Equine Connection Freelance Training

04/25/2025

Fabulous visualization! I'll let it speak for itself.

04/24/2025

If you missed the 2025 Webinar Series, you can now purchase lifetime access to the recordings through my website! These 5 classes will walk you through learning to identify postural and nervous system patterns in horses, and how to help your horse through emotional, mental, and physical postural work both on the ground and under saddle.

I am beyond grateful to say that everyone who took the survey at the end of the series gave it 5 stars. Here's a bit of what the participants at the live series had to say:

"The information provided was easily digestible, yet greatly expanded my understanding of why certain postural patterns occur, exercises to encourage proper posture, and how those exercises aid the horse. My mare has been physically dysfunctional for a while, so I'm glad to have found Annemieke right as we began our postural rehab journey." - Lauren Gingery

"Much is applicable with and to my horses. So glad we can watch replays, in order to review before and after working with the horses. This is a logical, very thoughtful approach to really educating the horse. Very Nerdy at times, which is good. Looking forward to what comes next!" - Sharon O’Banion

"I really have enjoyed this series…I love the building upon each session and of course being able to implement them within our in person lessons will only deepen and further the learning! Every other week I was looking forward to the webinar." - Erin Spencer

Click the link below to gain access. Your horse will thank you!

Gain lifetime access to recordings of Annemieke’s 2025 Webinar SeriesLearn how to read the horse’s story through their posture and utilize emotional, mental, and physical postural work to regulate the nervous system and promote healthy biomechanics. Webinar 1: Introduction to Postural Training T...

04/06/2025

Remember Frank? Well it's time to celebrate his hoof makeover. We've still got a ways to go, and I've got a lot to learn about taking good hoof photos and taking actual measurements.

The photos in December were taken in my arena because Frank could not stand relaxed in the barn yet, so forgive the sand and imperfect angles. Through proper barefoot trimming and postural rehabilitation, Frank's high, contracted heels are now expanding so that the heel buttresses and frog can do their job to absorb shock by expanding and contracting as he moves. There's evidence of this improvement in the shape of the coronary band which is now a relaxed slope on all 4 feet instead of an upward, pressurized-looking curve.

Right now the horses are all shedding their frogs and we've had nearly 10 inches of rain in the last 5 days. so the frogs don't look their prettiest (yes, I treat for thrush twice per week), but look at the overall shape with respect to the shape of the hooves.

Frank was a horse who was once believed to not be able to be sound without shoes because of navicular syndrome and thin soles. There's no evidence of those pathologies in his feet now. I've only had to put boots on him 3 times ever since he's moved to my farm (2x when the ground was frozen solid and once when the ground dried and hardened rapidly), and not because he was lame-- because I wanted to ensure he could continue landing heel first.

Frank lives on my track system at Sage Knoll Farm, which is varied terrain from large gravel to fine gravel to dirt. Creating an environment where horses can live like horses and move healthily allows us to have so much success with natural hoof care.

Thank you Alec Fourman with Fourman's Natural Hoof Care for your excellent trimming, and for always indulging my nerdiness!

04/05/2025

This is gold. “Boundaries are love” as Nahshon says. Which is only possible if they come from somewhere free of fear.

Your correction isn’t the problem. The energy behind it is.

In any healthy relationship—human or horse—boundaries are essential. But the moment our corrections come from dominance, anger, ego, fear, or frustration… we’re no longer setting a boundary. We’re reacting.

Real boundaries come from a grounded place. A place that simply says:

“That doesn’t work for me.”
No blame. No ego. No dominance. Just clarity.

This is the work we do here.
The emotional accountability.
The clarity that invites connection instead of control.
The conversations that lead to mutual understanding.

The hardest part? Doing the work as humans to be able to set those boundaries with softness — and to receive them with grace. Because safety has to go both ways.

💬 Your horse should never feel unsafe when you say “no.”
💬 And you should never feel unsafe when your horse says “no.”

That means learning to hear them when they set a boundary — without taking it personally.
And it means learning to communicate our own boundaries — without overpowering them.

This is the deeper work.
The part of horsemanship that has nothing to do with technique…
and everything to do with who we are when we show up.

Because in the end, what we’re building isn’t obedience.
It’s a relationship.

03/30/2025

On May 17-18, I will be in southern Wisconsin auditing private sessions from one of my greatest teachers, Nahshon Cook.

Is there anyone on the way or slightly out of the way who would like lessons or cavesson fittings from me while I'm on the road? I'm willing to schedule a couple days before and after that weekend.

03/29/2025

A week from today is the final webinar of the 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis! We will be discussing how to apply the emotional, mental, and physical posturing work under-saddle.

