Eli

Eli I am Eli and I am happy and loved, but that was not always so. Come back and visit me as we add det

02/22/2026

Be a Good Load to Carry

Nature did not design a horse to carry you.

It designed them to flee predators, travel kilometres, graze for hours, and remain exquisitely sensitive to balance. It did not design them to transport a slightly asymmetrical human around a sandpit while said human critiques the horse’s straightness.🙄

And yet here we are.

If you choose to ride, the least you can do is not be a structural liability.

Yes, your saddle needs to fit. Yes, your girth matters. They are not fashion accessories. They are mechanical interfaces strapped to a ribcage.

But the real issue?

You.🫣

A balanced load does not hang off the reins like it is water skiing. It does not collapse into one hip and call it “my horse is crooked.” It does not tip forward, tip back, clamp with the thighs, brace through the spine, and then complain that the horse feels tense.

I weight my left seat bone more than my right. I did not know. I had to have it pointed out. If I do not consciously correct it, that is where I default. My horse compensates. Because horses always compensate.

We analyse their posture. Their engagement. Their willingness. Meanwhile we are riding at a 12-degree angle wondering why they will not track up.🫠

Nothing makes an equine feel more vulnerable than instability. And nothing creates instability faster than a rider who is balancing on the mouth, gripping for dear life, looking down, and interfering with rhythm because they themselves feel insecure.

When a horse feels rushy, lazy, spooky, resistant, sometimes it is training. Sometimes it is pain. And sometimes it is you.😎

Unstable. Asymmetrical. Unaware.

The mother ship of riding is this: how your horse feels carrying you.

So this week is Be a Good Load to Carry Week.🙌

Lift something heavy. Do Pilates. Fix your position. Rise to trot if you cannot sit it without bracing. Walk your horse in hand if that is where you are at.❤

For a few uncomfortable minutes, stop diagnosing your horse and audit yourself.🫶

If you were your horse, would you feel safe carrying you?

That is the variable you control.✊

Start there.

Collectable Advice 164/365. Hit Save or Share. No Copying & Pasting.

👋🏻 👋🏻 👋🏻 all!Yes, I know there is a storm coming and it is going to get bitterly cold. Not to worry, my peeps will take...
01/23/2026

👋🏻 👋🏻 👋🏻 all!

Yes, I know there is a storm coming and it is going to get bitterly cold. Not to worry, my peeps will take good care of me and my herd. And the other herds, of course 💚 Pic is from the summer - remember summer?

12/18/2025

Horses Are Easy. People Are Lovely. Perfectionism Is the Real Villain.😈

Horses are straightforward. People are interesting. Perfectionism is the gremlin hiding under the bed chewing through everyone’s self worth.

It shows up in many flavours.
- There is the version that hisses you are a failure and everyone else is doing better.
- There is the one that freezes you completely because trying feels riskier than hiding.
- There is the one that expects instant mastery, then punishes you for being human.
- There is the one that interprets any feedback as a personal attack.
- There is the one that insists you are an imposter who must not be found out.
- There is the one that tells you success is compulsory and you must sprint forever.
- There is the one that whispers you are only valuable if you never stumble.

Perfectionism is that nasty internal commentator that keeps a running scoreboard of your flaws, imagined or otherwise. It steals time, drains energy and replaces joy with anxiety. It convinces you that praise is pity and that failure is fatal. It is astonishingly efficient at turning a simple hobby with your horse into an existential crisis.

I see this monster in riders who desperately want their horse to be a source of balance and identity. Yet the perfectionism beast hovers nearby, muttering warnings, predicting disaster and sabotaging confidence.

Each day I help people outsmart it. I show them how to start small, build a skill, and influence a horse through clarity rather than self punishment. I remind them that learning is messy and that messy is normal. Horses do not need perfect riders. They need consistent ones. They need humans who practise, who breathe, who try again.

Perfectionism poisons horsemanship. That harsh internal voice creates a frustrated rider. The frustrated rider creates a confused horse. The horse reflects it all straight back at us like a very large, very honest mirror.

It takes courage to silence the monster. It takes community to keep going. Surround yourself with people who value the journey, who celebrate effort, who understand that growth comes from showing up rather than showing off.

