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104 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Why Horses Crib (And Why a Crib Collar Won't Fix It) - Dr. Carissa Wickens
2 november 2026 · 1 uur 4 min
Your horse grabs the fence board. Arches the neck. Pulls back, and you hear that low gulp of air. Lees meer
What is that horse telling you?
For years we called horse cribbing a stable vice. Something to stop. Something to strap a collar around.
Dr. Carissa Wickens has spent her career listening to it instead. She is an associate professor of animal sciences at the University of Florida, and horse cribbing has held her curiosity since she walked into a field of ten cribbing horses as a PhD student at Auburn.
What she has found is tender, and a little unsettling.
Cribbing looks like coping. When these horses are allowed to crib, their heart rate and stress hormones tend to drop. Take it away, and many start weaving, pacing the fence line, calling for their friends.
The need stays. Only the outlet moves.
And once the behavior settles in, it seems to live on its own. The ulcer heals. The diet improves. The horse joins a herd. The cribbing remains, because the brain has learned something.
We talk about the study that found cribbers carry their own pattern of dopamine receptors. Why Thoroughbreds, Warmbloods and Quarter Horses turn up so often in the research. Why weaning is when so many young horses begin. How a high-grain, low-forage diet multiplies the risk. And the chicken-and-egg question every owner asks: do ulcers cause cribbing, or does cribbing cause ulcers? Carissa gives the honest answer, which is that the science is still out.
I bring my own lens to this one too. As someone who is neurodivergent, I see a coping behavior the instant I see a horse crib. Carissa brings the research to meet it.
Three words keep coming back. Forage. Friends. Freedom.
Everything else rests on that foundation.
If you have ever stood at the fence frustrated with a cribbing horse, this conversation may let you see that horse with new eyes. As Carissa puts it, when behavior changes, look past the horse. "It's something that's not going right in the horse's world."
Dr. Carissa Wicken…
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The Trail Riding Mistakes Nobody Talks About - Gillian Larson
27 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 16 min
Last year my horse G slid down the side of a mountain in the Tetons. Lees meer
He came out of it okay. I carried it for a lot longer.
Gillian Larson has spent her twenties and now her thirties trail riding the backcountry from Mexico to Canada, more than once, on the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide, the Arizona Trail and the Colorado Trail. She calls herself a thru-rider. She recently raced across Patagonia in the inaugural Pass of Tears and finished second.
I traveled to Gillian's backyard in California to talk about trail riding at that scale. The mountain horse who reads the trail fifty feet ahead. The horse who pours gasoline on the fire. Two five-year-old Criollos nicknamed the Ferrari and the tractor.
And then I asked her the question I had been carrying since the Tetons.
How do you live with a decision that put your horse at risk?
Her answer is one of the most honest things I have heard about horses.
Gillian says the guilt belongs. It comes with being a good horse owner. You sit with it, you ask what you would do next time, and then you let yourself go back out. Horses forgive our flubs with a generosity that is, in her words, "immense and wild."
We talk about her first ride from Mexico to Canada at 22, when good horses carried a rider who was still learning. Why she went back and rode it again. Why the horse world shows the clean version of every trip and hides the scrambles. And why second place in Patagonia feels like a win to her, because she rode a race she can stand behind.
If you have ever lain awake replaying a call you made with your horse, this one is for you.
The question that stays with me is the one Gillian lives by.
Was I a good teammate to my horse today?
Gillian Larson is a thru-rider who travels long-distance backcountry routes on horseback. She first rode from Mexico to Canada at 22 and has since completed the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Arizona Trail, the Colorado Trail and the John Muir Trail, alon…
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I Sold My House to Make a Horse Docu-Series UNBRIDLED | Noëlle Floyd with Yellowstone's Jen Landon
20 oktober 2026 · 26 min
What does it cost to go and find out who you are? Lees meer
For me, it cost a house.
I sold mine to travel 25,000 miles across North America with my horses, Lady and G, and I filmed all of it. That road became Unbridled, a six-part horse documentary series. Episodes 1 and 2 are on YouTube now.
This time the microphone turned around.
Jen Landon, actor, Yellowstone cast member, horsewoman, and the person who owns Shorty, took the host's chair and asked me the questions I usually ask everyone else.
She asked why I nearly stopped filming. So many times on that trip I looked at the footage and heard the same three sentences. I'm not good enough. This isn't good enough. No one's gonna care.
I kept the cameras rolling anyway. I'm so glad I did.
Jen tells the story of how Unbridled reached her. My husband, Ben, looked at me and made me promise to send it to her. I thought that was gauche. I sent it. She planned to watch two episodes as a favor to a new friend, and she watched the whole season.
She compared it to Chef's Table. Jen calls herself a bad cook, and she still walked away from every episode of that show with something for her own life and her craft as an actor. She says Unbridled did the same for her. The horses are the backdrop for a bigger lesson.
That is my hope for this horse documentary. That someone who has lived their whole life away from horses watches it and sees who I became because of the way Lady and G live as horses, every single day.
We talk about process-based horsemanship and outcome-based horsemanship, and how far that idea reaches past the arena.
"If you focus on the process, then the outcome is more expansive than you could possibly imagine. But if you focus on the outcome, then you're limited to the outcome you can imagine as the person you are in the moment."
Then we go to Texas.
Florida humbled me. I left it feeling small. And then I cut cows with Lyndi Birch and Barbra Schulte, on Jen's own horse, Shorty, who carried me like the all-star …
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The Real Reason I Walked Away From Horses | UNBRIDLED Official Trailer
13 oktober 2026 · 2 min
Is the horse-human bond the ultimate secret to better training? Lees meer
Watch the trailer as professional horsewoman Noëlle Floyd launches her new six-part documentary series NOËLLE FLOYD: UNBRIDLED.
🐴 Subscribe for more horse training & equestrian insights:
https://noellefloyd.com
💻 Catch the SEASON PREMIERE on Youtube MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 AT 4PM ET and binge the whole season! at NF+ https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled
Created and hosted by Noëlle Floyd, this groundbreaking documentary series explores the deep connection between horse and rider through adventure, master class training, and essential equestrian skills.
Discover powerful answers and insights that have the potential to completely transform the equestrian community.
Interested in more from Noëlle?
Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com
Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus
And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com
You can also download the app - NF+ App
Thank you for your listening!
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When the Bridle Comes Off, the Truth Comes Out | A Letter to Lady (Unbridled)
6 oktober 2026 · 16 min
I wrote my mare a letter the day she came to me. Out in the field with her, with G grazing nearby, I read it to her out loud for the first time. It is the most honest thing I have said about horsemanship in fourteen years. Lees meer
Fourteen years I spent interviewing the horse world's best — the trainers and riders everyone turns to for answers. Then Lady arrived, more wild than tame, and I stepped in front of the camera to say the one thing the interviewer's chair never let me say: I don't know.
That admission is where Unbridled begins.
This is the solo letter underneath the whole series — the private writing that became the reason I made it. Lady came to me more questioning than compliant, unwilling to perform a smaller version of herself for anyone's comfort. Loving her made it impossible to stay safely behind the microphone. She asked me harder questions than any guest ever had. Not "can you make me do this," but "how can you meet me if you will not meet yourself?"
Somewhere in there my horsemanship began to change, and so did I. I call it rewilding — taking the bridle off my horse and the invisible one off myself at once. Fit in. Obey. Be manageable. Do not become too much. Lady answers every one of those instructions by simply being who she is.
When the bridle comes off, the truth comes out. Without the equipment and the familiar measures of success, what remains? Two bodies. Two nervous systems. Two living beings trying to understand each other across the line between species.
This letter is about worthiness — and how Lady taught me it was never a thing I earn by knowing enough. It lives in the willingness to listen, to repair, to begin again.
If you have ever loved a horse who would not let you hide, this one is for you.
Unbridled is a six-part series following me and my horses across North America, asking whether partnership can go somewhere freer than control. Lady is the reason it exists.
▶️ Watch Unbridled — Catch the SEASON PREMIERE on Youtube MONDAY, …
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The Horse Husband: How Evan Went From Terrified to the Barn Every Day ] No Stupid Questions with Evan the Groom
29 september 2026 · 56 min
The same patience it takes to earn a horse's trust is the patience Evan the Groom brings to teaching the rest of us. He came to horses the way most people never do — from the outside, with no background, terrified of the biggest one in the barn — and turned that beginner's-eye view into an education. Today he does the horse grooming and horse care in his wife's dressage business, and the horse world knows him as the viral comedian who makes the barn make sense to people who have never touched a horse. Lees meer
This is a No Stupid Questions episode, and it is one of my favorites we have done. Evan explains horses the way he once needed them explained to him — no jargon, no ego, just plain answers to the things beginners are too embarrassed to ask out loud.
He was an engineer turning algae into protein. Then marketing. Then the pandemic took his job, his wife Ashley needed help at the barn, and he picked up a camera. The videos were meant to make his own family laugh — people who knew nothing about horses. Instead they built a following, and somewhere in there Evan became something he never trained to be: an educator.
