Just wanted to post a few snaps from today... with my grandaughter... Ziggy🫶 She loves spending time with me/the boys but I also firmly hold values of teaching them young that it's not about the riding first!!🐴☺️ Poo picking Grooming Hay management Food and nutrition Coat care Cleaning tack Tidy tack room Mending fences WINTER ROUTINE 😏 Vets, dentist, farrier care.... All start before riding!! Love to know your thoughts on this too! ☺️ She is nearly 3.... if she proceeds to want to ride them then she is starting at the core responsibilities of horse management as I really want her to appreciate a horse is for life.. full annual routine and not just about riding them like on TV ☺️

...I’d love to invite you to share something. What are your dreams with horses, no matter how big, small, quiet, or bold? And I mean the real ones. Not just to spend time with them (which is beautiful), but the ones that stretch you a little. Because there is so much more available to us than just loving them and love, when paired with understanding and courage, can create extraordinary things. It's where magic and self-belief lives. Horses are incredibly intelligent.They are capable of so much when invited to use their brains. That's what I try to share for example across my socials. Liberty. Bridleless riding. Deep trust. Lightness. Good partnership. I find that sometimes my students shrink their dreams because they think they’re unrealistic. Sometimes they shrink them because they don’t believe yet that they're capable. I always think they are capable. No pressure coz I cannot make them see, only guide. But when they do realise what is possible, I am usually met with a huge wow and a smile that extends to the moon and back. Money can't buy that. 🤩 So tell me, if nothing was holding you back, what would you love to experience with your horse? This is a brave and safe space. Dream out loud 🐴✨🫶

✨ We recently spoke about Podcast Episode 32: Nobody is watching you and I thought it might be helpful to share how I actually apply that in real life these days. Especially at the stables. Barns can be wonderful places and they can also be emotionally charged ones. I’ve had periods in my life where certain people made my time with horses and my students feel incredibly heavy, even unbearable at times. 👉 I didn’t overcome that by changing them. 💪 I overcame it by changing me. I worked on: - my mental and physical fitness - learning to breathe properly - not overthinking - choosing who enters my circle carefully - setting boundaries and keeping them - not negotiating my value - showing up as my higher self, not my reactive self And I have a small ritual. There’s a quiet little place at the stables, slightly out of sight (see video & picture). Before I begin, I stand there for 1–5 minutes. I focus on: - my breathing - my posture - my plan for the day When I walk away, my head and chest are up. That’s intentional. If I see someone who used to raise the hairs on my neck, I tell myself: “Let them.” Then I count backwards — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and move on. No reaction. No story. No giving away my energy. Because my time with my horses and my students is ours. Not theirs. And I decided to refuse to let anyone rent space in my nervous system without permission anymore. Curious: Do you have any rituals that help you protect your space and energy at the barn or maybe at work or in public spaces ? 🐴✨🫶

✨ A calm-looking horse is not always a comfortable horse. This is what I believe can make horsemanship difficult. Stillness can come from understanding but it can also come from confusion, shutdown, or lack of options. True comfort shows up as curiosity, softness, processing and the freedom to respond, not just the absence of movement or expression. Learning to tell the difference matters because a horse that looks easy isn’t always a horse that feels safe or understood. 👉 Question: What signs help you Get Good at telling the difference between true comfort and quiet compliance? Zoë 🐴✨🫶

Hi all, I'm happy to be home, was out all day again today. Definitely gonna be in bed by 9pm tonight 😅 In the last ' Observations in the Field' post, we talked about feet and how our footwork quietly shapes clarity and/or confusion. Today, I would like to talk about hands. Good horseman’s hands are not busy. They’re not grabby, poking, pulling, or pushing. 👉 They’re: - quiet - listening - consistent - patient - able to wait - AND close slowly and open quickly And that’s not easy, because as humans, we’re wired the opposite way. From the moment we’re born, we grab. We pull ourselves up. We poke to explore. We push to get a response. That’s how we survive and learn. But horses know this about us. They feel it in: - rushed corrections - constant adjustments - gripping instead of guiding - hands that act before the horse has time to answer When our hands are always doing, the horse has no space to think. And when there’s no thinking, there can be no true softness. Good hands don’t force slowness, they allow it. They give the horse time to: - process - respond - offer something back This is why developing good hands is often less about learning what to do…and more about learning what not to do. Just like with our feet, our hands are always communicating, even when we think they’re not. Curious to hear your thoughts: What awareness's and changes have you had to implement into your hands to get to you to your next best level? Adding to that, what do you need to learn/unlearn, to get to the next level after that...? Zoë 🐴✨🫶