Ahimsa Equine

06/16/2025

06/02/2025

“What costs more than fair pay? A colic surgery that could have been prevented. A big client walking away because their horse’s care fell through the cracks. …

You say you want people who care? Then build a workplace where they can keep caring.”

Picking stalls and grooming horses is highly skilled labor. If you think mucking out is just shoveling p**p into a cart and grooming is just brushing off dust before a ride, then congratulations: you’re either brand new or have completely checked out.

In any half-decent barn, stall cleaners and grooms are your first line of defense. They’re the ones who notice when a horse stops finishing its grain. They’re the ones who spot a spotless stall because the horse has been quietly colicking for hours while you sleep. We expect them to know what a tucked-up flank means, to see when a horse’s eye looks dull, and to flag a digital pulse or a leg that looked fine yesterday but suddenly doesn’t.

This kind of attention doesn’t just fall from the sky. It’s not some skill anyone can pick up overnight. It’s learned through years of experience and thousands of repetitions. It takes deep knowledge to know what “normal” looks like for each horse and enough care to act immediately when something feels off. They are literally the eyes and ears of your whole operation. If you want horses that stay sound, happy, and healthy, you need people who actually notice. That only happens when you support them and pay them fairly.

But nope, instead, they get treated like disposable robots. Expected to sacrifice weekends, holidays, family time, and health without a peep of complaint. Expected to carry your emergencies, your crazy schedules, your business goals while barely scraping by. They are humans, not machines. They stop caring when you treat them like they don’t matter.

Barn owners, yes, margins are tight. Overhead is brutal. Most of you aren’t swimming in cash. But it’s not your staff’s problem if you can’t manage your cash flow. You decided to run a business. That means paying legal wages, providing workers’ comp, and offering basic benefits to the people who keep your horses safe every day.

If you’re still calling full-time employees “independent contractors” to dodge taxes and benefits, you’re breaking the law. The IRS doesn’t care that “that’s what everyone does.” In Florida, that can cost you tens of thousands per misclassified worker. Back taxes, interest, personal liability. If someone gets hurt and you don’t have workers’ comp, you’re personally on the hook. You could lose the business. Lose the farm.

Yes, this might mean raising board fees. Welcome to running a responsible barn. If you don’t want to pay fair wages and benefits, do the damn work yourself. Too busy? Your time is “too valuable”? Then pay someone qualified properly and stop expecting your staff to cover for your bad business decisions. What costs more than fair pay? A colic surgery that could have been prevented. A big client walking away because their horse’s care fell through the cracks. A groom quitting mid-season and turning your whole program upside down. A reputation tanked because you treat your staff like disposable labor.

Would you expect your horse to keep working if their neck was sore, their legs were swollen, or they hadn’t had a real day off in weeks? Of course not. You’d call the vet. You’d adjust their workload. You’d obsess over every little sign of discomfort. But when your groom is running on four hours of sleep, and getting screamed at because someone’s supplement tub ran low, the expectation is to shut up and keep working. We treat animals with more compassion and basic decency than the human beings who care for them.

You say you want people who care? Then build a workplace where they can keep caring. Pay them a living wage. Give them time off, and God forbid, a weekend here and there. Respect their skill and their role in your horse’s health.

05/27/2025

“No one is coming to the rescue”!

I have just returned home from a lovely trip to the International Open Day for the Ecole de Legerete, to pay homage to Philippe Karl and High Noon in their last public performance. Philippe’s retirement, alongside the immense losses earlier this year of Bettina Drummond and Charles de Kunffy, prompted me to wonder about who the next masters will be. Who will carry the torch of Classical Excellence? Who will share the shining truth of Masters past? Who will inspire the next generation to do the same?

Often in life, we realize no one is coming to the rescue; we must chart our own course. Now, more than ever, the onus falls on us to demonstrate our own ethics in our horsemanship practice, and bravely for the public eye. Philippe in his speech to his teachers assembled in the audience, urged us to the fore: now is our time. It is not enough just to make cogent arguments: but into the fray. Show the work, to the best of our ability. If we are lucky, one day a student of ours will rise to the occasion, following the beauty that harmony and balance create, and perpetuate in turn.

While there are very few who we might consider Masters among us, there are many unwilling to compromise on the ethics of training which respects and honors the horse. As we take up the mantle, we lift the torch, and simultaneously the burden from the generation before. And the most beautiful thing happens: the truth has a way of rippling out, sparking curiosity and growth in ways we cannot even imagine.