We get into the skill he rates above all others and hears discussed least — observation, watching for the thing that is off today — and how six years of it on the ground is only now showing up in the saddle. His advice for every "horse husband" and non-horse partner out there: just support that. Why he would rather make a video so ridiculous you remember it than one only horse people understand, and how a loogie teaches you the word "hock." The groom's real job when no one is watching: being the horse's constant. And the mare who taught him the most — a year to earn her trust, and then, he says, she gives you everything.
There is also a talking pony named Piper, a children's book about a lost little bird, and — as of last week — his first ride off the lunge line.
If someone in your life doesn't understand the horse thing — or if you're the one at the rail —…
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How Steffen Peters Trains a Horse: Self-Carriage, Groundwork & a New Stallion (Part 2)
22 september 2026 · 54 min
A horse has two choices. Learn to accept the bit, or fight it for the rest of its life. Lees meer
That's Steffen Peters, and this is the half where his hands are on the reins. If you heard Part 1, you met the man — six Olympics, the dark place, the way back. This one is the horse training — the groundwork up through Grand Prix. Forty years of it, distilled into the way he starts a five-year-old and the way he brought a brand-new stallion into the ring after two weeks together.
Here's the thing that runs through all of it: he doesn't push a horse into the bridle. Ever. He thinks ninety-five percent of horses are ridden with too much contact, and he'll tell you why "more hind legs, more into the hand" was never the answer for him. What he wants is suppleness, self-carriage, lightness — a soft rein you can see, and a horse that carries itself instead of leaning on your hand.
We get into where that starts, and it is earlier than you would think. The groundwork — on a lead rope, in a halter — the horse that stops when you stop without a pull on the rope. He calls it cooperation, not submission, and he means the difference exactly. From there it's the walk work most riders rush past, the half halt that becomes a reflex, the spur as a reminder and never a crutch, and the three aids he says are the only tools you really have.
There's the new stallion — fourteen, extremely smart, the horse that trained his rider to say "don't quit." There's Totilas, and what it takes to watch someone beat you and mean it when you call it good. And there's the compliment two vets paid him without knowing he could hear: at Steffen's barn, they can't make any money — because of the walk breaks, and what they save.
If Part 1 was how he learned to manage himself, this is how he manages the conversation with the horse. Same man. Now the method.
Steffen Peters is a German-born American dressage rider, a six-time Olympian and multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the most decorated dressage athletes in…
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Steffen Peters: The Six-Time Olympian on the Dark Place Behind the Medals (Part 1)
17 september 2026 · 51 min
When did you make it? Lees meer
Ask most riders that question and they'll point to a medal. Steffen Peters points somewhere else — to the darkest place he has ever been, and the way back out of it.
This is Part 1 of my conversation with a six-time Olympian, and we barely touch a rein. Forty years of horse training sit behind this man, and the first thing he wants to talk about isn't a horse. It's the thing underneath the ribbons.
The neuropathy in his hands and feet after Paris that twenty-five doctors couldn't explain. The cold plunge and the vagus nerve, and the natural experiment that gave him relief when the medications didn't. The one ride in Tokyo — September 27th, 2018, a date he can still name — that sent him spiraling, and what it taught him about himself that no arena ever did.
He says you cannot manage stress. You can only manage yourself. He learned it, in his own words, way too late. The quality of your thoughts becomes the quality of your life, and for a while his thoughts were trying to take him under.
We get into the ego leaving, and the pride that stays. Why he loves that strangers in an airport call him "the rave horse" and never say his name. Why exposing weakness became the strength he's known for. What radical acceptance looks like at a Grand Prix, standing at the gate. And how the same sensitivity that can tip a person toward anxiety is the exact instrument that reads a horse — the sensitivity that is the whole art of his horse training, and also the thing that nearly broke him.
Dr. Reiner Klimke is here too, in a story Steffen didn't learn the truth of until five years after it had already set the course of his career.
If you have ever carried a bad day home and let it live in you overnight, this hour is for you. It is a rider telling you what the podium doesn't show.
Steffen Peters is a German-born American dressage rider, a six-time Olympian and multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the most decorated dressage athletes in United States histor…
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She Remade Black Beauty. Now She's Fighting to Save America's Wild Horses | Ashley Avis
2 september 2026 · 49 min
There's one horse you would cross the country for. Lees meer
You know the one. The horse who found you when you had the least to give and somehow handed you back to yourself.
Now hold that horse in your mind, and sit with this: roughly 20,000 of them a year get loaded onto trailers bound for Canada and Mexico, and it reaches every kind of horse — the show jumper, the Thoroughbred who ran too slow, the lesson pony grown old, the wild horses rounded up off land that was meant to protect them.
Ashley Avis has looked straight at it. She sewed a button cam into her shirt and walked into the Texas auctions where kill buyers wait. She founded the Wild Beauty Foundation, directed the mustang documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, and remade Black Beauty for Disney+. And she has turned all of it toward one aim: passing the SAFE Act in the year of the horse.
This conversation goes to the place most people flinch from. Ashley and I talk about why horse people, of all people, find horse slaughter the hardest thing to watch — and how she makes you look anyway, through ninety-second films voiced by Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Springsteen, and Diane Lane, and scored by Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?"
We talk about my mare Lady, one of those wild horses herself, who ran feral for fifteen years before she came to me, and who could have ridden that same truck to Mexico.
We talk about the black colt with pneumonia that Ashley coaxed out of a kill buyer's pasture, and the economics that let a man triple his price on a horse's life.
And we talk about Black Beauty — what Anna Sewell did in 1877 by writing from a horse's point of view, and why it still rearranges the people who meet it.
Then Ashley tells you exactly what two minutes of your day can do. A microsite. Your zip code. A pre-written letter your member of Congress will read.
If you have ever been remade by a single horse, this is the reason to pull the car over.
Ashley Avis is a filmmaker and the founder of the …
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What this Dressage Rider Learned From a Cowboy - Kasey Perry-Glass
26 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 22 min
You get the thing you chased for five years. Lees meer
And the ride is the worst one you've ever put down.
Kasey Perry-Glass reached the Olympic Games on the horse she bought to take her there — Doublé — and came home into a depression that blindsided her. This is the conversation under the medal photo. What it costs to want something that badly, and what she found on the far side of it.
She married a cowboy. Dana Glass starts colts and takes in the horses other people gave up on — the rearers, the buckers, the bolters, carrying baggage nobody unpacked. Two worlds under one roof: her classical dressage, his groundwork. What one taught the other is most of this hour.
We get into the perfectionism that dressage rewards and then punishes — a score out of 100 that stays out of reach, a sport where the best mark is a C or a D on a good day. Why she stopped posting to social media. The line Martin Black uses, let them cook, and why ending a ride a little early beats grinding it into the ground. Pain versus behavior, and the checklist she taught Dana: clear the ulcers, the hindgut, the teeth, before anyone calls it attitude.
Then the mental game she learned the hard way. Finding her number with Annette Paterakis — the exact pitch of nerves and calm that lets her ride her best. The work with Dr. Jenny Susser. Blacking out in the saddle, ten minutes gone, grinding the same movement. Boundaries. Getting told she was "too nice" for this sport, and what she kept anyway.
Behind the vertical, point of balance, throughness without a single draw rein — she explains the dressage the way she explained it to Dana, the sport he first met through her.
This one is for anyone who has wanted something so badly it made them small, and found their way back to the size they actually are.
Kasey Perry-Glass is a US Olympic dressage rider — team bronze at Rio 2016 (America's first Olympic dressage medal since 2004) and team silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games — who competes as Kasey Perry. …
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The Move Most People Get Backwards With a Cow — and What It Teaches About Horse Training | Martin Black (Pt. 2)
18 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 7 min
You think the cow is the hard part. Lees meer
She isn't. You are.
You get ahead of her to turn her, and she beats you to the herd every time. You spur, you pull, the horse's head comes up, and now nobody is watching the cow at all.
Martin Black has read millions of head of cattle, and the horse training lesson underneath all of it is the one almost everybody gets backwards. To cut one cow out, you leave her alone and stir the herd around her. To turn her, you turn away — not toward. The horse rates the cow the way a foal learns to rate its mother in the first thirty minutes of life. It's already in there. Our job is to stay out of the road so the horse can use it.
This is Part 2 of my week with Martin on his ranch in the Great Basin. Part 1 is the ranch, the horses, and reading the moment — start there.
We work the balance point and the flight zone, and why a cow reads your horse's head like a horn and your horse's hip like something softer. Why getting in front of a cow to block her only sends her faster. What Tom Dorrance told Martin decades ago about turning tail, and how that one idea makes a green horse handier by the day. Gene Lewis, his mother's cousin, and jumpers that rate a fence with nobody telling them where to put their feet.
