Horses Connect Training

For over a decade, Horses Connect has quietly supported people across Galway through inclusive equine-assisted services.

Now it’s time to tell the story. 💛

🐴 Meet the people behind the work
💛 Hear the stories
✨ Support the future

We’d love to see you at An Evening with Horses Connect

📅 May 19th | 6pm
📍 Kelehans Bar, Bushypark

Ever feel STUCK in your EA Business?
Day 1 of our free 3-Day Reset is live on SKOOL — and we’re not starting with strategy.
We’re starting with a pause.
Here's a little something we can all learn from horses - no matter what's going on in like or business.
Horses don't care about what 'should' be happening.
They respond to what’s actually there.
So today, we do the same.
· No fixing.
· No adding more.
· No starting over.
Just this:
🤔 What you have already built.
🤔 What’s quietly working
🤔 What you have stopped seeing because it’s become “normal”?
You might be closer than you think.
Come and find out here https://www.skool.com/sustain-your-ea-practice-3395/about
QUESTION: What assets could be hiding in plain sight in your business right now?

SUSTAIN YOUR E.A. PRACTICE A calm, practical space for overwhelmed EA practitioners to find focus and reduce workload using The Realistic Phased Growth System.

A more in-depth look at what horses need to be healthy and happy 😊

A few decades ago, animal welfare researchers began to look more deeply into the basic needs of animals, and they came up with what is known as the Five Freedoms, and these are:

🌀 Freedom from hunger and thirst
🌀 Freedom from discomfort
🌀 Freedom from pain, injury and disease
🌀 Freedom to express normal behaviours
🌀 Freedom from fear and distress

These 5 freedoms are all about the proper care of animals, like horses, to enable them to live in a healthy way.

If you look at them more closely, you will see that they are all about providing the bare essentials to life; they are not focused at all on how to make a horse’s life more worthwhile or enjoyable for their own sake.

Part of the reason that this has not previously come into our consciousness is because the study of positive welfare states of animals is quite new.

More recently, scientists began to look beyond what gives an animal a physically healthy life, to now considering what can we do as animal caretakers, to make an animal’s life worth living.

As we began to learn more about the effects of depriving animals from certain other mental needs, a new model emerged, known as The Five Domains Model of Animal Welfare.

The Five Domains Model of Animal Welfare focuses on moving beyond the basic care of animals to a ‘life worth living’. It is about the difference between care and welfare.

The welfare of an animal comes about when we enable it to access an optimal life.

The 5 Domains Model focuses on four major areas of an animal’s life that each contribute to the fifth domain, which is the mental domain (mental welfare).

💡 Attached is a summarising diagram of The 2020 Five Domains Model of animal welfare for equines from Modern Horse Training: Equitation Science Principles & Practice, Volume 1 which is available for purchase on our website.

If you’re working in equine-assisted services and finding yourself…
• doing a bit of everything• unsure what to prioritise• working hard but not seeing steady income• or just feeling stretched and tired
You’re not alone.
Overwhelm sets in quietly and slowly until one day you feel like you’re drowning.
Over the decades, we’ve met so many practitioners who care deeply about their work but don’t have a simple, sustainable structure around it.
So we’ve created a private Skool group called: Sustain Your EA Business.
This is where you'll find THE HORSES CONNECT 4-PHASE REALISTIC GROWTH SYSTEM designed especially for YOU!
It’s a calm, practical space where we focus on steady, realistic growth through simple systems that actually work to reduce overwhelm.
No hype.
No pressure.
No ‘do more’ energy..
Just grounded, practical support and small, doable steps.
👉 It’s free to join for now
If it feels like something you need, you’re very welcome.
https://www.skool.com/sustain-your-ea-practice-3395/about

In a 30 minute session today, a young woman worked on
🐴 sequencing
🐴 Planning and organising
🐴 decision making
🐴 problem solving
🐴 attention to detail
🐴 working memory
🐴 task switching
🐴emotional awareness
🐴 self regulation
🐴 impulse control
🐴 confidence
🐴 communication
🐴 resilience
🐴 situational awareness
🐴 risk awareness
🐴 observational skills
🐴 non-verbal communication
🐴 timing and judgment
🐴 trust building
🐴 boundary awareness
🐴 congruence
🐴 autonomy and responsibility
🐴 fine and gross motor skills
🐴 spatial awareness
🐴 balance and posture…. and more!
Anyone care to guess how all this happened in one relaxed 30 minute ground-based equine-assisted learning session?

Many equine-assisted or equine-facilitated programs follow a clear and familiar logic: People bring their story. They speak. They process. They gain insight.

That makes sense. It aligns with what we know from trauma therapy.

Within that, the horse is often simply present: Quiet. Attentive. Without judgment.

And this is where a subtle shift begins.

If the primary aim of a setting is the human process — telling, understanding, processing —
what role does the horse actually hold?

Not in theory. But in reality.

© Ilka Parent / Minds-n-Motion

Check the source!

Just because something is quoted on the internet doesn’t mean it’s research.
Real research asks harder questions, checks the data, and is reviewed by experts.
That’s the difference science makes.

