Free horse free human

17/10/2024

The first step is to see the truth.
The second one is to accept the truth
And the third is to act accordingly.
The last one is the hardest because
So often we are used to ignoring the truth.

06/08/2024

Help and sign a petition for harder punishment for abuse of horses.

Stop Horse Abuse - Pferdemissbrauch stoppen, Täter härter bestrafen!

01/08/2024

I love the summer because it is trail riding time and when it is dry there are so many trails that we can canter or trott just around the corner. Now that the first fields are harvested we are allowed to use them too. Unfortunately right now it is too hot for trail rides with a lot of speed. Nelly being born in Denmark and living in Norway until two years ago doesn’t like the heat but she is still up for a little trott or canter in between. Otherwise I just love the walk horses go when they are out on the trail (especially on the way home) I never seem to get the same kind of walk in the arena. Really forward, moving the whole body, relaxed head with an aim where to go.

30/07/2024

It is summertime. Which is quite nice but not very productive when it comes to horse training as it is already 25 degrees at 10 am and unfortunately it is not getting more comfortable in the evening either unless you wait til 9 pm when the sun has gotten down. In addition the flies we quite bothering the horses. We still try to maintain at least a bit of training to keep Nelly smooth and in shape.

11/06/2024

I recently had a scary reminder on how you never should take things for granted with a horse.

My son just turned 5 and the last weeks he really enjoyed riding. So we went on walks together him sitting on Nelly and then he wanted to ride faster so we even started trotting some steps in the arena. I know that Nelly has a lot of bagage and is a really sensitive horse so I am always very careful but Nelly was also always very calm and nice when my son was on her so I started to take that for granted. Big mistake. This spring Nelly again showed signs of having a bit stomachache. She used to have huge issues with that in Norway every spring when she went on pasture but as that also is the time when the hormones kick in we never really figured out the issue even though I had several vets checking her.
Last year we didn’t have the issue but we also moved stable so things were a bit different any way so I thought the issue was gone. This spring after sorting her selen deficit out Nelly has returned to being in great shape and has quite some energy. She also started to challenge this huge cold blood lead mare that is called “the bulldozer” in the stable and the women helping me with her twice a week. So there is a lot going on. And then one day she suddenly stopped in the arena in one corner and backed a few steps, something she has never done since we moved. She started to get a bit tense when we touched her stomach and got easier scared. She used to be so good trimming her hoofs that the lady said she would do it alone so I would need to come to the stable and then someone opened the window which opens to the area where we get the horses ready and she totally freaked and would snort like a dragon for the next 30 minutes.
That was after “the accident” that happened a few days before when she got scared while I attempted to get on her while my son was already sitting on her and she got scared ran off and started to buck because the little man really bravely held onto her and bumped up and down on her. She could go far and he wasn’t hurt but I got a really big scare and was very angry at myself for ignore the signs for believing she never would do that with him on her and and….
Because I should know better. There is no horse that never gets scared and I knew she was not 100% feeling ok and still thought she could hold it together.
But she has been great again the last days and I had a great ride on her yesterday after I took care of her the days after the event and really looked at what she needed.
Sometimes I think right now that it is too stressful to have a horse with two small kids. We have been more or less constantly sick since Christmas in addition to a short hospital stay with the little one due to some unclear health issues. But apart from me not being able to give her up (as I would be intolerable without her) I know that she is a horse you can’t sell. When someone sees her with me she seems to be the most reliant horse but I know how fragile that is and how much maintenance that takes to keep her that way. For weeks I needed to fix things every time after someone else than me handled her. Suddenly issues that we solved years ago appeared again. It took me over three years to really figure her out and understand how to handle her.

22/05/2024

Enjoying the nice weather

19/03/2024

Warm-up II

When I learned riding (ahm quite some 20 something years ago) warm up was all about getting your horses body warmed up. Usually it involved walking 15 minutes, some bends and maybe some lateral work. Usually also some trotting on a lose rain before you picked them up and started training. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that, but a really good warm-up is so much more because that just involves the body and implies that you have a calm, motivated and responsive horse. The truth often is very different.
With my Arabian gelding it was like that in the end, by that time he was 7 and I have had him for 5 years, he was a naturally very balanced horse and I had started him myself. After 4 years of different challenges I finally had learned how to get the best out of this playful, exuberant horse with endless energy. Finally he was wilful instead of “naughty”.
Nelly used to be so stressed when I got her. I don’t know how she was handled but from her reaction I know that she must have been handled quite badly while she was young. The girl I bought her from had bought her when she was 5, so my guess is starting her under saddle by the age of 3/4 didn’t quite work out, as she was sold as unridden. Now I already have her for 6 years. The first years it was all about calming her down, getting her trust and showing fair leadershipso that she could do so, but it kind of worked just to some degree. I would still see her tighten her lips or other small signs of tightness.
The thing is you want your horse mentally, emotionally and physically relaxed but they all influence each other. So if your horse has some pain, imbalances or tightness (from illness, previous injuries) they can not totally relax.