Then the part that reshaped how I keep my own horses. Turnout over stalls. Bare feet when the ground allows. A crick to cross and rocks to pick through, because a horse who has to sort out the terrain grows savvy, and a horse who never has to stays a passenger.
Martin runs horses as a business, not a companion animal, and says his vet bills will stand against anyone's. Colic almost unheard of. Feet the ground keeps honest. It made me ask what I was really protecting when I bubble-wrapped mine.
The horse training here is subtraction, not addition. Cows think more like horses than you'd guess, and empathy runs under all of it.
Martin Black is a lifelong Great Basin horseman and stockman from a multi-generation ranching family, workin…
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Why You Should Stop Patting Your Horse | Martin Black on Western Horse Training
11 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 1 min
We pat our horses to tell them they did well. Lees meer
Martin Black says the horse would rather we kept our hands to ourselves.
He has spent a life inside western horse training — starting close to five hundred colts a year on the same Great Basin country his family has ranched since the 1860s, seventy miles from his nearest neighbor, the road over the mountain closed all winter. And what he showed me this week is that the pat is for us. The reward the horse is after is chemical: the flood of serotonin and dopamine that arrives when pressure lifts and the body comes home to rest. Martin calls it the cocktail. Rouse the horse, bring him down, and he licks his lips — he got his drink, and he will go to that edge with you again because he knows you will take him to the bar after.
This is western horse training as one of its living masters practices it, and almost none of it looks like technique.
Martin reads a colt the way the rest of us read a single sentence — ten things at once. He calls it peripheral thinking. The predator in us locks onto the prey: the outcome, the lead change, the plan for the day. Martin holds the objective and lets the plan bend to whatever the horse hands him. The seed that wants to grow today gets watered today. The one that is not ready waits.
We talk about the hours. I could shadow him in Idaho for years and still not own his timing, because feel does not transfer. You earn it one horse at a time, and no clinic sells it.
We talk about why he trains his cattle the way his family has since the 1860s — the rodear, the old vaquero work that crossed from Spain and reached Texas two centuries late — and why a dressage horse belongs on a cow as much as any ranch gelding does.
And we go into the cowboy neuroscience of it: sympathetic arousal, homeostasis, pressure and its relief as one thing rather than two. Dr. Steve Peters pulled Martin out of a lineup for this. Martin calls himself a bartender. He once waited forty-five minutes on a traumatized c…
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Monty Roberts, Alexandra Kurland, and the Future of Horse Training
4 augustus 2026 · 18 min
When I was eleven, my mom handed me The Man Who Listens to Horses. Lees meer
Last week, the man who wrote it died.
Within days, the horse world also lost Alexandra Kurland — the woman who spent decades convincing us that a clicker and a handful of food belonged in serious horse training.
This is a solo episode. An essay, read aloud, on two pioneers who stood in opposite corners of horse training and still moved the same conversation forward. On join up, and what it asks of a flight animal sent around a round pen. On positive reinforcement, and why handing a horse food never automatically creates consent. On the disputed parts of Monty's story, and why we can hold gratitude and discernment at the same time.
And underneath it all, the question I keep circling: why do we need our teachers to be heroes?
We put trainers on pedestals. The flaws appear — they always do — and reverence flips to contempt overnight. Either way, the person is never allowed to be human. And pedestals are useless to horses. A pedestal has never once made a horse feel safer, calmer, or less confused about what we are asking.
I believe we are living through the biggest shift in the human-horse relationship since machines took horses out of our fields and our wars. The question used to be: can the horse do it? The question becoming ours is: what does it cost the horse to do it? Did the horse understand, or did it simply stop resisting? Does the absence of conflict mean the horse feels safe?
One day, we will be the outdated ones. The next generation will see pressure we could not recognize and pain we rationalized. I hope so. If they never outgrow us, we failed to help them see farther.
Monty Roberts and Alexandra Kurland do not need us to decide which one was right. They need us to carry the torch. And the torch is not join up. The torch is not the clicker. The torch is the responsibility to keep listening.
Thank you, Monty. Thank you, Alexandra. This one is for the lineage — and for my mom, who pu…
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Your Saddle Fits a Horse That No Longer Exists — Letitia Glenn on Horse Care
22 juli 2026 · 1 uur 12 min
You measure with your hand while he stands there. Lees meer
Then he takes a step, and the horse you measured is gone.
Saddle fit is horse care. I rode my whole life before anyone said that to me plainly.
I met Letitia Glenn, founder of Contour Saddlery™, at Road to the Horse. She had seen footage of me riding, and the first thing she thought—which she then said to my face, out loud—was that I did not know what I did not know about saddles. She was right. I brought her to Florida on the hottest day of that summer, rode in one of her saddles, and felt my mare Lady's scapula move with a freedom it never had on the whole road trip.
Letitia came to horses at 47, with a two-year-old Paso Fino stallion named Echo, and has spent the last quarter century asking one question: Why do so many saddles fit a standing horse, yet interfere with the horse once it begins to move?
She found part of the answer backpacking. Fifty-five pounds, eight miles, the Rocky Mountains. Picture the corner of a book pressed into your spine. You will contort away from it. Horses do the same. Pressure behind the scapula changes posture, alters movement through the entire body, and creates compensation patterns that no amount of riding can truly fix.
So we explore what she looks for: the upward head nod at the walk on a loose rein, the Four Bs, the belly tickle test, and the hollow behind the scapula that reveals chronic restriction. We also discuss why the interface (the space between the saddle and the moving back) matters just as much as the saddle itself, and how the Contour Saddlery™ Saddle System and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System were developed to help accommodate the horse's changing shape in motion by restoring shoulder freedom and improving pressure distribution.
We also get into the part of horse care that never appears on a bill of sale. Saddle fitters are often paid by the brand they recommend. Trainers sometimes receive commissions on the tack their students buy. An expensive saddle isn't…
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Horse Training and the Nervous System: What's Really Happening in Your Horse's Brain | Dr. Stephen Peters (Pt. 2)
14 juli 2026 · 51 min
We say we want a willing horse. Lees meer
Then we climb on, and we start cramming.
And when the horse gets tight, or slow, or stuck, we do the one thing that guarantees it gets worse — we add pressure.
This is Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Stephen Peters, and this time he brought a horse's brain. Cut in half, in his hands, on the table between us. He points to the cingulate. He points to the little kidney-bean pituitary. And he shows me, physically, the difference between a horse who can talk itself back down and a horse who has no way back.
That difference has a name. It's a chemical called GABA.
An empowered horse can produce it — can send the "stand down" signal before the cortisol ever floods the system. A horse in learned helplessness can't reach it. Same event, two completely different animals, and most of what separates them is what we wired in, and the state we wired it in.
We get into the cocktail — dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, oxytocin, serotonin — and why drilling the same exercise seven times flattens every one of them. Why release is not the same thing as relief, and only the horse gets to tell you which one it was. Why recovery, the part everyone skips, is where the learning actually locks in. And why an hour on the clock is a human invention your horse never agreed to.
Then it opens out — touch, exercise, diet, the five domains, allo-grooming, the prairie voles who fall apart in isolation and settle the second the herd rushes back in.
And we close on Charles Darwin. Not the line everyone quotes. The one almost nobody does — the one where he says it's the cooperative communities, the ones that bond and help each other, that represent the highest level of evolution.
Horses have the chemistry for that built in. Dr. Peters' whole argument is simple: let's use it.
Start with Part 1 if you haven't — this picks up right where we left off.
Dr. Stephen Peters is a neuroscientist who directed a clinic for brain health and memory, and co-autho…
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Your Horse Isn't Being Bad — Dr. Stephen Peters on Horse Behavior, the Nervous System & Learned Helplessness Part 1 sponsored by Total Feeds
7 juli 2026 · 53 min
Every rider has said it. He's being stubborn. She's testing me. He knows better. Lees meer
Here's the harder, truer thing underneath: the horse isn't being anything. The horse is a nervous system, doing the one job every nervous system has — trying to stay safe.
Dr. Stephen Peters spends this conversation taking me under the behavior, into the brain that produced it. He's a neuropsychologist, co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship, and the person I call when I want to actually understand my horses instead of just managing them. This time we sat down as two diagnosed neurodivergent people talking about horse behavior from the inside — which is its own kind of honesty.
He explains why the horse that shoves past you off the trailer isn't defiant. It's running a pathway you built, three good grazes at a time. He calls it myelination, and once you hear how it works, you stop blaming the horse and start watching what you're teaching when you think you're not teaching anything.
We go into the thing so many of us get exactly backwards. You hit a wall, so you add pressure. More leg, more spur, more insistence. And Peters says it plainly: almost always the answer was to let the nervous system reset, not to push harder. Push harder and you don't get through the noise — you become the noise.
Then we get to the part I asked him to slow down on. Learned helplessness. The old experiment neither of us can listen to without flinching, and what it tells us about the quiet, compliant, "well-behaved" horse who has simply learned that nothing he does matters. That's not a trained horse. That's a horse who stopped voting.