You can still sign up for the whole series and receive recordings, gaining access to the final webinar for free! After the series is complete, this deal will expire.

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/FzYExsuyMw1Jzxsn8

03/23/2025

Time to brag on Frank! He's a 10 year old ex-reining quarter horse learning classical dressage.

This little guy has worked so hard to guide me in helping him unwind his mind and body over the past 3 months. When he arrived at Sage Knoll Farm, his muscles were stiff enough to make me wonder if we should test for PSSM. He had pretty severe anticipatory anxiety during training situations, and lacked social skills in the herd. Our first month was mainly spent working on being relaxed enough to enter the barn and eat his supplements (which really should only take 20 mins max per day), and being able to walk and halt with me without rushing.

Last night's webinar on Physical Posturing Techniques was so fitting for our check in day with his posture and musculature. I couldn't contain my lecture to the time limits I had set, and invited attendees to a third segment. It was just too important. A lecture on how to not break your horse's body. I taught from 6pm to nearly 8:30pm and only skimmed the surface of the basic-basics of postural in-hand work.

And over these last 3 months, it's only been those basic-basics with Frank. We did our emotional posturing to allow him to feel safe and for his body to find patterns outside the tendon guard reflex. We did our mental posturing to learn how to communicate with each other and develop a language to talk to his body and soul. And we did our very simple physical posturing work. Sternum rocks. Walking in contact. Fletchi droit. Turn on the forehand. Turn on the haunches. Abduction over poles. Shoulder fore on a circle. That's it.

Look at his chest. his ribcage was shifted way off to the left with his pectorals braced and jutting way out in front of his body in December. Now he has a functional thoracic sling, blending his forelimbs and body seamlessly.

Look at the new length in his neck.

Look at him coming into a level stance front to back.

Look at the lift in his back. In fact the saddle fitter did tracings a month ago and the angle behind his withers has already softened.

The boy has postural muscles now! He has a psoas that engages when he moves and has let go of the flight and freeze patterns that dominated it before.

Frank is now happily integrated into his herd and has no problem going with the flow of daily life on the farm. He loves his in-hand work and lunge work. He's also calmly riding at walk trot and canter with or without reins. In fact, for the first month, I only rode him without reins as a passenger. I needed him to realize he had choices and that dressage with me involves creative self expression of the horse-- not robotic obedience. Once he understood that, we could have a real conversation. Oh and his new postural muscles are strong, while his movement muscles can now relax-- they have give and suppleness. He's achieved a healthy balance of stability and mobility.

Let's celebrate Frank! I'm so proud of this boy, and can't wait to see what he looks like at the end of the summer.

Coming soon: his hoof makeover. From contracted heels and some flavor of navicular to growing bigger feet than he came with and the heels opening up. Frogs are no longer contracted and passive!

03/13/2025

Only 2 more Webinars to go in the 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis!

Now that we've gone into how the nervous system, physical posture, and emotional state are intertwined, and we know how to effectively communicate with horses by respecting their nature, it's time to go into in-hand work to teach horses how to healthfully carry themselves and riders. Specifically, the development of the thoracic sling and weight-bearing posture.

No matter what discipline you ride or if you don't ride at all, your horse will benefit from you learning this work. Postural training is for all horses-- young horses, sport horses, trail horses, pasture puffs, rehab cases, and geriatric horses. We put so much time and money into these animals, and as owners we ought to know how to help their bodies move correctly-- good movement is preventative medicine and treatment from all sorts of pathologies.

Join us in a little over a week to learn essential physical posturing work in-hand. The final webinar will teach you how to translate these skills under saddle.

Recordings are still available if you missed the earlier webinars and want to catch up!

Sign up here:
https://forms.gle/PKWRtfmTkyYzbFXx6

03/02/2025

On Saturday at 6pm ET on Zoom, we have our 3rd of the 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis!

In Mental Posturing Techniques, we will discuss how horses learn, and how to develop a healthy relationship and understanding of contact and the aids. I'll teach the foundational exercises your horse will need to know to have success on the ground and under saddle in any discipline! This is the language you'll use to physically posture your horse-- the topic of the final 2 webinars.

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/qwZLojicNpQZ5FEP8

02/23/2025

This is a fantastic visual to understand basic biomechanical principles of the horse’s balance! If you want to learn more, I highly recommend joining my 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis to learn about physical posturing!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IyTyFuntmZI

Link in the comments!

“Oldie but goodie.

Good example of what is happening to the rest of the body when our horse’s head tilts and he is improperly rotated, instead of having a proper flexion and rotation to the inside like we see in the crest flip.

