Olivia Steidle Dressage

05/19/2026

In Part 1, I wrote about the version of the horse world mainstream media loves to cover: billionaire children, seven-figure horses, private planes, Wellington gates, luxury barns, and new leagues built for global entertainment. That world exists, but it is not the whole story.

In fact, for most horse people, it is not even the recognizable story.
Most of the horse world is not asking which winter circuit to attend next. Most of the horse world is asking whether board is going up again. Whether hay will be available. Whether the vet bill can wait until payday. Whether the lesson program can keep going. Whether the old horse can stay comfortable. Whether the truck will make it through another season. Whether loving horses is becoming financially impossible for ordinary people.

So yes, while the public image of horses is getting glossier, more exclusive, and more expensive, the real horse world is drowning in costs.

The mainstream story says: million-dollar horses.
The barn aisle story says: board went up again.

The mainstream story says: global league.
The barn aisle story says: the hay guy is short this year.

The mainstream story says: my private jet is late.
The barn aisle story says: the truck needs new tires.

The mainstream story says: elite sport is ready for its Netflix moment.
The barn aisle story says: the vet can come on Thursday, but it will be an emergency fee if he comes tonight.

These are not separate industries; they are the same horse world, narrated from opposite ends of the economic food chain.

In the 2025 American Horse Publications Equine Industry Survey, respondents selected the cost of horse-keeping as the top issue facing the U.S. horse industry for the first time in the survey’s history. Feed, including hay and concentrate, was the cost area most respondents said had increased the most, followed by veterinary services and animal health products. (American Horse Publications)

That is the reality most horse people are living inside.

Not “Which winter circuit should we do next?”
But “Can I afford the same care this year that I gave my horse last year?”

Not “Which horse should we buy to move up?”
But “Can I keep the horse I already love?”

Not “How do we turn this sport into premium entertainment?”
But “How do we keep ordinary people from leaving?”

That is the conversation the horse world keeps avoiding, because it is much easier to talk about growth at the top than fragility at the bottom.

But the bottom is not really the bottom. The so-called lower levels are the foundation. They are where people learn to love horses before they learn to chase prestige.

They are where the lesson ponies live. They are where volunteers come from. They are where future professionals start. They are where adult amateurs rediscover themselves after divorce, grief, motherhood, burnout, illness, or some private collapse that only a horse was quiet enough to witness.

They are where the sport still feels human.

Read part two of Noëlle's essay on Substack now: https://noellefloyd.substack.com/p/the-richest-version-of-riding-is

05/10/2026

A recent study from the University of Tennessee provided strong support for something trainers, movement specialists, and bodyworkers have observed for years:

Ground poles significantly increase activation of important postural and core muscles in horses.

What the Study Found

Walking over ground poles increased activity in:

• Longissimus dorsi — a major topline and spinal support muscle
• Abdominal muscles — critical for core stability and support of the spine

Even at the walk, poles require the horse to:

• Lift the limbs higher
• Stabilize the trunk more actively
• Organize posture and balance with greater precision
• Continuously adjust limb placement and timing

At the trot, researchers also found increased activation of the abdominal muscles.

Trotting over poles requires greater dynamic stabilization, and the increased limb elevation demands more coordinated control of the trunk, pelvis, and spine.

What This Means

These findings support the long-standing use of cavaletti and ground poles as a low-impact way to:

• Strengthen the topline
• Improve abdominal engagement
• Support spinal stability
• Enhance proprioception and coordination
• Encourage improved posture and self-carriage
• Develop better movement organization through the whole body

One of the most important aspects of pole work is that it influences both sides of the postural system:

• The dorsal chain — including the longissimus muscles along the back
• The ventral chain — including the abdominal support system

This balance is essential for efficient movement, force transfer, and development of a healthy, functional topline.

But pole work is not only muscular.

It is neurological.

Each pole creates a movement problem the horse must solve in real time.

The horse has to:

• Judge distance
• Adjust stride length
• Control timing
• Stabilize the trunk
• Organize the limbs in space
• Adapt moment-to-moment to changing demands

That process requires attention, coordination, body awareness, and ongoing nervous system regulation.

In many horses, poles appear to improve focus not simply because the horse is “behaving,” but because the nervous system is becoming more engaged and organized around the task.

Pole work may also influence neurological tone — the background level of muscular and nervous system readiness that affects posture, movement quality, stiffness, and coordination.