And near the end, something bigger opens up. Peters describes the freeze — the shutdown that isn't a choice, the body flooding itself with its own opioids so it can survive what it can't escape. He says the thing I most needed someone with his credentials to say out loud: that response is the nervous system deciding, not the animal, and not the person it happens to. If y…
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Joe Stockdale on Riding Confidence, Grief & the Show Jumping Career He Inherited
30 juni 2026 · 1 uur 6 min
Everybody wants the clear round. The win. The photo at the top of the podium. Lees meer
Here's the part the sport keeps offstage — the doubt, the grief, the voice at the in-gate asking if you even belong here.
Joe Stockdale knows that voice well. He calls it imposter syndrome, and he feels it at the very top of show jumping, which is its own kind of honesty for a 26-year-old already riding at five-star.
In 2018 he lost his dad, Tim Stockdale, to cancer. Almost overnight Joe inherited a business, a famous name, a string of owners, and a mare his father picked out before he died. A young rider usually eases into all of that across years. Joe got a phone call and a yard to run.
This one goes straight at the thing under the results — what grief does to ambition, where riding confidence comes from, and why Joe would rather be home doing the work than chasing a spotlight.
He takes me inside the year everything turned. Less than five years after losing his dad, he's standing at the World Championships in Herning on the mare his father found, winning team bronze for Great Britain. He says it plainly: stories like that barely happen to anyone.
We talk about the people who caught him. William and Pippa Funnell, his dad's closest friends, who started watching every one of his rounds on video and calling with notes they took on their own. Joe is blunt about it — that web of mentors is the reason he's still standing here.
And we get to the line I keep turning over. Joe wants the pressure: last to go in a Nations Cup, the whole thing resting on him, the chance to be the hero. Then he goes home and rides like a horseman over a competitor, because the horse gets to have an off day, and his job is to listen.
When Joe was young, he told his dad he wished he could be as good as him. His dad's answer: you're going to be way better than me. Trust me.
He carries that. You can hear it.
If you've ever stood at the edge of something you wanted, certain everyone could see right through you …
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How to Read Horse Behavior — Elsa Sinclair on the 5 Types of Leadership
23 juni 2026 · 1 uur 5 min
There is a question almost every one of us carries to the barn and never says out loud. Lees meer
Not how do I get him to do this.
But: does he actually trust me — or is he just complying?
This is Part 2 of my conversation with Elsa Sinclair, and it's the half where I kept having to stop and close my eyes. Because Elsa reads horse behavior in a way most of us were never taught to. She breaks leadership into five kinds — dominant, persistent, assertive, passive, supportive — and then says the thing that reorganized my brain: that leadership is simply any action that results in harmony. That dominance and abuse are not the same thing.
She takes us back inside the year she spent with a wild mustang named Myrnah — three to six hours a day, five days a week. The morning she got on at three months, did it badly, and wasn't allowed back on for another three. Not because anything went wrong. Because her timing was off by a hair, and the horse simply told the truth about it.
Then comes the line I haven't stopped repeating: "I'm not going to try to be the best horse trainer in the room. I'm going to try to be the most accurate."
This is freedom based training as a craft — not a philosophy you admire from a distance, but a practice you can take to the barn tomorrow. Elsa shows how to actually see a horse's thought before you reward it — the ear that flicks, the eye that moves, the breath — and gives a homework exercise you can start in the morning. We get into why hyperfocus on the goal keeps you tripping over the next step. Why confidence, quietly, trumps every strategy. And Atlas — the horse she bought off a slaughter truck, the one who broke everything she thought she knew.
If you've ever felt like you're learning too slowly with your horse, this episode reframes that ache as the whole point.
Elsa Sinclair is a lifelong horsewoman, horse behavior researcher, and filmmaker. Her year with the mustang Myrnah became a documentary, Taming Wild, and a book by the same name. She no…
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What If Your Horse Could Say No? Elsa Sinclair on Freedom Based Training Part 1
16 juni 2026 · 57 min
Most of us learned to ride before we ever learned to ask. Lees meer
We learned the halter, the rope, the pressure, the release. We learned how to make a horse do the thing. And somewhere in there, quietly, a lot of us started to feel that something about it wasn't quite right — and didn't have the words, or the permission, to say so.
Elsa Sinclair had that feeling at twelve.
She's the creator of Freedom Based Training and the documentary Taming Wild, and this conversation is the story of where it came from — which is really the story of a question she couldn't put down.
It started with a student, who asked her: do you think horses actually like being ridden? And then, before Elsa could finish answering — do you think they ever had a choice?
She didn't have an answer. So she went looking for one.
What follows is one of the most honest origin stories I've had on this show. A lonely girl on a spirited Appaloosa named Demi. Years of clinics and books and methods that never felt like the thing she was reaching for. An offer from a near-stranger she couldn't refuse. And finally a year in a field with a wild mustang named Myrnah — no halter, no rope, no treats, no way to make her do anything — just the freedom to walk away, and the hope that she'd choose to stay.
Elsa says something in here I keep coming back to. That she never set out to be spiritual or soft about it. She wanted something "logical and practical and understandable" — a way of being with horses built on peace instead of domination, that still actually worked.
We talk about why she refuses to promise her horse a calm, composed version of herself. About trust as the willingness to suspend judgment. And about the idea that rearranged how I see every herd I've ever stood in: that in a healthy herd, awareness replaces dominance — because dominance only shows up when nobody was paying attention in the first place.
This is the beginning of Freedom Based Training, told by the woman who built it.
Elsa Sinclair is a…
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Horse Health: The Virus Almost Every Horse Already Carries — What to Know Before the Next Outbreak with Dr. Bruno Karam
9 juni 2026 · 55 min
Right now, somewhere in the horse world, a horse is shedding a virus it's carried since it was a foal. Its owner doesn't know. The horse looks fine. Lees meer
That's EHV-1. Equine herpesvirus. And Dr. Bruno Karam, equine internal medicine specialist, wants you to understand it before the next outbreak — not during it.
We recorded this conversation in the wake of last year's EHV-1 cluster at the National Finals Rodeo. Horses stumbling. Famous horses hospitalized. People asking whether the event should have run at all. And a lot of horse owners left with unanswered questions about a virus they'd heard about but didn't fully understand.
This episode answers those questions.
EHV-1 isn't new. The neurological form — EHM — isn't new either. What's changed is the density of horse movement. Western circuits don't park in one city for two weeks. They move. And they move on timelines shorter than the incubation period. By the time a horse shows symptoms, it's already three states away from where it got infected.
Bruno breaks down how the virus behaves in the body — biphasic fevers, white blood cell hitchhiking, the vasculitis cascade that leads to spinal cord involvement. He explains why your vaccinated horse can still shed. Why a healthy horse with no symptoms can spread it. And why giving Banamine the moment your horse feels warm is the single most counterproductive thing you can do in an outbreak.
The practical guidance in here is specific. Take temperatures twice a day. Know what's normal for your horse before you need to know what's abnormal. Don't share thermometers. And if your horse is questionable at a show — be okay with not showing.
He also talks about something that doesn't get said enough: we don't yet have data on why some horses get sick and others don't. We're still retroactively analyzing the outbreaks. The science is moving, and what we do today may not be what we do in ten years. That's not a reason to panic. It's a reason to pay attention.
Dr. Bruno Karam i…
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Welcome to the NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast!
1 juni 2026 · 25 min
Have you ever moved through a community — any community — feeling like you were watching from just outside the circle? Like everyone else had found their tribe and you were still looking? That feeling of not belonging might not be something to fix. It might be exactly what makes you exceptional. In this first solo episode of the Noelle Floyd Podcast, Noëlle Floyd makes the case that not belonging is one of the most underrated strengths a person can have — and shares the personal story, the science, and the poetry to back it up. Lees meer
You'll hear why Noëlle started this platform in the first place: not to broadcast to the horse world, but to be in genuine conversation with it. Fifteen years of writing, a magazine, a media platform, and now a podcast and Substack — all of it built on the belief that clarity and connection matter more than belonging to the right group.
You'll learn about Noëlle's late ADHD diagnosis and how it reframed everything she'd believed about herself. For years, she told herself her questions were too many, too deep, too irritating. Neurodivergence, she now understands, was never a handicap — it's the engine behind everything she does. If you've ever been told you think too differently, ask too many questions, or just don't quite fit, this conversation is for you.
You'll also hear Noëlle's introduction to the concept of outroversion — a framework proposed by psychologist Ramin Kaminski in The Gift of Not Belonging — and why she believes the horse world, and the world at large, would be better if outsiders were celebrated as much as insiders. The diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, disciplines, and ways of being that people bring is not a problem to solve. It's the whole point.