A few years ago I sold a horse to a young girl, it was a big step up for her. He had many good qualities, but could be as anxious as he was talented and kind. She saw in him her hopes and dreams, and as she got to know him, he guided her training and together they forged a path of kindness, mutual trust and respect. Other young people at her barn took notice. They began to ask questions, to follow the training she was doing. One by one they took off their nosebands. Somewhere far away, young girls who I have never met, are practicing more ethical training, changing their own lives and the lives of their horses, all because some years back I began learning about and practicing Legerete. How many others might have shifted in their paths in ways we cannot imagine? And if this has happened from my work, imagine the reach someone like Philippe Karl has had - across continents, across time.

This is how change happens. Not only from inspiring demonstrations of mastery, as we saw from Philippe Karl and High Noon in their farewell performance this past weekend, but also from the ripples of many imperfect messengers, doing the best they can in their small corners of the world. Uncompromising in their ethics and standards, but contagious in their empathy and generosity. Imagine the combined effect, not just of the one bolt of lightening that is true mastery, but of a million far flung floating sparks, waiting to ignite.

05/22/2025

OUR MORAL & PROFESSIONAL OBLIGATION TO NOT WORSEN HORSE BEHAVIOUR

I’m frequently the ‘last resort’ for horses with behaviour problems. When I see a new client, they’ve often been to several other equine professionals, including trainers, without success.

In most cases, the horse’s behaviour has also worsened after these interventions. The horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier now rears and can’t be touched. The horse anxious about loading now rips the lead out of the owner’s hands and runs away when led towards the trailer. The horse who bolted on the lunge line now comes off the circle and attacks the handler. The horse who wouldn’t stand still at the mounting block now explodes and bucks hard.

The reason these problems worsened is that techniques were used to try and suppress the behaviour: the horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier was aggressively backed up every time they did so; the horse anxious about loading was hit with a whip every time they balked; the horse who bolted on the lunge had a chain put over their nose, and they were je**ed when they bolted; the horse who wouldn’t stand still was worked hard when they fidgeted and allowed to ‘rest’ next to the mounting block while the person tried to mount again. The horses all learned that trying to escape the source of things that caused them fear or pain wasn’t effective, so they had to try harder. They reared. They ripped the leadrope out of hands. They attacked, or exploded.

In every instance, this worsened behaviour made it more dangerous for others who followed to handle the horse – whether that was the horse’s owner, or the next professional hired to try and address the problem. This is because suppressed behaviour isn’t changed behaviour. You can make an unwanted behaviour appear to ‘stop’ by making the consequences for performing the behaviour much worse for the horse. But, you won’t have addressed why the behaviour was happening. You won’t have eased pain, or removed fear. In the same way you can make a beach ball temporarily ‘disappear’ by pushing it forcefully underwater, if you don’t address the reason why the horse's behaviour is happening, it will once again pop up – but with more intensity.

Our industry (horse training) is unregulated, which I have mixed feelings about. But one of the clear downsides of a lack of regulation is that anyone can hang out their shingle, without knowing about things like the effect of behaviour suppression, making it more dangerous for the next professional. The actions we take as trainers don’t just impact the horse in front of us, they also impact people. If we know that we can make horses safer for others to handle in the future, by choosing appropriate training techniques, don’t we morally have this obligation?

It’s certainly food for thought.

05/21/2025

05/09/2025

Safety on both sides 💜

04/25/2025

In the words of my mentor William Faerber: good dressage, like good art, is nothing sensational, but instead inspires in the onlooker a silent awe.

What do you notice in this test?
A quiet rhythm, ease of precision, perhaps your own silence as the pair steps into their harmony together as they work.

Take note as well of what you don’t you notice: no tail swishing, no knees jerking about. No grotesque contortion of the neck...

04/17/2025

Put another way, perception of choice is a primary reinforcer. As important to survival as food.

This is why we want to listen to and inspire more from our horses’ innate curiosity about the world… and to never shut them down.

The more frequently we can encourage choice, the more we help bring out their personalities. When we engage with them in play (where they’re given agency) the more we develop trust and try from our horses.

In a world where resignation is often confused for cooperation, job one is recognizing signs of distress, shut down, worry, anxiety in our horses. Our horses’ body language and facial expressions are his or her way of communicating with you.

02/02/2025

Learn from Susan & Ken — how to joyfully and eagerly disagree with your colleagues.

Disagreement is an opportunity for connection and learning among colleagues who share your values!

01/26/2025

Neoprene: “easy to clean, sticky and grippy, heat resistant, and shock-absorbing.” Translation: “rips your horse’s hair out, traps heat and non-wicking, if you need it to stop your saddle slipping…your saddle doesn’t fit.”

01/26/2025

“So again, why use force?”