The Balanced Horse Project

08/30/2026

TODAY IS AUGUST 30 — LAST CALL!

Canvassing for the BHP Fall STEP RESET Tour closes today.

Right now, I’m simply asking interested horse owners to DM me their location.

Those locations will determine our stops. From there, we can calculate travel costs, establish the route and set the tour dates.

Then I’ll contact everyone with the dates and cost. If you decide to participate, a 50% deposit will confirm your appointment.

What is STEP RESET?

STEP stands for:

Solving The Equine Problem.

RESET refers to the horse’s natural potential to reorganize itself toward better balance and conformation integrity.

Think about stepping out of a canoe.

Remove the uneven weight and the canoe naturally returns toward level.

Now apply that principle to the horse.

What happens when we create the conditions that allow the horse to reorganize its own balance?

We have documented changes involving:

• mismatched feet
• resistance and behavior
• anxiety and body confidence
• weak or uneven conformation
• training difficulties
• sport and performance limitations

Our philosophy uses balance as the starting point—looking beneath the behavior or performance problem for the physical imbalance that may be contributing to it.

You may not have heard much about our research because BHP has remained a private training program operating from a holistic horse farm and primarily supporting our own clients.

After years of practical, evidence-based results, we’re ready to take these skills back on the road.

Today is the last day to help determine where we go.

There is no commitment at this stage.

If you’re interested, DM me your location.

If you have questions about STEP RESET and how we use it to improve balance, conformation and behavior, ask me.

Thanks
Patricia

08/30/2026

Muscled, Powerful—and Out of Balance

The halter slips off a young horse and suddenly he's frolicking in his freedom.

Watch what happens.
The hindquarters fire. Power drives forward into the forehand. As he approaches the fence, he has to reorganize that power and redistribute his weight to make the turn.

Nobody pulls on his mouth.
The horse figures out his balance.

Now add a rider.
The same powerful hindquarters drive forward, but the horse may not yet understand how to rate that power while carrying the additional weight of a rider.

So he finds another solution.
He leans on the bit.
And the rider becomes part of his balancing system.

This is where I watch two things:
Watch the horse's chin.
Then watch the rider's chin.
A tight jaw or leading with the chin tells a story.

The horse may be carrying himself downhill or asymmetrically, driving his mass forward into the bridle.
But look at the rider.

Is the rider tipped forward and essentially downhill with the horse? Is the rider's body locked? Or is the horse's power pulling the rider forward until the rider ends up helping support the horse's front end?

Now horse and rider are balancing against each other.
And that's exhausting.

A horse that continually leans into the bridle can overpower even a strong rider. Putting more bit in his mouth doesn't necessarily solve that equation.

Bit strength isn't the real problem. Balance is.

The question becomes:
How do we teach the horse to control the power coming from his own hindquarters?
This is where the rider's body becomes important.

Get straight through your own body first.

Then use changes in stride length:
Walk.
Shorten the walk.
Walk forward.
Extend.
Add bends, broken lines and transitions.

Sometimes I'll soften one or both reins for a split second and then quietly restore the contact. Suddenly the support the horse expected isn't there. He has to find himself.

And on some rushing or leaning horses, I'll change my seat action.

Instead of allowing my hips to continually swing forward with the horse's stride, I interrupt that forward-driving motion. I may even imagine my hips walking backward against the stride.

I'm not pulling the horse backward.
I'm removing the rider's driving seat and creating resistance through my own body before all that power arrives at the shoulders and the bit.

The horse begins learning something important:
Rate your own power.
Carry your own front end.
Find your own balance.

That's self-carriage.

If the horse has structural integrity, leaning may largely be a learned balance strategy that needs reorganizing.

If the horse is physically downhill or unable to support the trunk effectively, that's a different problem. Then I'd address the structural weakness rather than expecting the rider to hold the horse together.

Ultimately, the rider doesn't want to become stronger than a powerful horse.

The horse can learn how to manage his own power. After all they can shift their weight when their frolicking towards the pasture fence.

08/28/2026

08/28/2026

We want to know.
We want to learn.
We want to do better for our horse.

We can learn.

But we will never know
because we think,
rather than listen.

I met a mustang named ECHO.

He is a very cool dude.

Turkey butt.
Inverted neck.
Twisted withers.
Hollowed back.

Yet inside that distorted form
is a personality who wants to be his best.

We met in the barn last night.

Big-eyed and tense,
he melted when touched.
Soft. Silky. Smooth as glass.

Never judge the outside of a horse.

Ripples moved across his sun-bleached hide,
telling part of the story.

A twist through the withers told me about his birth.
His hindquarters had compensated for his front end all his life.
His body showed the effects.

Tonight, with luck,
I'll change that.
My rope bag opens.
I pull out my old friend.

Echo's eyes fill with questions.