Noëlle also shares why clarity is a form of care — not just for yourself, but for your horse. Because horses don't have a voice. Your unresolved questions, borrowed beliefs, and secondhand certainties become their lived experience. Seeking clarity isn't self-indulgence…
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The Rider Ego vs. The Horseman Standard: Turnout, Horse Karma, and Clear Boundaries Daniel Bluman Part 2
27 mei 2026 · 44 min
It is easy to get wrapped up in the competitive environment when prize money and recognition wait at the gate. Our natural human instinct causes us to objectify horses as high-speed pieces of equipment or treat them like sentimental human pets, yet both approaches cause immense confusion for the animal. Lees meer
When challenges arise, a rider focuses strictly on overriding the obstacle in front of them, whereas a horseman steps back to evaluate the wider picture and protect the partnership.
Daniel Bluman breaks down the psychological differences between these choices, sharing the real-world management practices that establish what he calls horse karma. He discusses why daily turnout and social connection create a healthier brain for an athletic horse, allowing them to remain sound and happy for years.
What is Horse Karma?: Daniel shares a childhood story from Colombia that shaped his belief that treating every horse with empathy always pays it forward.
Clarity is Humanity: Loving a horse means giving clear, decisive training directions instead of treats, carrots, and confusing human sentimentality.
Becoming Indispensable: Learning how the animal functions biologically makes a person scarce and highly valued, securing a sustainable livelihood.
Managing Social Validation: Daniel urges us to handle the craving for online recognition and instead celebrate the unseen daily lifestyle.
Meet Daniel
Daniel Bluman is an Olympic athlete and co-founder of Bluman Equestrian. He is an entrepreneur and a producer of horses who believes patience is a massive competitive advantage. His philosophy rests on the conviction that horses are our teachers, and our primary mission is to provide them with respect and dignity.
Explore the mission at:
BlumanEquestrian.com
This episode is brought to you by:
Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc.
The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range…
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The Rider Ego vs. The Horseman Standard: Choosing the Animal Over the Accolades with Daniel Bluman
21 mei 2026 · 43 min
We have all walked into the barn carrying the weight of a chaotic day, a mile-long to-do list, and a rider ego that thinks jumping twenty fences is the only way to improve. We get clumsy because we try hard to chase points, ribbons, and instant gratification. We end up losing the horse. Lees meer
Three-time Olympian Daniel Bluman helps us trade that frantic energy for a higher standard. Daniel represents Israel on the world stage, but his true strength lies in his ability to do less. He reminds us that our horse is an animal rather than a tool, and our success belongs in the quality of our bond instead of the ribbons we collect.
If you feel tired of the frantic cycle, this conversation provides permission to stop performing and start listening. We dive into the shift from rider goals—those check-box milestones we want for ourselves—to horseman needs, which are the mental and physical foundations our horses require to thrive.
The Glamorous Farmer Mindset: Daniel explains why elite success requires appreciating the daily, weather-independent lifestyle of a simple farmer.
The Trap of Accolades: Chasing endless victories and high rankings leads to an unfulfilled career, whereas finding joy in the daily routine changes the game.
Educating the Next Generation: Daniel shares his focus on raising his children to be great horsemen and happy, well-balanced people.
Postponing Your Own Gratification: A true horseman stays honest to the path, protecting the horse above immediate ring results
Meet Daniel
Daniel Bluman is an Olympic athlete and co-founder of Bluman Equestrian. He is an entrepreneur and a producer of horses who believes patience is a massive competitive advantage. His philosophy rests on the conviction that horses are our teachers, and our primary mission is to provide them with respect and dignity.
Explore the mission at:
BlumanEquestrian.com
This episode is brought to you by:
Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc.
The friendly and knowledgeable…
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How Equine Bodywork for Horse Owners Transforms Your Horse Partnership with Jim Masterson
14 mei 2026 · 1 uur 21 min
What if everything you've been calling a behavior problem is actually your horse asking for help? On this episode of Dear Horse World, Noëlle sits down with Jim Masterson — founder of the Masterson Method and a leading voice in equine bodywork for horse owners — to explore exactly that question. Jim has worked hands-on with an estimated 700 horses a year at peak, trained over 10,000 students worldwide, and built a method shaped entirely by what horses told him. This conversation will change how you see your horse. Lees meer
Jim and Noëlle unpack how the horse nervous system moves between sympathetic arousal (guarding, bracing) and parasympathetic release (dropping the head, yawning, shifting weight). You'll understand why an agenda — even a caring one — can block that release, and how approaching your horse with quiet, clear intention changes what becomes possible. Natural horsemanship principles run through everything: you're not working on the horse. You're working with it.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN
Why the poll-atlas junction is the single most important tension point in your horse's body, and how releasing it can shift movement, behavior, and comfort throughout the entire horse — not just the neck.
How to identify when your horse's "behavior problems" — head-shyness, resistance to bridling, difficulty with one canter lead, sudden bucking — are expressions of physical tension, not disobedience.
Jim's five levels of touch (air gap, egg yolk, grape, lemon, and hard lime) and how to stay beneath your horse's bracing response so tension can actually release instead of getting blocked.
How to start the bladder meridian technique today — free, with no equipment — by following the blinks, yawns, and lick-and-chew responses your horse is already giving you.
How your horse's nervous system moves between sympathetic guarding and parasympathetic release, and what visible signs tell you a real tension release has happened.
Why approaching body work without a "fix it" age…
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What Your Horse's Nervous System Reveals About Trust and Liberty with Kaleigh Marie - Sponsored by Triple Crown Feeds
7 mei 2026 · 1 uur 29 min
Liberty trainer and Braveheart Beasts founder Kaleigh Marie shares how training oxen, mammoth donkeys, and mules before ever seriously working with horses shaped everything she knows about connection, trust, and the nervous system. Lees meer
Kaleigh Marie is a liberty trainer and performer based in the Northeast who has spent the last decade developing a nervous system-informed approach to horsemanship rooted in connection, positive reinforcement, and the foundational lessons she learned working with cattle, donkeys, and mules long before horses became her focus.
In this episode you will learn:
Why Kaleigh's foundation in training oxen and mammoth donkeys gave her a unique edge with horses
What "conversational quality" means and how it shows up in your relationship with your horse
Why donkeys ask "why should I?" — and why that's actually a gift to any trainer
How the nervous system underlies everything from leg aids to liberty work
The honest story of how clicker training almost derailed her liberty performances — and what she rebuilt from the ground up
The difference between expectation and intention when you're struggling in a session
What to do when you're not showing up as the trainer you want to be
Why dull horses are often the most sensitive ones — and how they got that way
The "backpack" concept and how co-regulation with your horse actually works
Why self-regulation — for both horse and human — matters more than connection
To find out more about Kaleigh Marie: website | instagram | facebook
This episode is sponsored by Triple Crown Feeds
The secret to raising a healthy horse begins with nutrition that goes beyond. The team at Triple Crown is dedicated to helping our customers succeed by understanding your horse's unique needs and working to develop the right feeding program for the horse you love.
www.triplecrownfeed.com | instagram.com/triplecrownfeed | facebook.com/TripleCrownFeed | youtube.com/@triplecrownfeeds
If you love honest conversations abo…
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"Easy Keeper" Horses Are a Warning Sign… Here's Why with Dr Kent Tooman sponsored by Pegasus Training & Rehabilitation Center
30 april 2026 · 1 uur 18 min
In this episode of Dear Horse World, equine veterinarian Dr. Kent Tooman breaks down the truth about equine metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and why more horses than ever are at risk of laminitis. Lees meer
Dr. Kent Tooman is an experienced equine veterinarian with over 30 years in practice, specializing in performance horses and metabolic health.
In this episode you will learn:
What's really happening inside your horse's body
Why "easy keepers" may be misunderstood
The subtle signs most owners miss (including fat deposits and barn blindness)
Breed predispositions (ponies, Arabs, draft crosses, and more)
Practical steps to reduce risk and manage weight safely
How insulin affects your horse's health
The connection between weight, metabolism, and laminitis
Why modern horse management is increasing risk
How to spot early warning signs before it's too late
If you care about better horse health, training, and management, subscribe for more expert conversations.
This episode is sponsored by Pegasus Training & Rehabilitation Center
Here at Pegasus, our mission is to run a first class horse training, rehabilitation, and conditioning facility; provide horses of all disciplines with full and complete care of the highest quality; partner with our clients to ensure that we not only meet, but exceed, their individual goals and needs; and maintain our facility and equipment with the highest level of care.
To find out more about Pegasus - website | instagram | facebook
Interested in more from Noëlle?
Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com
Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus
And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com
You ca…
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The Most Powerful Thing you can Train isn't Your Horse—it's Your Mind with Barbra Schulte - sponsored by Total Feeds
23 april 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
Champion cutting horse trainer Barbra Schulte joins the Dear Horse World Podcast after teaching host Noelle her first cut in Weatherford, Texas, explaining her teaching approach through mechanics and nervous system regulation. Lees meer
They discuss staying in an optimal state between under-arousal and fight-or-flight, slowing down when things speed up, and building skills through fundamentals, clear sequences, repetition, and positive reinforcement (dopamine) to install neurological pathways rather than "muscle memory."
