Amethyst Equine Connections Inc.

Brix (April 2026)
Red dun c**t
Out of Mike - GoodNGoldMechanic
and Ivy - AOC Rolling Glo
All around QH qualities and a love 💙
Registration is in mail! AEC My Chex R Good
Message for details 🤠

The Biomechanical Problem Sitting on Your Horse🔥

We spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to improve our horses.

More balanced. Better transitions. More engagement. More relaxed. Better behaviour.

Meanwhile, sitting on top of this entire biomechanical improvement project is 50 to 90+ kilograms of human, listing slightly to left, gripping with one thigh and wondering why the horse is crooked.

Awkward.

So here is today's Collectable Advice:

🚩If you want to improve how your horse moves and behaves under saddle, have a look at the body sitting on top of it.😎

Because your horse doesn't just carry your weight.

➡️Your horse has to manage what your body does while it carries you.💥

Riding position isn't really a position

We tend to teach riding position as though someone might burst into the arena with a protractor.

Shoulder. Hip. Heel.

Excellent. Nobody move.

Unfortunately, the horse has.

Horses don't experience our position as a photograph. They experience us as *mass in motion*.🫣

Every stride, the horse is generating, absorbing and transferring forces through its body. Its back moves. Its limbs load and unload. It accelerates, decelerates, bends and changes direction.

And perched on top is you.😬

You with your dodgy left hip, a collapsing ribcage and that might not have done anything resembling cardiovascular exercise since 2017.🫠

The horse must now incorporate you into the movement.

This is riding.

Our job is essentially to manage our own body well enough that the horse doesn't have to manage it for us.❤

That requires:

1️⃣Enough stability to contain our own body.

And:

2️⃣Enough mobility to allow the horse to move underneath us.

When we can't?

If your trunk collapses every stride, the horse accommodates it.

If you consistently dump your weight onto one side, the horse accommodates that.

If an old injury means one hip doesn't move properly, the horse feels it.

And if you brace every available muscle in an attempt to “sit deep”, congratulations.

You have transformed yourself into a 70 kg backpack containing several bricks.

The horse still has to carry it.😕

And horses respond.

They may shorten their stride, rush, hollow, drift, fall through a shoulder, struggle with one rein or become tense when you sit....or just become spooky and scared of the world‼️

This doesn't mean *everything is the rider's fault*. Horses come with their own asymmetries, weaknesses, discomfort, training problems and occasionally strong opinions about wheelie bins.

But horse and rider are a *moving system*.

Change one body and you change what the other body has to manage.

Which gives us something surprisingly useful to work on😃

Ourselves.

Improve your fitness.

Develop enough muscular integrity to stop various parts of you departing independently at the trot.

Work on mobility.

Manage your injuries.

Notice your asymmetries.

Develop balance, coordination and body awareness.

Not because you need to look fabulous in beige breeches.

Because every improvement in your ability to manage *your own body* potentially changes what your horse has to manage underneath you.

There is also the minor matter of survival - you improve your chances of remaining in the saddle if s**t happens!

Which is generally preferable.

So here is something you can start asking yourself..

*“Am I making myself easy for my horse to carry?”*

Because good riding isn't about arranging yourself beautifully on a horse.

It's about having enough control of your own body that you can move *with* another one.

And before we spend another six months trying to straighten the horse, perhaps we should take a quick look at the slightly asymmetrical cripple primate sitting on top.🤪

Collectable Advice 271/365.

Please SHARE if you made it to the end of this without being offended 😆

FYI

🤣🤣🤣

ONE OF MY BIGGEST, MOST HEFTY FAILURES 🤣🤣

Many moons ago, I saw this little beauty for sale and I genuinely knew it was going to be the answer to all of my problems 🤩

Poo hoover?
Driving around while the poo comes to me??
Absolutely yes mate
Expensive? Yes.
Worth it? YES!
TAKE MY MONEY!!

Quite frankly we couldn’t pick The Poover (as I lovingly renamed it) up quick enough.

I parked it in the barn, admired it and took pictures of it (SEE ATTACHED!)

I imagined our adventures together. Breezing around the track in mere minutes, me sitting atop the quad, hose in hand, while the Poover did its thing. This was going to revolutionise how things worked and make my life so much easier.

It was time for our first mission 🥳
The Poover was hitched to the quad and I started her up, then I started the quad up.

Wow, I thought to myself. Two engines running simultaneously. That’s going to be a bit loud and not particularly environmentally friendly.