For some horses, this can help reduce excessive bracing and improve adaptability through the body.
For others, it can help improve postural engagement and overall organization.

Why It Matters

Regular pole work can benefit many types of horses:

• Young horses developing coordination and posture
• Performance horses improving strength, agility, movement quality, and limb awareness
• Horses rebuilding core control and stability after periods of weakness or reduced work
• Older horses maintaining mobility, coordination, and movement confidence

Importantly, many of these benefits occur even at the walk, making poles accessible to horses across a wide range of ages, disciplines, and fitness levels.

Rather than simply “making horses pick up their feet,” poles appear to challenge the nervous system, postural system, sensory system, and muscular system together — encouraging the horse to organize movement with greater control, awareness, and adaptability.

https://koperequine.com/step-by-step-the-benefits-of-walk-poles-for-horses/

04/04/2026

This is a fantastic article!🎯

I’m writing this anonymously because, frankly, this isn’t about me. For those who feel they need a wall of credentials before they’ll listen, I’ll save you some time: I’m not a social media influencer, and I’m not a big-name trainer.

I’m a professional dressage rider—and a perfectly average one at that. Over my thirty years as a dressage rider, I’ve produced some great amateur horses, won some things, and coached a satisfying number of riders to victory laps at Regional Championships, US Finals, and the AECs. In the grand ecosystem of our sport, that makes me pretty underwhelming. But it’s exactly this averageness that gives me a front-row seat to the fracturing of our community.

Dressage participation is in decline. While we can blame the economy and “ride it out” (pun intended), there is a deeper, more painful issue: the widening chasm between the “Elite” and the rest of us.

When I started at twelve years old, that gap existed, but it was aspirational. We used to host barn parties to watch months-old VHS tapes of European championships. We dreamed of riding like them. Today, that inspiration has curdled into disdain. The “haves” and the “have-nots” are now so far apart that the top tier of the sport, the Wellington and Southern California circuits, feels like a different planet. What used to be a dream now feels entirely unobtainable, even in our imagination.

We need to talk about the term “grassroots.” I kind of hate it. The USDF, our GMOs, and the USEF use it constantly, but consider the imagery. Roots are underground. They are in the dirt, unseen.

This framing suggests that the majority of our riders exist only to be the “underground factor” that supports the flowers at the top. But we aren’t just the dirt beneath the elite; we are the lifeblood of the sport itself. In a world that increasingly values visibility, we need to stop acting like the heart of the industry should be content to stay buried and uncelebrated.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/04/02/the-dressage-chasm-reclaiming-the-middle-class/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

03/16/2026

Some arena thoughts....

• The arena is a truth serum. Ride long enough, and it tells you exactly who you are.

• Dressage is spiritual practice disguised as sport. It punishes your impatience. It rewards your awareness.

• Dressage is just stillness, applied to movement.

• Suppleness is the body’s way of saying “I trust you".

• A dressage arena is just a mirror. And most riders are afraid of what it reflects.

• Ride with the faith that your horse is becoming who you believe it can be.

• You don’t need louder aids. You need better timing.

• Every bad ride is tuition. Pay it. Ride again.

• You don’t achieve connection. You become someone a horse wants to connect with.

• True riders don’t ride to win. They ride to become.

• You can’t fake softness. You can’t pretend to be calm. You have to become it.

• True lightness isn’t the absence of pressure, it’s the presence of understanding.

• Riding isn’t about controlling the horse. It’s about managing yourself so the horse doesn’t have to.

• Progress is invisible, until it’s not.

• You can’t fake collection. The horse will either lift, or lean.

• If you're not failing in the arena, you're not learning, you're performing.

• You don’t fix mistakes. You understand them.

• No one masters dressage. They just get really good at not quitting.

03/04/2026

Fascinating

02/17/2026

"There is a growing discomfort in the horse world around the idea of correcting horses, particularly with groundwork," Lindsey Smith writes. "Words like structure, discipline, and physical correction are increasingly treated as red flags. Yet permissiveness (and feeding unruly horses treats by the handful) is reframed as kindness.

I understand why owners want to fawn over their horses with treats and cuddling. Horses give us an extraordinary amount of trust. We ask them to carry us, respond to subtle cues, and stay mentally present even when they are uncertain or afraid. We love them and want to reward them for this incredible gift. But if we expect that level of generosity from them, then we owe them something in return—communication they can understand.