A common narrative in equine assisted work says that horses mirror us. Statements such as „when we are tense/calm, the horse becomes tense/relaxed“ are all over in Eap/Eal and horsemanship articles. The overall tone is that if the horse reacts, it must be showing us something - about ourselves.

I think this idea is popular because it feels meaningful. It suggests that horses offer immediate emotional feedback and reveal something about our inner state. But this narrative assumes that the horse’s behaviour is primarily about the human.

In reality, horses are perceiving and responding to a wide field of information. Spatial pressure, body orientation, movement patterns, past learning, herd context, environmental stimuli, sound, smell, physical comfort or discomfort, curiosity, and safety all influence what the horse does in any given moment.

When we explain the horse’s behaviour only through the human emotional state, that complexity collapses into a simple psychological storyline and the horse does become a mirror….And once the horse becomes a mirror, the horse quietly disappears from the explanation. Instead of observing the sentient being in front of us, we begin interpreting behaviour as a message about ourselves.

Working with horses asks something different of us.

It asks that we slow down enough to notice what the horse is actually perceiving and responding to. The more precisely we observe the horse, the less we need the mirror story.

If this perspective resonates with you and you would like to explore it further, you can read more in my latest book „Seeing Horses“ (by Ilka Parent).

Interesting 😊

Most incidents with horses are not sudden. They are not caused by disobedience or stubbornness. They are the predictable result of humans missing what the horse was communicating long before any behaviour occurred.

The 60-second scan is a simple but powerful skill. It teaches you to pause, observe and understand the whole horse before adding touch, pressure or intention. When you understand the state a horse is in, you handle them more safely, communicate more clearly and prevent conflict.

This is not about diagnosing medical problems. It is about reading the animal in front of you through a full-spectrum lens. A horse’s behaviour comes from their nervous system, pain levels, posture, hormones, gut health, hoof comfort, sleep quality, metabolism, environment, herd dynamics, sensory thresholds, previous experiences and the human’s presence.

This is the whole horse. Not just the behaviour.

The Five Core Layers You Must Read

A horse’s presentation is expressed across five interconnected layers:

1. The nervous system
2. The body and posture
3. The environment and sensory load
4. The herd or social context
5. The internal state, including pain, hormones, gut health, hooves, sleep and history

Reading only one layer is why people misinterpret horses.

Start Your 60 Seconds

You are not judging the horse. You are assessing their capacity.
The guiding question is:

What is the horse experiencing right now, and do they have capacity for what I am about to ask?

1. Eyes: The Fastest Window into the Nervous System

Observe:

• brightness or dullness
• soft or hardened expression
• blink rate
• tension around eyelids
• scanning or hypervigilance
• fixed or glassy stare
• half closed eyes indicating fatigue or discomfort

Soft eyes and regular blinking often reflect regulation.
Hard eyes or fixed gazes show sympathetic activation or dorsal shutdown. Scanning indicates sensory overload.
Half closed eyes often reflect pain or exhaustion, not relaxation.

2. Facial Expressions and Micro Tension

The face communicates internal pressure long before behaviour does.

Look for:

• tight muzzle
• lips pressed together
• nostrils drawn or vertical
• jaw tension
• wrinkles around eyes or muzzle
• chewing without food
• tongue tension
• tremors near nostrils or chin

Facial tension is one of the most reliable early indicators of activation or discomfort.

3. Posture and Movement Integrity

Posture is shaped by the nervous system, muscles, joints, hooves, pain, emotional state and history.

Observe:

• leaning forward or back
• braced or hollowed back
• tension in shoulders
• ribs lifted or collapsed
• uneven stance
• reluctance to step forward
• hesitancy to turn
• asymmetrical movement
• rigidity or heaviness

Sympathetic activation shows in rigidity and readiness to move.
Dorsal collapse shows in heaviness or shutdown. Pain appears as guarding, shortening, crookedness or compensation.

Movement never lies.

4. Pain Indicators

Pain changes thresholds, behaviour and regulation. It must be considered first.

Equine Pain Face

• tension above the eye
• triangular shape around the orbit
• fixed or half closed eyes
• tightened muzzle
• strained nostrils
• stiff or drooping ears
• chin pulled tight

Movement and body indicators

• toe first landings
• short, stilted strides
• difficulty turning
• head bobbing
• reluctance to move forward
• stumbling
• repeated weight shifting
• tail off centre

Behavioural indicators

• defensiveness during grooming
• irritability
• withdrawal
• shutdown that looks like compliance
• difficulty being caught
• loss of appetite
• unpredictable reactivity

Pain often masquerades as disobedience.

5. Hormonal Influences

Hormones affect sensitivity, thresholds and social behaviour.

Mares

Estrus cycles may create:

• irritability
• abdominal or back sensitivity
• difficulty concentrating
• reluctance for hindquarter pressure
• changes in appetite or movement

Geldings

Some retain hormonal patterns that influence:

• boundary-setting
• reactivity
• seasonal energy shifts

Stallions

Highly responsive to herd dynamics, novelty and proximity to mares.

Hormonal context shapes behaviour.