But no fear, we set off on our adventure and within seconds stumbled across the first glorious pile of soon to be annihilated 💩

Hose out…smack. Oh yeah that heavy metal nozzle probably needs to not hit me across the head every time I go to use it. Noted.

Starts vacuuming…poo starts going up the tube which then starts flopping down between the quad and Poover with the weight. That’s slightly annoying. I’ll try and hold the middle of the pipe AND the nozzle.

By this point I felt like I was wrestling some kind of anaconda Steve Backshall stylie.

Then I realised that my dream of moseying down the track was slightly thwarted by the fact it was 6m wide so I had to get off the quad and poover (the verb ‘to poover’ was now part of my vocab) around in a circle.

In fact not just getting off the quad, but taking said anaconda with me every time.

Now I’m a neurodivergent girly and by this point I was well and truly OVERSTIMULATED.

The noise
The brain damage
The wrestling
The getting off
The circle
The continued wrestling
The getting back on
The moving a few metres and repeating

It took me less than one trip around the track to develop a hatred for the Poover of an intensity that I am not proud of 🤣

Now I still had the task of emptying it and washing it as per the instructions.

Let’s just say that if I had videoed the entire scenario, at least 97% of it would have to be bleeped out.

The Poover sat in the corner of the barn for months. Slowly growing a coat of spiders webs and shrouded in an extra layer of a cloak of my guilt for spending so much on the bloody thing.

Never to be used again. Forever to be remembered as the day I decided I never wanted to wrestle anacondas of the poo kind or the real kind ever again.

The only silver lining of this story is that when I eventually emotionally let go of the Poover and listed it for sale, I got £200 more than I bought it for 🤣

So, the moral of this story, surprisingly, is.

BUY THE POOVER!!
(then sell it again 🤣)

Who wants to go to either?

**The online entry form has refused to cooperate for some people. Please send me a screenshot of the filled form or just email me the information from the form to [email protected] if this happens to you.**

We have had so much interest in our September WE show that we are looking at options to fit more people.

Entries will open on August 15 to give us a better idea of numbers well ahead of the show. Ignore the date on the poster. Please go to https://www.kaspianequestrian.com/copy-of-shows on Saturday to submit your entry.

You will notice a poll at the bottom of the entry. Based on the response we get from riders, we may change the format of the show to a 2 day show or 2 one days shows. Please note that at this time you are signing up for a one day show on Saturday September 26.

We are so excited about the response from the community and hope we can host a great event for everyone. We are also still offering a clinic on Friday September 25. Riders that have never done WE are welcome to join as well as experienced riders wanting to hone their skills. We will have separate groups to facilitate a great learning day.

Capone is enjoying the grass and would like to stay out a wee bit longer please 💙

Strangles | Equine Disease Communication Center The upper respiratory disease commonly referred to as strangles is caused by Streptococcus equi subsp equi. Strangles is spread from horse to horse through direct contact. Horses can also contract the disease by coming into contact with contaminated surfaces. The disease is highly infectious.

😂😂 Every year! I swear at this point I go...why is there weird energy....why can't I sleep...and then I Google and go....oh yeah.....

Whether you see the Lion's Gate Portal as a spiritual event or simply as a symbolic opportunity to pause and reflect, it can be a lovely excuse to check in with yourself.

Leading up to 8th August, you could try:

✨ Declutter .... your home, your tack room, your car... or even your mind. Let go of what no longer serves you.

✨ Journal .... Ask yourself:

What am I ready to leave behind?

What do I want more of?

What would my future self thank me for starting today?

✨ Spend time in nature ..... Barefoot in the grass, sit with your horses, watch a sunset, or simply breathe outside without scrolling your phone.

✨ Protect your energy .... Notice who leaves you feeling lighter and who leaves you feeling drained. Boundaries are powerful.

✨ Practice gratitude ....Not because life is perfect, but because it helps your brain notice the good that's already there.

✨ Visualise your next chapter .... Not just what you want to have, but who you want to be. How do they think? How do they treat themselves? How do they respond to setbacks?

✨ Rest if you're tired .... Whether it's the Lion's Gate, hormones, life, or just being a busy human... your body deserves listening to.

And if you're anything like me... you'll probably spend the next few days going... "Is this the Lion's Gate... or do I just need a decent night's sleep?" 🤣🤣

Either way, taking a few moments to slow down, reflect and set intentions is never a bad thing. 💛