Good horsemanship is about learning how horses experience the world and responding accordingly. When we communicate clearly, fairly, and consistently by using body language, we reduce stress, increase trust, and make their lives more predictable and safe.

Horses do not experience the world the way humans do. Groundwork and correction, when done correctly, are not acts of dominance. They are acts of responsibility. Confusing human sentimentality with equine welfare can quietly become far more harmful than the corrections we are trying to avoid.

Correcting a horse through groundwork is not about dominance or punishment. It is about speaking to them in a language they actually understand—body language.

Fair correction is about timing, clarity, and release. When a correction is immediate, proportional, and followed by a clear release of pressure, the horse understands exactly what was asked.

Allowing a horse to walk all over you, bite you, or ignore personal space while offering treats and affection instead of structure, is not kindness. It is confusing. And confusion, especially for a prey animal, is deeply stressful. In some cases, it is genuinely dangerous for both the human and the horse.

Horses are not humans. They are not dogs or cats. Humans, dogs, and cats are predators. Horses are prey animals. They do not think like us. When we ask horses to give us so much—to carry us, trust us, and perform under pressure—it is our responsibility to learn how to communicate in a way that makes sense to them."

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/02/16/structure-is-not-abuse-why-horses-need-clear-communication/
📸 courtesy of Lindsey Smith

02/05/2026

Let’s Talk About Trainer Rides.

There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and it feels like an important conversation: Trainer rides.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like trainer rides have started to feel optional, like a luxury, or something only needed when things go really wrong. But I believe they are one of the most important parts of keeping horses happy, confident, and reliable in their jobs.

Especially the good ones! The steady school horses. The saintly kids horses. The show horses packing their riders around week after week. Those horses don’t stay that way by accident. They stay that way because someone with experience is checking in with them from the saddle.

Horses are athletes, but they’re also thinkers and feelers. Over time they develop habits, compensations, and questions, just like riders do. A horse gets a little crooked or starts dulling to the leg. They lose confidence in a certain question or quietly start carrying more than their fair share. These things can show up as the ride feeling harder, less smooth, less fun… until suddenly both horse and rider are frustrated. Or they start to voice their frustration and they get labelled as having “bad behavior”.

That’s where a trainer ride isn’t a luxury, it’s part of the care. A professional ride helps to clarify the aids, rebuild confidence on the flat and over fences, and supports them physically and mentally in the job we ask them to do. Then that carries over into the owner’s ride. And the rider gets to build their relationship on a solid, supported foundation instead of constantly trying to fix things themselves.

It’s also about fairness.

Our horses work hard. They try, they tolerate mistakes, they take care of their riders. It’s only fair that we give them rides where the aids are clear, the balance is correct, and they get help doing the job well. Those rides keep them happier in their work and help prevent the slow mental burnout we sometimes see in over-generous horses.
That’s not taking something away from the rider, it’s supporting the partnership.

When horse, rider, and trainer all play their roles, the whole system works better. Horses stay more reliable. Riders progress with less frustration. And the relationship between them gets stronger, not more strained.

At the end of the day, trainer rides aren’t about control. They’re about responsibility.



Photo Credit: Wild Griffin Photography

05/17/2025

Atrophy in top lines and performance horses.

Soundness in veterinary science is judged by the horses ability to balance evenly across all four legs, when one leg is sore it presents in a lameness. Traditional one leg lameness is easy to spot, head bobbing and a definite asymmetry in stride. This will definitely be identifiable as lameness in the trot ups for competition and should be pulled up. That being said I am often seeing assymetric movement be passed off as sound. This is soundness grey area, assymetry in my opinion is the stage before lameness, the body is protecting a weakness that is yet to develop to the lameness. Assymetry can be from a plethora of problems from soft tissue to skeletal and very few of these problems are identifiable through imaging for horses. Unless it’s in a distal limb and I would argue that is often a red herring for an issue higher up.

