Warwick Schiller's Attuned Horsemanship

09/12/2025

Join for a 3 part ZOOM series on "Through The Lens of Equus: How Horses Help Us See Ourselves" Explore how horses can guide us towards greater self-awareness and learn how important self-awareness is for successful relationships with our equine partners.

Leif will host 3 Zoom calls on oct 3, 10 & 24th but if you can't make it live, there will be recordings available.

Link to sign up in the comments (otherwise FB algorithm won't show you this opportunity!).

09/11/2025

A LITTLE MORE ON TRAIL RIDING ALONE.

The other day I posted a video of me riding Chance and Robyn riding Rey, on a little trail ride around our place, and it showed Robyn cantering off and leaving us, and I explained that the reason Chance was not bothered by that was because I taught him to trail ride alone first.

There were many comments saying why they WOULDN'T ever trail ride alone, including ones like this

" but for safety reasons I will never trail ride alone I might be failing my horse because of this but at the end of the day safety is my first priority and accidents happen"

"I am 83 and will not ever ride alone on a trail. I have to put safety first, and in case of an emergency, another rider might be needed. "

" I don’t think it’s a good practice to ride out on your own. Anything can happen on a trail ride and then there was no one to help."

What these nice folks probably didn't realise was that when I start teaching a horse to trail ride alone, I am not going for a trail ride FOR ME, I was going for that trail ride as part of my horses education.

I was not riding 30 miles out in a national forest somewhere.

This was in a place where I control the environment. It's on my ranch, and there will be no hikers, bikers, bears, moose, paragliders or whatever else people encounter while trail riding.

The whole loop is less that a 10 minute walk.

There's a whole lot of difference in doing something, and teaching them to do something. You can spend an hour getting a horse in a trailer, and the next day it takes you another hour to load them, or you can spend an hour teaching a horse to load, and the next day it takes 30 seconds.

I like to train my horses for inevitable, and if you trail ride, eventually there's going to be a day that whoever you are riding with needs to leave. That is not the day to teach your horse to be alone on a trail, or as a Greek philospher named Archilochus said, "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation".

This video shows one of my horses on his first trail ride, and then shows another horse leaving.

09/08/2025

For anyone near Waterford, Virginia, they're having a book club discussion about The Principles of Training!

Interested in exploring how to communicate with your horse in a ways they understand and to develop your horsemanship?

Join us as we will be diving into The Principles of Training by Warwick Schiller on September 15th.

To sign-up please do the following:

- Email [email protected] or message POM Equestrian Digest
- Venmo the $45 membership fee. This covers the book and supplies for the meetings
- Join us at 6:30pm at Peace Of Mind Dressage on September 15th for a great discussion and engagement as we learn from one of the top trainers about true horsemanship

We will meet every other week at the same time on Monday nights. The group is also a partner of the Ground Handling Class hosted by Peace Of Mind Equestrian Academy. These classes are held every Sunday at 11:00 am. Check out the Equestrian Academy page to sign-up.

Please reach out with any questions or to sign-up!ans

09/07/2025

My wife Robyn and I are just back from Iceland where we spent an amazing 6 days on a Globetrotting - Horse Riding Holidays ride.

I fell in love with the Icelandic horses, not only for their smooth gaits, but they are such friendly little guys, and the scenery was beautiful.

09/05/2025

"WHY I TEACH HORSES TO TRAIL RIDE ALONE FIRST"- and other tips to prevent problems later on.

I'm a big fan of teaching horses to be trail ridden alone first, before they are trail ridden with other horses. Some people trail ride with another horse first to "give them a good experience" but I personally feel if your horse can't trail ride alone, he's not ready to be trail ridden.

This all starts with my basics in the arena, and those basics include being able to walk, trot, and canter, on a completely loose rein, with no steering, and have them use the whole arena.

If you ask a horse to go in the arena and allow them to go wherever they want, they will tell you what they are attracted to, and this is usually the closest horse to the arena. Until this attraction is no longer there ( and resolving that is one of the keystone parts of my ridden work with horses) trying to trail ride alone is going to be problematic. So in reality I solve the trail riding problem, before I even go out on the trail.

Some people might say " It's ok, I always ride with a friend", and that's fine, UNLESS your friend has to suddenly leave for some reason (and over the years I've heard plenty of stories about people having problems when their friend had to leave for one reason or another).

In 800BD a Greek philosopher named Archilochus said "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation".

Knowing what occasions will probably arise is a horses lifetime helps me prepare them for those things happening, before they happen. One of the things I do with a young horse is have them turned loose in the arena while I ride other horses (older, seasoned horses) so that they learn that in that situation, the energy and movements of other horses have nothing to do with them. Later on during their training I will also ride them while another horse is loose in the arena, so they learn loose horses running around have nothing to do with them. Then, if they end up being a show horse (or a trail riding horse) and the inevitable happens and someone falls off and their horse starts running around loose, it's nothing to be concerned about.

In this video Im riding Chance on the trail, with Robyn riding Rey, and have have Robyn and Rey leave us so I can show you how Chance (who was taught to trail ride alone) is not fazed by it at all.



Aero - More Than Feed

09/04/2025

Some sage advice for the horse world

09/01/2025

Some truth here from podcast guest Peter Crone - The Mind Architect