lessons 4 days a week and trying to keep up my work out schedule PLUS it's simply too much for me to write posts and the book alongside each other so expect more of the same while the book is still in the works😅

Endereço

Odemira

Website

http://www.sundanceranchportugal.com/

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