And when you forget all that, remember this. Your horse is not asking for perfect. Your horse is asking for your effort to try♥️.

This is Collectable Advice Entry 91/365 of my challenge to share good ideas. Please save it, share it and let it enrich your day. If you are a content creator, kindly refrain from copying and pasting it and use your own brains😉


Lucy came to visit me this morning. And she brought treats 💚 She met one of the people who take care of me and had a nic...
11/25/2025

Lucy came to visit me this morning. And she brought treats 💚 She met one of the people who take care of me and had a nice chat. It was good to see her again, she has a big spot in my heart.

11/15/2025

Empathy: An Important Word That Can Turn Human Discomfort Into Horse Problems

Empathy is the capacity to recognise, understand, and respond to the emotional states of others. It has multiple dimensions that include cognitive empathy, which is the ability to interpret another’s feelings or intentions, and affective empathy, which is the emotional resonance you experience in response. There is also empathic concern which is the motivation to act. So empathy is not just feeling sorry for a horse.

It is a blend of perception, interpretation, emotional regulation, and behaviour.

Which brings us to the real issue in the horse world...

➡️When Empathy Backfires for Horses

Humans can empathise with horses, but only up to the limit of their own imagination, their own emotional comfort, and their own understanding of how horses actually perceive the world. Horses do not think like us. They do not interpret pressure, learning, novelty, or social cues like us. Which means our empathy is a translation exercise and sometimes our translations are as inaccurate as a Google maps 10 years ago...

A distressed horse can stir up a wave of discomfort in a person that is harder to settle than the horse itself. So the human often shifts to soothing themselves and not the horse. This is where empathy loses the plot.

The horse might show stress while learning something new because it is confused or needs the task to be simplified or presented with more clarity and skill. The solution is usually better training, not a spiritual intermission.

But if the person feels uncomfortable watching the horse be confused, they may stop altogether. They may avoid the situation next time. They may proclaim that the horse does not like groundwork, or finds training sticks traumatic, or cannot be caught, or fears the mounting block, or hates being ridden. They make these declarations from the throne of empathy, as if being empathetic means never checking whether the horse can learn something new with good guidance.

They justify their avoidance by claiming they are being sensitive to the horse’s needs. Meanwhile the horse remains stuck with a problem it could have easily learned to navigate if only the person had sought knowledge, stayed consistent, or asked for help.

➡️What Real Empathy Requires

Practising empathy with horses is not about emotional purity. It is not about announcing your feelings and calling it care. It requires knowledge of equine behaviour and learning. It requires skill and the ability to regulate your own emotional discomfort so you do not project it onto the horse. It requires accepting that your feelings are not diagnostic tools.

Empathy becomes useful when combined with observation, strategy, and willingness to improve. Without these, empathy can collapse into avoidance and self soothing, while the horse quietly struggles with something it could have mastered.

If we want empathy to lift horses rather than trap them, then we can never stop learning. We need to pair empathy with competence, because the horse does not benefit from our discomfort. The horse benefits from our clarity.

➡️And what is clarity?

Clarity is the ability to present information to a horse in a way that is consistent, comprehensible, and free of mixed cues. It means your signals are clean, your timing makes sense, and your intentions are easy for the horse to interpret. Clarity is the opposite of emotional projection. It is the opposite of hesitation or avoidance. It is the steady, understandable guidance that allows a horse to feel secure enough to learn.

This is Collectable Advice entry 78/365 of my challenge focusing on words used in the horse world. Hit SAVE or Hit SHARE and spread the word - literally ❤😆

IMAGE📸: My good friend Isabelle and OTTB Dash. This is a heads up to all the OTTB and STB fans to Join our Racehorse Reboot 8 Week Challenge Event from the 3 January - 28 February 2026. Everyone already enrolled is welcome. If you haven't enrolled, do so now and follow our advice to support and prepare your Off-the-Tracker to be ready commencing re-training in January💪❤ More info below.

Ms. Emma has come to see me many times and today she took photos!
09/21/2025

Ms. Emma has come to see me many times and today she took photos!

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