My fingers glance along his sides.
The rope is placed.
Tension builds.

Will Echo follow the pressure?
Of course not.
He is a mustang proud.

He sits back against the rope,
bowing like a trick horse.

Then something changed.

Inside, his body shifts.
His presence seems to slide somewhere far away.

We wait.
We watch.

Then Echo returns.

His eyes soften.

His first steps teeter like a drunk.
His body and balance are completely different.

He sighs.

And finally,
he realizes his body is straightening.

Is this real?

Yes!

We can think.
We can study.
We can learn.

But we'll never truly know
what it is to be a horse.

08/28/2026

The walk to the barn is an honor we often overlook.

So many people will never see or touch a horse.

Meet Echo, the mustang.

08/27/2026

Unwinding Annie

Annie was cast in a horse trailer. In the struggle, she compressed and twisted through her neck, shoulders and barrel.

When she stepped out of that trailer, her hips were uneven.

Naturally, the focus went to the listing pelvis. Shots, injections and two years of training followed. Eventually, her hocks and stifles began to suffer.

By the time I met Annie, her options were narrowing.

A lot had already been done to help her, by people genuinely trying to give her a future.

I simply approached the problem from a different direction.

If a boat can naturally self-level, why can't a horse?

My job as a trainer is to read the horse and find the movement pattern that influences weight distribution and gives the horse an opportunity to reorganize itself toward balance.

I waited almost a year before taking the next step with Annie because I had another horse showing a remarkably similar trauma pattern.

Once I isolated the key activation position and saw lasting restoration, I knew how I wanted to approach Annie.

Look closely at the photos.
Enlarge to view 3 comparisons.

Note: Annie's feed has reduced as the body improved it's integrity.

Top: Notice the compression crease around the girthline.

Middle: Passive unwinding after two STEP RESET sessions over the year. Watch the placement of her front legs. The crease is changing, but it hasn't completely released.

Bottom: Annie after two days of our new YY RESET exercise. Instant Chunk!

Her neck, shoulders and barrel appear liberated. But the hindquarters haven't caught up yet.

Look closely at the crease running from her mid-back toward the flank. That's the next piece I'm watching. It appears to be blocking a complete body rebound.

Tonight, four days later, we're modifying the YY exercise.

Let's see if Annie can continue the unwinding and generate level, balanced hindquarters.

We're not finished. Annie gets to show us where the pattern leads next.

And this is exactly why we're planning the Fall RESET Tour.

We're currently canvassing interest to determine where the tour takes us. If you'd like us to consider stopping in your area, let us know your location by August 30.

There's no commitment at this stage. We're simply mapping the interest before we map the route.

See my previous RESET Tour post for the details.

08/26/2026

I woke with a message this morning:

"You can never go back to the past. We are destined to explore the future for answers."

Yet much of my career has involved horses with limited futures. What opportunity could they have if somehow we could go back and start again?

That journey brought me to patterns.

The old riding masters used patterns to develop balance and symmetry. They worked when I was growing up, but I wasn't seeing the same results in modern horses.

So I started experimenting with different patterns to help the crooked horse reorganize itself toward symmetry.

But could I introduce a pattern without riding it?

Some of these horses are dangerous.

Recently I've been experimenting on the ground with a pattern based on the ancient Yin/Yang symbol of balance.

So far, five horses have responded remarkably well to what I'm calling the YY Reset.

One is Annie.
Photo history in comments)

Annie was once cast in a trailer. Vets and farriers stabilized her physical decline, but the unevenness through her hips remained.

What happened with the YY Reset surprised me.

Instead of addressing her hips, the release appeared between her shoulders.

Three days later, I swear her body looks longer. Her bulky shoulders have smoothed out. Her uneven hips actually look worse.

But Annie has stopped cow-kicking when her hind legs are touched.

Last night I applied pressure along both hind legs. She stood quietly and yawned.

Something has changed.

Now we wait to see whether the atrophied muscles begin working again and her rump starts to level.

I'll let the photographs tell that part of the story later this month.

We can't go back to the past.

But perhaps something from the past can help us explore the future.

08/25/2026

Here comes the moon!

The joy of living on a farm.

08/23/2026

Tonight
I'm bathing horses..Maybe they'll appreciate it.
They'll be easier to groom tomorrow.

They haven't stopped sweating since June.
By 5.00pm they are a sticky gritty mess.
Brushing them off is pointless. Riding them wet is univiting.
So
The plan is
Scrub them down mane to tail tonight.
Tomorrow a light wash.
Tie them with fans til dry.
By 6.30 they should be tacked up and out.
Let's see how this works.

Next year we will relocate to cooler climates. Or win a Billion $$$ and develop an air-conditioned arena.

Oh dare to dream.
The Florida Panhandle sucks this summer.