Where it starts to get very tricky is body lameness, one pathway for body lameness is atrophy of muscles but why does it happen? Two main reasons, either the muscles aren’t utilised or the muscles have lost intervation by the nerves. If you’ve never googled “sweeny shoulder”, a common injury in Thoroughbreds I suggest you do that to see how nerves affect muscles. The delicate nerves and vascular systems in the horses body are all
Interconnected, I don’t like to focus on one area because the horse is ONE body. But for efficiency I’ll focus on a few, the trapezius(cervical and thoracic) waste away when horses are ridden on the forehand and behind the vertical. The trapezius is also affected by saddle fit and can impede the shoulders movement, the scapular cartilage is often damaged in horses with poor saddle fit.
Logissimus dorsi, affected by riding behind the vertical and hand dominated posture that impedes lateral spinal movement, easily atrophied if worked in tension.
Multifidus is an over looked muscle group in the back, it has a massive impact on DSP spacing due to the way it attaches and can pull DSPs towards each other(kissing spines) this muscle group can be protective or destructive depending on how you condition them. There are many more important muscle groups I will go in to detail in my book.

The main thing to remember about muscles is they are extremely compliant to their loading, meaning they either develop or atrophy. Just look at the huge range of development in humans, a ballerina and a body builder are both athletes but have developed their bodies in radically different ways.

Competitive eventing horses are judged on two things, their soundness in the trot ups and their ability to complete the three stage course, Dressage, cross country and showjumping. Horses who display atrophy in their top lines, will do dressage behind the vertical, be heavy in the riders hands and movements on the forehand. You don’t need a great topline for this Level of dressage, you can carry your horses front end and still score well enough. Horses with atrophy will display big lofty scope on the cross country to clear fences utilising both speed and hind end power. You don’t need a great top line for cross country. Where atrophy will bite you though is in the showjumping, because you do need healthy top lines to be able to either shorten or lengthen a stride to a show jump. You do need the horse to be up and off the forehand to lift the front end because unlike cross country you can not run at a show jump flat and fast. Show jumping is the leveller in eventing at high level because the fences aren’t solid and clever horses get sloppy knowing they can drop rails with hanging shoulders and lazy hind legs. For a good show jumper you need a horse who can collect well, not just be held together by the rider. This is the stage where healthy toplines matter, whether riders know it or not…..a young horse may get away with it but horses over 10 years old wont have elastic youth on their side.

The horses topline tells me everything about how that horse works, when muscles are atrophied they arent working…..it’s that simple.

Year after year we see these horses in the trot ups and the internet goes wild. Soundness and what can be proven are two very different standards. Vetrinary science is built on a peer reviewed, rigorous and reductive method but I feel the problems are more nuanced than science can explain currently. I see horses in dissection constantly that I’m amazed haven’t just laid down and died. Horses that shouldn’t let humans ride them from massive internal issues. Every single one of those horses displayed behavioural issues that were passed off as quirky, naughty or being difficult. I would argue that competitive horses have the mental grit to do the job even with sub par bodies, they are the David goggins of horses! The argument is that david was self aware enough to understand the impact on his body long term and we expect this servitude from the horse without them understanding the impact.

The argument for top line atrophy and performance is “they wouldn’t be able to do it if their bodies were ruined” unfortunately the evidence I see in dissection is the complete opposite. Horses will endure incredible hardships because they are wired as prey animals with the most incredible survival instincts and competive horses have extreme mental
Fortitude. I dont have any judgements or answers, what you do with your horses is your business but I believe in education and understanding for the things we are yet to learn.

The body keeps the score

05/15/2025

There’s been a lot of talk lately about saddle fit in the upper levels, especially the connection between back atrophy and high-end “custom” saddles that aren’t doing what they claim to do. I wanted to offer my perspective as someone who’s seen the inside of the machine. For a time, I worked as a brand rep saddle fitter for one of the major French companies, the kind that markets itself as “different,” “elite,” and “horse-first.”

It was, hands down, the most disorganized, chaotic, and ethically slippery company I’ve ever been a part of. Orders were managed on paper forms and Dropbox folders, shuffled between departments with zero accountability. Saddles regularly arrived built incorrectly. When that happened, which was often, it wasn’t seen as a crisis, it was just another day at the office. Clients would wait up to six months only to receive a saddle that didn’t match the order and didn’t fit the horse.

The training I received as a rep? Laughably minimal. We were taught how to check wither clearance, determine tree shape, and “balance” a saddle using foam inserts in the panels. No real education on biomechanics. No instruction on how saddle pressure affects movement or chronic pain. No understanding of equine spinal anatomy. And certainly no discussion of long-term horse welfare. When I mentioned learning more from independent fitters, I was told not to. Literally warned by my boss that “those people have an agenda against French brands.” She even insinuated that a certain independent fitter was the reason the last rep quit.