6. Metabolic Conditions and Internal Physiology

(EMS, PPID (Cushing’s), insulin resistance)

Metabolic strain affects:

• thresholds
• mood
• energy levels
• soundness
• foot comfort
• inflammation
• appetite
• coat changes

Behaviour often reflects physiological stress rather than training issues.

7. Gut Health and Digestive Comfort

The gut and nervous system are deeply connected.

Signs of gut discomfort include:

• teeth grinding
• flank sensitivity
• stretching posture
• inconsistent grazing
• restlessness while eating
• abdominal tension
• frequent stopping and starting

Digestive discomfort can create reactivity, avoidance and irritability.

8. Sleep Quality

Sleep deprivation destabilises behaviour and regulation.

Indicators include:

• standing sleep without lying down
• catching themselves while dozing
• excessive yawning
• hind end weakness when resting
• stumbling from fatigue
• puffiness above eyes
• reluctance to lie down due to pain or herd pressure

A sleep deprived horse cannot regulate effectively.

9. Hoof Comfort and Movement Integrity

Hoof discomfort cascades through the entire body.

Look for:

• heel avoidance
• toe first landings
• stiffness in shoulders
• reluctance on hard ground
• uneven gait
• short stepping
• postural compensation
• difficulty turning

Foot pain is one of the most common hidden causes of tension.

10. Dental Discomfort and Oral Pain

Dental issues are a major but often overlooked driver of behaviour.

Look for:

• difficulty chewing
• dropping or packing food
• undigested fibres in manure
• head tilting when eating
• resistance to bridling
• opening the mouth or gaping
• head tossing
• reluctance to lower the head
• hypersensitivity to noseband or poll pressure
• jaw tension
• excess salivation or dry mouth
• quidding (dropping partially chewed hay)

Common causes include sharp points, hooks, ramps, retained wolf teeth, ulcers and bit interference.

Oral pain often shows up as:

• reactivity
• anxiety
• head-related tension
• poll resistance
• sudden training issues

A complete scan must consider dental discomfort.

11. Medication and Supplement Effects

A horse’s presentation may be altered by substances they receive.

Consider:

Pain medications
May mask underlying discomfort.

Sedatives and calmers
Suppress behaviour without lowering internal stress.
Sedation can look like calm but is not regulation.

Prascend for PPID (Cushing’s)
May change mood, energy and appetite.

Digestive supplements
May alter comfort levels and demeanour.

Always know what the horse is taking.

12. Recent Changes and Context Shifts

Sudden behaviour changes often reflect environmental or routine shifts.

Consider changes in:

• feed or forage
• turnout time and space
• herd members or hierarchy
• routines or handlers
• location or yard
• tack or equipment
• weather

Most behavioural change has a reason.

13. Sensory Load and Processing Style

Horses differ widely in sensory thresholds.

Look for:

• ear flicking
• skin twitching
• startle patterns
• hyper-awareness
• fixation on sounds or movement
• difficulty filtering noise

Highly sensitive horses reach overload faster.

14. Weather, Seasons and Atmospheric Shifts

Weather affects physiology and behaviour.

Heat can cause fatigue and irritability.
Cold can create stiffness and bracing.
Storms, pressure drops and wind heighten alertness.
Seasonal transitions shift hormones, forage, metabolic stress and herd behaviour.

Environmental pressure is real.

15. Herd Dynamics

A horse is part of a social system.

Observe:

• who they seek
• who they avoid
• separation stress
• guarding or blocking
• agitation when a partner leaves
• shifts in social order

A horse’s emotional state is inseparable from herd behaviour.

16. Age and Development

Age shapes capacity.

Young horses

Neurobiologically immature. Expect:

• quick state-switching
• low impulse control
• sensory overwhelm
• inconsistent attention
• developing proprioception

Senior horses

Often experience:

• stiffness
• reduced senses
• slower processing
• higher fatigue
• metabolic strain

Understanding life stage prevents unrealistic expectations.

17. Breed and Type Tendencies

Different breeds express stress differently.

Examples:

• Arabians show activation visibly and quickly.
• Thoroughbreds have high sensory sensitivity.
• Warmbloods may internalise tension.
• Quarter Horses can mask stress subtly.
• Ponies often show metabolic-driven behaviours that look like stubbornness.

Breed context matters.

18. Trauma History and Learned Patterns

History shapes behaviour.

Look for:

• pre-emptive flinching
• avoidance before touch
• bracing at equipment
• defensive patterns
• shutdown mistaken for calm
• tension in predictable scenarios

These are survival strategies.

19. The Human Field

Your state influences the horse.

A horse reads:

• breath
• heart rate
• posture
• micro-movements
• emotional tone
• intention
• energetic field

A dysregulated human creates uncertainty. A regulated human offers safety.

The Decision Point

After your 60-second scan, ask:

Does this horse have the capacity to connect, learn or engage right now?

If the answer is no, you do not proceed with your agenda.
You pause. You regulate. You adapt to the state of the horse.

This is how accidents are prevented.
This is how trust is built.
This is horsemanship rooted in biology, compassion and accuracy.
This is the Whole Horse Journey.