Inside rotation, coupled with the lateral step to the outside instead of falling in, shoulder-in, is what actually prepares the horse to elevate in the thoracic sling and start to engage and collect, because he’s doing so unilaterally, meaning one side at a time.

We can teach the horse to elevate in the thoracic sling one side at a time by positioning with correct rotation and flexion, engaging the inside hind up under the center of gravity with shoulder-in. Here we get unilateral elevation, unilateral engagement.

As we develop the horse physically, advancing into different unilateral work, unilateral elevation and unilateral engagement naturally develops into bilateral elevation and engagement and collection.

This is what dressage is. This is why we teach these movements in dressage, to strengthen the horse one side at a time so he can carry us in a healthy way, not to show off that he can go sideways.”

02/18/2025

https://www.equineconnectionfreelancetraining.com/blog/the-half-halt

Check out my new blog post about the Half Halt! I discuss what it is, how it works, and how to train it from the ground to the saddle. I also respond to the wide variety of responses I got to my question of what a half halt means to you!

If you're interested in learning more about this, I highly recommend signing up for my 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis, which is all about postural training from the ground up! If you missed the first one, you can still receive lifetime access to the recording simply by signing up and submitting payment!

In my early equine education, I remember being told to half halt my horses all the time and only vaguely knowing what it meant. Some trainers seemed to want me to pull back on the reins, some squeeze the horse down with my seat, and one even told me to bear down, as if to p**p on the horse. These ar

02/15/2025

A week from today at 6pm Eastern Time, we have our 2nd Webinar of the 2025 Webinar Series with Annemieke Buis: Emotional Posturing! If you can't be there live, you can watch the recording.

Last week we talked about how the mammalian nervous system connects visceral feelings of safety to physical posture, and the biomechanical patterns associated with a variety of nervous system states. If you missed it, it's not too late to sign up and receive lifetime access to the recording.

In the next webinar, we will go into depth of how feelings of safety, connection, and attunement are the foundation for all postural work with horses. Participants will learn how to help their horse achieve and maintain an emotional state where they are available for learning and using their bodies in a healthy way. We will discuss relaxation, Polyvagal theory, relationship to contact, and so much more!

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/ErKbFdQayfwHi6H89

02/07/2025

Sneak peak into some of the topics we'll delve into in Saturday's Webinar: Intro to Postural Training!

*The purpose and function of the Mammalian Nervous System
*The Tendon Guard Reflex: understanding how our (and our horses') bodies unconsciously and involuntarily take on postural patterns governed by feelings of safety
*Postures associated with 6 nervous system states
*Biomechanical implications of prolonged sympathetic nervous system activity
*The Thoracic Sling- function and dysfunction
*The Hyoid Apparatus- function and dysfunction
*The Equine Stay Apparatus and what happens when it's not working
*Training your eye to read physical, mental, and emotional patterns from a horse's postural presentation

Sound interesting to you? Sign up at the link below. If you participate in the first 4, the last webinar is free (even if you sign up one at a time)-- so this first one isn't one you'll want to miss!

https://forms.gle/F9yMeUVhxd5actrBA

02/04/2025

“Harmoniously bent in forward motion, the horse advances his poll which will be vertical to his mouth. Here we have the makings of a bringing to hand, the result of lateral flexibility in impulsion rather than forcing by the reins.”
-Philippe Karl from Long Reining

While I’m home sick, I’ve been studying and reading. I found this simple passage so profound, and a refreshing way of describing proper poll flexion.

I always teach my students that poll flexion comes last in all that we do to help a horse develop a supple and healthy neck and back. First we teach the mobilization of the jaw. Then lateral flexion of the neck. As we practice these while building strength in the thoracic sling, the horse becomes able to support and lift the base of the neck. This lifting makes it possible (and natural) for the horse to advance the poll as Phillipe describes— so instead of thinking of poll flexion as the nose coming BACK, think of it as the poll coming up and FORWARD over the nose. Because we have engaged the thoracic sling, opened the back, and elevated the base of the neck. So, we become round through correct lengthening.

If you want to know HOW to do all this, sign up for my webinar series!

02/04/2025

I am so grateful for the amazing community I’ve found and grown. I’ve met some of the most generous, empathetic people through my work with horses, and I am blown away by how much they give back.

Last week one of my q***r clients donated half the cost of lessons to another q***r student. Because it’s a hard time for all of us, but especially minorities right now.

I’ve been sick for several days now, and a client just sent me money, saying she gets paid sick days and since I’m self employed and don’t, she wanted to share that with me. I was going to try to pull myself together and work with at least one of her horses today, but she wanted me to get well more than she wanted the training.

What beautiful acts of kindness. ❤️