Can you perform your best when you have stomach/head/back ache, when you have eaten/moved too much or too little, or if you didn’t sleep well?
I don’t think so. Well, getting those outer parts as good as possible is no easy task because there are so many variables and often you don’t know if the stable/herd/hay works for your horse before you have tried.
This autumn Nelly got a Seven deficiency diagnosed, as I was unaware that here in Southern Germany that is quite common. In Norway she was always good, so I hadn’t thought about that and it affected her immensely. So now it is finally a few weeks that she is in good shape and we are getting her back into shape. In Norway she used to be more stressed, so warm-up was often about calming her down and getting her attention. These last months, she has been very calm if not to say unresponsive and a bit stiff so warm-up is all about getting her body warmed and smothened up and getting her to wake up a bit and putting some effort into moving.
We often think lazy horses are relaxed but it is just a different kind of tension. It’s often a mental brace and you can see as they get more responsive they also get more relaxed and awake.
So, what I want is a calm, connected and responsive horse in addition to to being physically ready and able to actually do what I ask her to do. Because if your horse is very unbalanced you can not expect it to react to light aids because it is just not able to do so, you can just expect it to give you every time a tiny bit more and to try and work hard.

18/03/2024

Warm-up I or
Take the time it takes

For me warm-up is the key ingredient for a successful training session as it gets my horse in the right shape to be a super learner!
And I like to mentally really separate the getting ready phase and the learning/training phase as for me it doesn’t make sense to work on something new when my horse is not in his best shape. Some days that might take 5-10 minutes others 30-40 and that doesn’t matter because if I invest 40 minutes into getting my horse into its best shape I might be able to improve or teach him something new in 5 minutes and then we are done for the day. But if I start challenging him when he is not ready after 15 minutes, because warm-up is supposed to only last that time, I might work on something for 30 minutes and barely get an improvement.
What do you think your horse prefers?
If you invest 40 minutes in your warm-up today it might take you 38 minutes tomorrow, 35 minutes the day after and so on. And soon you have your horse ready on 5 minutes if all conditions are right. It might also vary from day to day or season to season.
But if you take the time it takes, it takes less time.

11/03/2024

Be the leader that your horse wants you to be

If you are a confident and reliable leader horses love that and it helps them greatly to relax. People often think that horses don’t want to be “forced” to do things for their human but that’s not how horses experience it. If you compare the life of a horse in captivity and nature, the life our horses have usually is quite dull and not very challenging (even if they life outside 24/7) as long as they life in a good herd, so they love to learn and train as long as you take good care of them and take their needs into consideration.
Nelly used to be the lead made in one of the herds she lived in and it didn’t suit her at all. She got so stressed that I had to move her because she got very unwell. She has been always quite high in the hierarchy but never the topp one after that and she is a much calmer horse.
It’s the same in the horse-human relationship. A lot of horses do need to take the lead role as their humans just don’t seem to be quite sure about what to do in certain situations and the horse gets stressed as they never know if they can rely on their human today or not.
When Nelly looks at something out trail riding I tell her:” Never mind, I have already seen it and it’s not dangerous. Please, keep focusing on me. I will tell you, if you have to worry.” Because I know that in our modern life there are no real dangers to her, but she doesn’t.
Fun fact: There are animals like dogs that are domesticated so they are no wild animals anymore. In horses that isn’t the case. Domesticated and wild horses are exactly the same, the only difference is that our domesticated horses have learn (both from their mothers and since being a foal) that humans are not dangerous. If you turn a domesticated into the wild it takes one generation and they get shy again.

10/03/2024

The key to success starts in your head. If you have doubts, you have already lost.

Watching Nelly she often seems to be the nicest and most willing horse. Well, she can be but that requires a lot.
I let my 4-year old ride on her while I lead her because I trust her and know her so well. She is so kind and calm with him but I would never let just anybody ride or even take her for a walk.
I found somebody to help two days a week as I just can’t get around everything with two small kids and especially now with all the sickness during winter time.
Well, first of all she was going in energy save mode for weeks. As soon as she found out that she could avoid work she did, as almost any horse I know. In nature it doesn’t make sense to waste energy, so they don’t. A lot of horses are stressed and then they need to move (often a lot). Really relaxed horses (or introverts) don’t. You have to teach them that moving and putting effort into moving the right way is good for them.
Well, and as soon as you are not 100% taking the lead part (which doesn’t mean that your horse has nothing to say) Nelly takes on the lead role (as any horse does). Because in nature one horse has to decide if it’s time to flee or not and if you don’t seem to be sure what is the right decision to do your horse decides for you.
Nelly has, since I gotten her, been very heard bound. Taking her on trail rides or walks has been quite challenging for years as she stopped every few meters and would scream to the other horses. She was very stressed and to be honest I got stressed by that behaviour as well. I always loved trail riding and considered myself to be a confident rider but that kind of behaviour was so stressful that for some time I avoided taking her on trails. Especially when I was pregnant and my first born was little I just didn’t had the nerve to deal with that kind of behaviour. That’s also way for many years I thought that Nelly was not ready for somebody else to train her, as she still could be very challenging. It got less and less but when she was difficult she was very difficult.
Actually it has been the last year that she has been doing really great out on the trail but lately she suddenly started again to not want to walk by some places. So we talked about what to do and it is not so much what or how we do it but about not having ANY doubt. We WILL walk past that counter even if it takes 5,10 or 30 minutes! I will do whatever it takes (within reason, with kind and determined repetition) to make that happen. Well, that named of course there are exceptions. If my horse panics because there is a truck, tractor or whatever safety is anyways the first priority. Here I am more talking about there is a farm, corner etc. and there might be some scary thing so she’d rather go home and stay with the heard.
So the key to success ALWAYS starts in your head. If you have doubts you have already lost.