Management also regularly groaned about clients who wanted to have an independent fitter out at the same time as a brand fitter, labeling them as "high maintenance." It was as though questioning the company's methods was a personal affront, rather than a legitimate desire from owners for the best care for their horses.

From the beginning, I felt caught in a system that rewarded sales over ethics, obedience over insight, and pressure over compassion. I was encouraged to focus not on the horse’s well-being, but on how quickly I could convert a client’s concern into a credit card swipe. Even our elite sponsored riders, some of the most accomplished athletes in the sport, couldn’t get saddles that fit correctly. Saddles arrived wrong. Panels were lopsided. Horses were sore. We all knew the saddle could be wrong, and it often was, but the unspoken rule was to get something close enough and push it through. If they can’t be bothered to properly fit the horses that carry their name into international arenas, what makes you think they care about Pookie, your 2'6” hunter at the local shows?

We were explicitly instructed that if a client had a saddle more than a few years old, even if it was still working perfectly, we were to find something wrong with it. The goal was to sow just enough doubt to get the client to trade in the saddle and order a new custom. Not because their horse needed it, but because their wallet could support it.

That’s when it started to really wear on me. I couldn’t sleep. I would lie awake at night feeling sick: not just because we were misleading clients, but because we were hurting horses. Every day I watched animals be dismissed as “hard to fit” when the reality was that the saddle being sold to them should never have been placed on their back to begin with. The moment that broke me came at the end of winter circuit. We hadn’t met our quotas yet. The pressure was sky-high. One of the top reps began pushing saddles onto horses that visibly, obviously, did not fit. It didn’t matter that this would harm the horse over time, it mattered that the sale was made.

Perhaps the most disturbing part is the panel design we used by default, a soft, rounded latex insert, was built not to support muscle growth, but to fill the void left behind by muscle loss. Our whole system was based around accommodating atrophy, not fixing it. We had specialized modifications to make the panels more forgiving to wasted backs, as if the problem wasn’t the saddle, it was the horse’s inability to conform to it. Back atrophy wasn’t treated as a red flag. It was normalized. Built into the product line.

After six months, I started to unravel. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I had entered the role wanting to help horses, and moved across the country to do so. I had left a steady job that I was happy in thinking this would be a way to combine my skills and my passion. I found myself trapped in a toxic cycle of moral compromise. Eventually, I couldn’t fake it anymore, especially since I had begun my equine bodywork certifications. I told my boss I was done. I remember saying, half-joking, half-begging for her to understand, that “I’m not making enough money to cry every night.” “That’s just part of the job,” she responded.

That was a year ago. Since then, two more reps have cycled through my old territory.

So if your high-end “custom” saddle doesn’t fit… if your “fitter” keeps blaming your pads or your horse’s shape… if your horse’s back is getting worse instead of better: you are not crazy, and you’re not alone. You’ve been caught in a system that was never built to prioritize your horse’s health in the first place.

This isn’t just a string of bad luck. It’s systemic. It’s built into the model. These brands don’t invest in education. They invest in optics. They train salespeople, not fitters. And they sell you the idea of customization while relying on generic templates and pressure tactics behind the scenes.

I’m not saying every brand rep is malicious. Some are kind, well-meaning, and genuinely doing their best within a rigged game. But when you pay someone a tiny base salary and dangle their entire livelihood on commissions, it creates a perfect storm of pressure and desperation. Good intentions don’t last long when survival depends on making the sale. That’s why I left. That’s why I speak up. That’s why I’ll keep urging riders to work with independent fitters: people who don’t make a commission off the brand, who aren’t beholden to a sales quota, who care more about your horse’s comfort than the label on the flap.

That’s why I walked away. I couldn’t keep selling saddles that were hurting horses and gaslighting riders into believing it was fine. I couldn’t sleep knowing I was complicit in their pain. So if something in your gut has been telling you this isn’t right, listen. Trust it. Ask questions. Get a second opinion. Seek out an independent saddle fitter whose only loyalty is to your horse’s well-being, not a sales quota. You deserve transparency. You deserve honesty. Your horse deserves comfort, freedom, and a fighting chance to thrive: not just survive under eight thousand dollars of leather and lies. Don’t let the system convince you this is normal. It’s not, and the more of us who speak up, the harder it becomes for them to keep pretending it is.

04/18/2025

Truly balancing your horse requires understanding both longitudinal balance (front-to-back) and lateral balance (side-to-side). This delicate balancing act becomes particularly critical when navigating turns and circles.