Barbra Schulte outlines beginner learning, the discouraging "messy middle," refinement, and mastery, emphasizing between-lesson work, visualization, scripts/mantras, and self-coaching tools like "what's my job?" and "what do I control?" They address negative self-talk, fear of judgment, blame vs responsibility, and self-worth, and Schulte shares how human performance training influenced her competitive success, plus retreats and book recommendations.
To find out more about Barbra - Website | Instagram | Facebook
Barbra Schulte is hosting a Cutting Clinic September 17-20th 2026 in Pony, Montana. Click here for more info.
What You'll Learn:
Why your nervous system — not your technique — is the real ceiling on your riding performance
How to find and stay in the sweet spot between flat and frantic, and what to do when you lose it
Why positive reinforcement creates a dopamine cycle that accelerates skill acquisition
The truth about muscle memory — and where new riding skills actually live in your body
How to navigate the messy middle of learning without losing confidence or motivation
Why nervousness is closer to peak performance than you think — and how blame moves you furthest away
How Barbra used visualization and nervous system work to win two legs of cutting's triple crown
This episode is brought to you by Total Feeds:
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether…
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Bring a Proven System Into Your Riding - an NF+ Masterclass Exclusive with Ian Millar and Amy Millar sponsored by Connaway & Associates
14 april 2026 · 9 min
NF+ is proud to present our exclusive new Masterclass, The Millar Method Complete Training System, where Ian & Amy Millar introduce their system for building winning horses. Lees meer
Olympian Ian Millar returns on NF+ with Amy Millar to introduce the first of 16 episodes of the Millar Method, a consistent, repeatable system designed to develop horses that stay sound, confident, and ready to win.
They share their backgrounds—Ian's record 10 Olympic Games, role with the Canadian show jumping team, and scholarship work in Ontario; Amy's two Olympic appearances, Canadian championship, team ambitions, and efforts to improve accessibility through Can Jump. The episode explains how their method applies from trail riding to top sport, grounded in understanding the horse's nature and using tools like lunging, round penning, gymnastics, grids, and courses.
They emphasize principles that stay consistent while adapting teaching to how each horse and rider learns.
A Program Responsible for nine Olympic Horses across two Generations.
The Millar Method | Complete Training System - Save 25% on annual memberships with code DHW25
Learn the system that has developed top-level horses for Olympians lan and Amy Millar.
Chapters:
00:00 Meet the Millar Method
01:12 Ian and Amy Introductions
02:26 Why Teaching Matters
04:44 Sharing the Method
05:28 What the Method Covers
06:47 Tools and Foundations
07:45 Principles and Adaptation
08:19 How Horses and Riders Learn
08:55 Teaching Wins
The Millar Method | Complete Training System - Save 25% on annual memberships with code DHW25
Exclusively available on NF+, the equestrian masterclass platform for riders of all levels and disciplines.
This episode is brought to you by:
Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc.
The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability i…
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Give the Horses Time - Peter Charles on Developing Riders and Horses that Last Sponsored by Connaway
7 april 2026 · 57 min
Peter Charles on Starting from Nothing, Building Champions, and Giving Horses Time Peter Charles joins the Dear Horse World Podcast for his first podcast and recounts leaving Liverpool at 15 after his parents died, starting as a groom in Ireland, getting limited early riding opportunities, and working up through top European yards before winning the Brussels World Cup at 24 on the 7-year-old April Son. Lees meer
He contrasts his non-equestrian start with raising and training his children—Harry, Scarlett, and Sienna—emphasizing basics, hard work, confidence, and separating father from trainer; Harry learned on modest horses, was encouraged to choose riding himself, and later achieved multiple major medals and wins. Charles critiques the American hunter pathway versus Europe's pony system for developing competitive reactions, argues modern sport's nonstop schedule reduces time for partnerships, and stresses patience in producing horses, later starting ages, breeding selection via strong mare lines, and managing soundness by learning, asking questions, and knowing each horse's movement.
This conversation explores:
What starting from nothing actually teaches you (and what money can't replace)
Why the European pony-riding system produces more instinctive, competitive riders
The difference between giving your kids opportunity and making it too easy
How to build a genuine partnership with a horse — and why rushing it will cost you later
What to do when your string of top horses disappears overnight
How confidence is built, not born — and why Peter never once doubted himself
Why the mare matters more than the stallion in any breeding program
How to become your own horse's best advocate when the vet doesn't have all the answers
You can learn more about Peter Charles here:
Intagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathcroft_farm/
Website: https://heathcroftfarm.com
This episode is brought to you by:
Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc.
The friendly and know…
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Solving Horse Separation Anxiety: Why Herd-Bound Behavior Isn't Disobedience — It's Instinct with Kathy Baar
31 maart 2026 · 1 uur 17 min
Horse Separation anxiety is something most horse owners will face at some point. Lees meer
Sometimes it shows up as calling when a buddy leaves.
Sometimes it's a refusal to leave the barn.
Sometimes it escalates into behavior that feels dangerous, overwhelming, or emotionally exhausting.And despite how common it is, it can feel isolating — especially when even experienced professionals don't always have a clear roadmap.
In this episode, we sit down with clinician and author Kathy Baar to unpack herd-bound behavior through the lens of psychology and biology. Kathy has spent decades studying how horses bond, how they regulate, and how easily their instincts can be misunderstood.
This conversation explores:
What separation anxiety is (and what it isn't)
Why horses bond so deeply — especially when traveling or stabled together
The difference between connection and codependency
How to expand your horse's comfort zone safely
What to do in show situations when you don't have weeks to rebuild patterns
How your own personality type impacts how your horse learns
Why safety and comfort must come before food or reward
This episode is for you if:
Your horse struggles leaving the barn or their buddy
Show warm-ups feel unpredictable
You feel embarrassed or alone in this challenge
You want to understand herd-bound behavior at its root
You're ready to build confidence in your horse without escalating intensity
Kathy's book that she would read to the horse world - Natural Horse-Man-Ship: Six Keys to a Natural Horse-Human Relationship (A Western Horseman Book) by Pat Perelli
Kathy offers understanding — when you understand what your horse is truly seeking, your approach begins to change.
Kathy Baar is a clinician, trainer, and author known for her thoughtful, psychology-based approach to horsemanship. Drawing influence from the lineage of Tom and Bill Dorrance and Ray Hunt, Kathy focuses on developing both connection with the human and internal confidence within the horse.…
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From Alaska to Argentina on Horseback: The Untold Aftermath with Filipe Masetti Leite Sponsored by Total Feeds
24 maart 2026 · 1 uur 8 min
What does it really mean to commit to something that scares you? Lees meer
In this episode, we sit down with Filipe Masetti Leite, a journalist, filmmaker, and long rider who traveled more than 27,000 kilometers on horseback from the Canadian Rockies to the southern tip of Argentina. Over eight years, he crossed 12 countries, navigated remote terrain, built partnerships with 11 horses, and lived at the speed of a walk.
But this conversation goes far beyond the mileage.
We talk about what happens when you slow life down to three kilometers an hour. What leadership looks like when your team has four legs. The bond of a heart horse. The tension between loving horses and using them. The identity crisis that can follow achievement. And why having an "X" on your map might matter more than the destination itself.
This is a conversation about fear, resilience, ego, spirituality, and the responsibility that comes with living a dream out loud.
You can find The Long Rider - Filipe's award-winning film documenting his ride across the Americas here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7hudXw67yw
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Filipe's memoir detailing the journey, the borders, the horses, and what it changed in him - Long Ride Home: Guts, Guns and Grizzlies
Tschiffely's Ride by Aimé Tschiffely - The 1925 account of a Swiss schoolteacher who rode from Buenos Aires to New York on two Criollo horses — the book that inspired Filipe's dream as a child.
The Long Riders' Guild - An organization preserving the history and stories of modern long-distance equestrian explorers.
Children's Cancer Hospital in Brazil - The ride to Ushuaia helped raise awareness and funds for pediatric cancer support.
Follow Filipe on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/filipemasetti/
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Dear Horse World wherever you listen, leave us a review — it genuinely helps more people find these conversations — and share this episode with someone who needs to hear more adventure ho…
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Road to the Horse Prep: Elisa Wallace Reveals her Secret to Staying relaxed under Pressure - Sponsored by StableFeed
17 maart 2026 · 1 uur 22 min
Not every rider has access to the perfectly bred, professionally produced sport horse. Many are figuring things out with the horse they could afford, learning as they go, and trying to build a partnership along the way. Lees meer
In this episode, 5★ event rider and trainer Elisa Wallace shares what she has learned from producing horses many others overlook, including Mustangs and off-the-track Thoroughbreds. Alongside competing at the highest levels of eventing, Elisa has built a career developing unconventional horses into dream ones.
