Category Archives: riding

May the herd be with you

In the pasture, the horses usually gallop off to one particular favorite place, up over the ridge to where some colts are stabled. Then I hike up there and my mare Zuzka rounds everyone up when I ask the horses to come back with me. This time, my gelding Khami took over, and he got everyone going.

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Equine Liberty Training: A Year in Review

2014 saw the birth of the Independent Liberty Trainers Network (ILTN), a loose knit group of seven trainers from three different countries, who spearheaded a new paradigm for the horse.

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Do Horses Have Precognition?

I talk a lot about “being in the moment” with horses, but I have not said much about something I’ve been noticing with my own horses over the years – precognition.

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10 New Year’s Horse-olutions for 2015

It’s 2015! I started to write a bunch of resolutions for working with horses – “horse-olutions” I call them, and then realized: I don’t like New Year’s resolutions!

Zuzka in the pasture Continue reading 10 New Year’s Horse-olutions for 2015

Great expectations for horses

We all want something from the horse. Otherwise most of us wouldn’t have one or work with one.

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The shaping of a liberty horse

Two days. Five horses. Nine people. Liberty Foundations.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjOx3KYPtNM&w=420&h=315]

Continue reading The shaping of a liberty horse

Grow body awareness around horses

Most people who have been around horses for a long while have suffered injuries. These injuries –unless treated deeply, and I mean with bodywork after the stitches or surgeries have healed, may continue to cause restrictions both in the physical body and the emotional and psychic bodies.

Patches with his owner, Ariana, when we first brought him home, August, 2011.
Patches with his owner, Ariana, when we first brought him home, August, 2011.

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10 lessons in horse love

It’s debatable whether horses love people or not. But they definitely feel very big emotion for them and about them. It’s easy to be flattered when a horse pays special attention to you and depends upon just you – even more so than when your dog licks your face!

Noble McGinty
Noble McGinty

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The “no change zone” for dealing with changes for horses

The changes in horse’s living conditions can sometimes make a sensitive horse upset. The things that are constant will comfort him, but the change in surroundings – sights, smells, sounds, can all make a difference to his well being. Until he gets used to it, it can be a time when new behavior emerges.

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Beyond the norm: no force = great horse

Recently I’ve been in social situations with my horse and other riders where I’ve been faced with how differently I do things.

I have come to a rift in thinking with most people who ride or work with horses. The popular jargon states that we must “make our horse do things” and “keep the feet moving” and “don’t give up on the activity or the horse will have won.” “I run my horse around in the round pen so I know what kind of horse I have before I ride.”

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