06/11/2026
"Just retire him." often is not the kind answer everyone thinks it is.
We heard it a lot this week.
And it deserves a real conversation.
So here it is. 🐴
Quick context if you're new here: last November I started working with an eventing horse (Eddie) because his nervous system was in pieces — and his human got hurt because of it.
His story is a checklist of how horses get broken (literally):
❤️🩹 He had ulcers, and his previous human entourage wrote it off as "bad behavior." Then they rode him hard anyway — with the ulcers.
😔 He got punished every time he wasn't perfect, no matter how hard he tried.
🌬️He spent years flying over courses pumped full of adrenaline, brain offline, barely breathing, just wanting it to be over.
The result: a brain that filed most of normal life under DANGER. Including standing a few yards away from his herd.
We've been helping him re-think those triggers. The first goal is simple: a horse who can handle his own life with confidence.
Beyond that — I'll be transparent. His human dreams of him going back to eventing. But she wants him to get there consensually, willingly, and she won't settle for less. She's letting our process take the time it takes. Some of the work, lately, has involved being ridden again.
And the comments came in hot.
Some asked the most important question in our industry right now:
Why ride him at all?
Why not let him retire in peace?
What animal in its right mind chooses to carry a human?
I'm grateful for these questions. They usually come from the most caring people. Here's my honest answer.
💬 "What animal in their right mind wants to be FORCED to carry people?"
I 100% agree that no being should ever be forced.
But "no horse should be forced" and "no horse can like it" are two different sentences.
Do all the adults you know enjoy giving piggyback rides to kids? Some hate it.
Some live for it.
Most are in between.
Horses are the same.
I've met horses who detest being ridden.
I've met horses who seem thrilled to finally own a portable back-scratcher.
And everything in between.
💬 "But you can't actually KNOW. You don't speak horse."
The most legitimate pushback in the whole thread. How do you tell the difference between a horse who wants to and a horse who has just given up arguing?
My honest answer: nobody speaks perfect horse, however hard we try. But you don't need to.
Let me tell you a story.
After my first child was born, I learned to read my mustang's quieter signals — and realized she hated being ridden. Suddenly all her "random" weirdness made sense, including the day she tried to jump a six-foot gate because I'd asked her to walk. Her message had been loud all along: "Get off. Please. Somebody listen."
So I stopped riding her. If the joy wasn't mutual, I didn't want it.
But before giving it up forever, I wanted to try offering it differently.
For months we rebuilt everything from the ground, with one rule: it has to feel good to her, not just get obeyed by her. She could walk away at any time, no consequences. Slowly she started choosing to stay. Then choosing to come find me.
Then one day I was working with another horse, and she was loose, grazing. She knew I had zero treats on me — she'd checked. And when I turned to look at her, she had parked herself at the mounting block, looking straight at me.
"Who's ready for a ride?"
I thanked her and said not now. Minutes later she'd left her grass and parked herself at the block AGAIN. No food in it for her. No pressure from me. Just an invitation, repeated until I gave in and hopped on ba****ck. She carried me around a bit, I thanked her, and she went back to her grass.
That day she gave me her honest answer — when every option was safe, "no" was free, and I had finally learned to listen. And her answer surprised me (heck, it moved me to tears!).
💬 "Just leave him alone and let him heal"
Here's the grey area nobody wants to sit in: those are not always the same sentence.
Sometimes leaving a horse alone IS the healing. For a while, at least. Let the adrenal fatigue turn into a resourced horse who's allowed to be a horse among peers. But "retired from riding" should not mean "parked forever."
Because here's the uncomfortable part: most horses retired from a sports career — if truly "left alone" — slowly fall apart.
Arthritis.
Nerve compression.
Muscle loss.
We have horses at our home ranch who are fully retired from riding — bodies too damaged for it. But they still receive important care and stimulus: a paddock paradise built for movement and friendship, and play-based groundwork that keeps their minds busy and their bodies strong.
"Just leave him alone" sounds like kindness.
Often it's implemented as slow-motion abandonment.
💬 "But why ride at all, if you're such ethical animal lovers?"
Let me be crystal clear: horses do NOT need to be ridden to be happy, healthy, or fit. Wild mustangs are living proof. We believe this so much that we spent years building a play-based fitness program that needs no rider at all.
But — you knew a 'but' was coming — think of riding like weight-lifting for humans. Nobody needs it. Done consensually, with variety, in a way that feels good to the body? It helps. Carrying a human is, quite literally, weight-lifting for a horse.
So when a horse's care team — vet, hoof care, bodyworker, saddle fitter — clears them physically, we like to open the conversation with the horse. Often that means sitting them on the therapist's couch first: working through old memories until being ridden feels NEUTRAL to them. Only from neutral can they give an honest answer.
If it's yes — wonderful. If it's no, even after time — so be it. We honor it.
In Eddie's case, he's not our personal horse, so it's not our decision to make. But he's lucky to have a fantastic human who will go to the ends of the earth to know that he's feeling good, confident, and prepared. The door stays open in all directions.
💬 What the 60-second reel couldn't show
Eddie isn't melting down because he's "being ridden." He used to carry a rider calmly — until humans failed him.
What broke wasn't his feeling about riding. It was his feeling about EVERYTHING. The barn. The wind. A jump. Walking out of sight of his friends. Things nobody can remove from a horse's world.
"Let him chill in a field" doesn't address that. It just hides it — and it feels awful to HIM, every single day, until the day life forces the issue. Vet visits happen. Weather happens.
So the real work was never about the saddle. It's about helping his nervous system find calm as its default, so the world stops feeling like an ambush. Riding is downstream of that. One possible chapter. Not the goal.
—
There is not one truth here. There are as many truths as there are horses. The human who says all horses love to work is selling something. So is the one who says no horse ever could.
Our honest take: it depends on the horse — and our job is to help them tell us.
Retiring a traumatized horse can be an act of love.
So can re-introducing riding as part of his healing.
Neither one is a betrayal.
What we owe our horses is the discernment (and the horsemanship skills) to hear which answer is THEIRS.
Yours truly, in Science and Soul,
Giorgia Ghizzoni
P.S. 🎥 Eddie's unedited training sessions in all of their nuances are available on our online platform. Comment "Eddie" to receive the link in DM 📥