In this episode of "No Stupid Questions," we discuss:
How to evaluate a horse when shopping on a budget
The red flags riders should pay attention to early on
The first steps to building trust with a new horse
How to rebuild confidence after setbacks
Signs your horse is progressing, even when improvement feels slow
What unconventional horses can teach riders that highly produced horses cannot
The book Elisa would read to the horse world - Four Square by Lucinda Green
For riders navigating the journey with one horse, modest resources, and a lot of determination, this episode is a reminder that your dreams are possible with the horse you have.
Resources:
https://wallaceeventing.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/WallaceEventing
https://roadtothehorse.com/elisa-wallace-usa/
This epidsode is generously sponsored by:
StableFeed - What You Feed Your Horse Matters
StableFeed is redefining equine nutrition with all natural horse feed and supplements made from real, whole foods. Using a unique forage, Sainfoin, as the base of their forage prodcuts and clean plant ingredients, never chemicals, fillers , or by products. StableFeed helps horses thrive with nutrition designed the way nature intended. Real food with real results.
Explore more at stablefeed.com | @StableFeed
Chapters:
00:00 Ocala Week Announcement
00:39 Meet Elisa Wallace
01:57 Road to the Horse Nerves
04:46 Mustangs to Eventing Path
06:30 Fledge and Mustang Magic
14:03 M…
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The Truth About Black Cowboy Culture that Nobody Taught You with Drake LeBlanc sponsored by YETI
10 maart 2026 · 1 uur 19 min
What if the story of the American cowboy is bigger than the version most of us were handed? Lees meer
In this episode, Noëlle sits down with Drake LeBlanc, a Creole cowboy from Louisiana, filmmaker, and cultural preservationist. The conversation that unfolds is about history, identity, and what it really means to live a culture rather than wear it.
Drake was raised in a community where horses are not a hobby or an aesthetic. They are Sunday trail rides, music in the air, food cooking by trailers, land passed down through generations, and families riding together. They are belonging.
Together, they explore the untold history of Black cowboys, how the image of the American cowboy was reshaped through media, and what was lost when culture became costume.
This conversation is not just about the past. It is about how the stories we are handed down, the way they shape how we see ourselves, and who we believe belongs in the horse world.
In this episode you will learn:
Creole identity and language in Louisiana
Haitian Creole cultural parallels
Native American symbolism in Western fashion and saddle design
The history of cattle herding practices rooted in African tribes
The book Drake would read to the Horse World - Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900
About Drake LeBlanc: Drake LeBlanc is a Lafayette, Louisiana-based filmmaker, documentarian, and photographer. He is one of the most compelling cultural voices working today in the preservation of Creole heritage and black cowboy history. His documentary Footwork has brought international attention to the Louisiana Creole cowboy tradition and the Louisiana trail rides that keep black cowboy culture alive every weekend across the American South.
You can find Drake on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lovebenoir/
Drake's film work can be found here https://filmfreeway.com/FootworkLA
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Dear Horse World wherever you listen, leave us a review — it …
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Laura Kraut's Road to the Top and the Future of American Show Jumping
3 maart 2026 · 1 uur 16 min
There is a whole generation of insanely talented young riders who feel like the system is not built for them. You want the top sport, you want the big moments in show jumping, you want to know what it actually takes to get there, yet the pathway feels gated and the access feels invisible. That is exactly why this conversation with Laura Kraut hits so hard. Laura is a legit icon in show jumping and she shows up here with zero ego, full transparency, and a real blueprint for what it takes to rise in a sport that can feel impossible to break into. Lees meer
Laura brings us inside Road to the Top, the program she created with Katie Prudent to give hungry riders the mentorship, horsepower, and behind the scenes education they never get access to. She talks openly about the emotional and financial pressure of show jumping, how real horsemanship gets built, and what separates riders who make it from riders who burn out. This episode is equal parts wisdom, reality check, and hype. If you're dreaming big, this one will light a fire under you.
In this episode, you will learn:
How Road to the Top actually works and why it gives overlooked riders a real shot in show jumping
The mindset mistakes that hold promising riders back and how to avoid them
How to think about horse management, horse picking, and building real feel
What mentorship looks like at the absolute top and how it shaped Laura's Olympic career
How to stay grounded when social media makes everyone else look perfect
How owners and supporters can get involved and genuinely move the sport forward
The book that Laura would read to the Horse World - The Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts
This episode is brought to you by:
Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc.
The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability insurance.
Visit www.connaway.net |…
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The Five Types of Confidence Every Horse Needs with Tik Maynard
24 februari 2026 · 8 min
Some horses appear confident while others seem reactive or unsure, but what if confidence is more nuanced than that? Lees meer
In this special episode from our NF+ Masterclass, The Confidence Advantage, Tik breaks down the five distinct areas where a horse can gain or lose confidence and how each one functions like a cup that can be filled from one to ten.
In this episode, you will learn:
Around Other Horses - Can your horse leave the herd calmly and enter new spaces without anxiety?
As an Explorer - Do the approach new environments with curiosity instead of fear?
In the Relationship - Do they see you as botha trusted friend and a steady leader?
In Specific Skills - Have they practiced their job enough to feel capable and secure in it?
In Their Skills and Sports - Practicing discipline-specific tasks with ease and gaining confidence through repetition and variety.
Tik also explains how these five areas interact and why a horse's confidence in you can help support everything else.
Watch the Full Course:
This episode is just one part of Tik Maynard's full Confidence Course, available exclusively on NF+.
Use code TIK25 for 25% off an annual NF+ membership and start building lasting confidence for you and your horse.
Streaming now at noellefloydplus.com. and follow along on instagram
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Is the Horse World Acting like a Cult? with Sharon Madere | Sponsored by YETI
17 februari 2026 · 1 uur 22 min
You might know this feeling all too well. You want to trust your feel, keep growing, and do right by your horse, yet something in the culture makes you hesitate. Questioning a method or following your instincts can feel dangerous, like one honest moment could cost you belonging, spark backlash, or even put a target on your back. Lees meer
In this episode, Sharon Madere, an equine behavior consultant and cult survivor, brings a special combination of lived experience and scientific expertise to help riders reclaim their clarity, confidence, and curiosity. As a lifelong horsewoman, she understands the mechanics of influence, pressure, and obedience in ways most people never articulate. And she applies that perspective directly to the horse world in a way that is both affirming and liberating.
In this conversation, you will learn:
The clear signs of cult-like leadership in horse communities
Why emotionally charged language like disrespect or naughty derails presence and erodes confidence
How to stay grounded, think critically, and avoid manipulation as a student or owner
Practical tips on training, positive reinforcement, and making better choices for you AND your horse
Why empowerment and curiosity matter more than any "guru"
Sharon also shares practical strategies for safer, clearer horsemanship, from building boundaries in a herd to teaching effective trailer loading. It is a conversation that blends science, psychology, and lived wisdom into something every rider can immediately apply.
Resources and Mentions:
Sharon's podcast: Feet of Clay: Confessions of the Cult Sisters
Sharon's Website : EquiLightenment.com
International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC)
Chapters:
00:00 Is the Horse World Acting Like a Cult?
02:10 Sharon's Story: Growing Up in a Religious Cult
08:45 How Cult Psychology Works
15:20 Authority Culture in Horse Training
21:30 The Danger of "Disrespect" in Horsemanship
28:40 When Riders Stop Trusting Their Intuition
35:15 …
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How Horses Really See: Motion, Color, Depth and the Diseases Owners Miss Part 2 — Dear Horse World, it's Dr. Dennis Brooks
10 februari 2026 · 54 min
In Part 2 with Dr. Dennis Brooks, we step fully into the world as horses see it. This episode unpacks the five emerging immune mediated eye diseases he is treating around the world, why one of them is more alarming than moon blindness, and how tiny changes in the cornea can trigger sudden behavior shifts. Lees meer
We explore how horses process color, motion, and depth, why their optic nerves move information faster than ours, and how they can perform at an elite level with one eye or even with no vision. We also bridge ophthalmology with neuroscience to understand how the equine brain reads emotion, remembers experiences, and navigates the world with extraordinary sensitivity.
In this episode, you will learn:
• The five types of immune mediated keratitis and the one specialists worry most about
• How to spot early signs of cloudiness, floaters, or subtle vision changes
• What colors horses truly see and how this affects training and jump design
• Why horses detect motion in low light far better than humans
• How elite horses perform with limited or no vision
• How the equine brain processes emotion, memory, and spatial cues
• When sudden behavior changes may originate in the eye and what to do nextConnect with Dr. Dennis Brooks :
• Facebook: Dr. Dennis Brooks, Equine Ophthalmologist
Book they would read to the Horse World - Veterinary and Comparative Ophthalmology, published in 1914 by Eugene Nicolas
Episode sponsored by:
Total Feeds
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!
Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com
YETI
Made for early mornings in the barn and long days in the saddle. Whether you're hauling feed, chasing daylight on the trail, or loading up for a weekend on the road, YETI coolers and drinkware are built to handle it.…
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Seeing Horses Differently: Lessons from Dr. Dennis Brooks an Equine Ophthalmologist Part 1 | Sponsored by Total Feeds
3 februari 2026 · 57 min
When you meet Dr. Dennis Brooks, you understand why horse people around the world talk about him with a kind of reverence. He is one of the most influential equine ophthalmologists of our time, the OG of horse eye care, yet what makes him unforgettable is not just the medicine. It is the heart behind it. Lees meer
In this episode, Dennis takes us inside the world of horse eyes with the clarity of a teacher, the soul of a storyteller, and the honesty of someone who has spent a lifetime caring deeply for horses and the people who love them.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why Dennis became the original pioneer of modern equine ophthalmology
How breakthrough surgeries changed what is possible for horses with severe eye disease
Why Appaloosas are genetically more vulnerable to uveitis
The simple eyelash position test that instantly tells you if a horse is in eye pain
How the immune system and the eye communicate and why that matters
What immune mediated keratitis is and the 5 emerging types Dennis is seeing worldwide
Why one of those new diseases is more frightening than moon blindness
What every horse owner should know to protect their horse's vision
This episode blends science with story, medicine with emotion, and legacy with practical takeaways. It is a rare chance to learn from the man who shaped an entire field while reminding us that the best medicine always begins with human connection.
This episode is brought to you by Total Feeds
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!
Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com
And for even more expert-led workshops, in-depth courses, and exclusive lectures designed to elevate your riding and horsemanship, visit NoelleFloydPlus.com and use code 'DHW' for 15% off annual memberships!
NF+ brings …
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Dressage Naturally with Karen Rohlf: Choosing the Relationship Over the Result Part 2 | Sponsored By YETI
27 januari 2026 · 44 min
Part 2 continues the conversation by moving into the moments that test riders and trainers alike. This episode focuses on what happens when something doesn't feel right, and the courage it can take to pause, question, or choose a different path in the middle of a lesson. Lees meer
Karen Rohlf is an FEI Grand Prix dressage rider, USDF Gold Medalist, internationally respected clinician, and the founder of Dressage Naturally. In this part of the conversation, Karen explores how easily context gets overlooked in training, and why protecting the relationship must come before any single exercise or result.
Karen and Noelle talk about situations many riders recognize immediately: being asked to push forward when a horse is clearly uncomfortable, feeling pressure to comply even when instincts say otherwise, and how quickly intuition can be silenced.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why some "training problems" are actually context problems
How fear and tension are often mislabeled
How to be a mindful, courageous student
How trainers can foster confident, curious riders
Why no result is worth sacrificing the relationship
Karen also shares how different horses require different approaches, why consistency does not mean sameness, and how commitment to a decision matters more than the decision itself.
Part 2 invites riders and trainers to reflect on how trust is built moment by moment, and how much influence educators have in shaping riders who feel safe to think, feel, and advocate for their horses.
Resources & Mentions
Karen Rohlf's Book: Dressage Naturally
https://dressagenaturally.net/book/Dressage Naturally
https://dressagenaturally.net/Parelli
https://parelli.com/The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
Episode Sponsored by:
YETI
Made for early mornings in the barn and long days in the saddle. Whether you're hauling feed, chasing daylight on the trail, or loading up for a weekend on the road, YETI coolers and drinkware are built to handle it.
No shortcuts. No comprom…
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Dressage Naturally with Karen Rohlf: Training Horses as Individuals, Not systems Part 1 | Sponsored By YETI
22 januari 2026 · 52 min
Have you ever questioned whether the way you've been taught to train truly fits the horse in front of you? Most people don't. And when they do, they're often reprimanded for it, which is usually enough to make them stop asking. Lees meer
We repeat the same exercises and routines because that's how we were taught, rarely questioning the system even when our horses do. This conversation challenges that pattern and asks a harder question: what happens when the system stops working for the horse?
Karen Rohlf is an FEI Grand Prix dressage rider, USDF Gold Medalist, internationally respected clinician, and the founder of Dressage Naturally. Her career spans the highest levels of the sport, but the foundation of her work traces back to her first horse. As a child, Karen watched that horse be sold and change in ways that frightened her. Same horse. Same environment. Completely different outcome under different hands. That moment led her to make a promise to herself and to every horse she would ride, a promise that still guides her work today.
In Part 1, Karen shares stories she rarely tells publicly. She explains why she stepped away from a conventional training model most professionals never question. She tells the story of a horse who flinched simply for touching something in the barn aisle, and what changed when she responded differently than she had been taught. These moments show how curiosity and confidence can return to horses who have shut down, and why what we call tension is often something we haven't learned to read.
During the conversation, lightning strikes just as Karen names three essential needs of horses, reinforcing a central theme of the episode: the system is often the problem, not the horse.
In this episode, you will hear:
The childhood experience that shaped Karen's approach to horses
Why curiosity is often suppressed and what happens when it returns
How to distinguish between physical, mental, and emotional training challenges
Why giving horses real c…
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The Hidden Forces That Shape a Rider's Career with Rodrigo Pessoa | Sponsored by Connaway & Associates and Yeti
13 januari 2026 · 1 uur 6 min
Have you ever felt your heart thumping and your palms sweating before a competition, only to realize it wasn't just nerves but something deeper? Riders know what it means to carry pressure long before a round begins. It often starts early. Parents want so deeply for their children to thrive, yet the fear of falling behind can blur the line between supporting and pushing. Lees meer
Most riders have compared themselves to people who make the hardest moments look effortless. And when some young riders rise while others quietly disappear, it forces all of us to question what truly creates long term success.
In this episode, we sit down with Rodrigo Pessoa, who brings honesty and decades of legendary experience. As one of the most iconic show jumpers of our generation, his openness is a rare gift. He shares how real development comes from patience, thoughtful pressure and the courage to learn in full view of others. He also explains why young horses and young riders need almost the exact same environment to thrive.
Rodrigo takes us inside the realities shaping modern sport. He talks about why wealth does not create perseverance, how the wrong coach can derail a rider faster than no coach at all, and why early pressure often shuts potential down rather than unlocking it. He reflects on the mentorship behind Baloubet du Rouet and the moment that permanently changed how he handles public scrutiny.
By the end, you will understand the sport more clearly and feel steadier in your own path forward.
You will learn:
• How pressure really works and why timing matters more than intensity
• Why perseverance and engagement outweigh access or privilege
• What ruins good horses and good riders and how to prevent it
• How to set goals that stretch you without overwhelming you
• Why comparison derails progress and how professionals truly think about it
• The core mentorship principles behind developing young horses and young athletesRodrigo's book that he would read to the Horse World - S…
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Cutting Horse Lessons Every Rider Can Use with Lindy Burch | Sponsored by Yeti and Total Feeds
6 januari 2026 · 1 uur 34 min
So many riders want their horses sharper, quicker, and more responsive, yet end up drilling, micromanaging, and unintentionally shutting their horses down. Hall of Fame cutting horse trainer Lindy Burch offers a wildly refreshing reframing: what if the sharpest horses are not the ones you control the most, but the ones you allow to think? Lees meer
In cutting, the horse has to make decisions in real time. They must read the cow, feel the moment, and respond faster than the rider ever could. In this episode, Lindy breaks down how she develops horses who stay mentally present, balanced, and tuned in, not by force, but through short, thoughtful training bursts, strong foundations, and the power of letting the horse learn from the cow itself.
You will hear Lindy unpack the origins of cutting, what makes a great cutting horse, how to ride with more feel, why short sessions produce better learning, and why riding outside the arena creates more balanced, emotionally sound partners in any discipline.
No matter your discipline, this conversation will shift the way you think about responsiveness, contact, pressure, partnership, and how to build a horse that truly tries for you.
You will learn:
Why micromanagement dulls horses and how to create a horse that thinks with you
How to use short, focused sessions and the environment as your greatest training tools
Why riding outside the arena and honoring your horse's mind leads to deeper connection
Lindy's book that she would read to the Horse World - The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Resources:
Evidence Based Horsemanship by Martin Black and Stephen Peters
The history of the National Cutting Horse Association
The National Cowgirl Hall of Fame
Learn more about Lindy Burch:
Website: https://lindyburch.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindyburchcuttinghorses
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lindyburchcuttersThis episode is brought to you by:
Total Feeds
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people …
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Laura Graves on Staying Curious When Dressage Gets Hard (NF+ Exclusive)
23 december 2025 · 8 min
Frustration is a human emotion, and it almost inevitably shows up in every rider's journey. The question is what you do when it does. Lees meer
In this episode, Olympic dressage medalist Laura Graves steps in as your coach and mentor, sharing the mindset that guides her when riding feels more hard than harmonious. This clip comes from her NF+ masterclass Laura Graves Troubleshoots Common Flatwork Woes and offers a rare look into how an elite rider thinks during the private moments of training, when there are no quick answers and no one else in the arena.
Laura reflects on learning to pause instead of pushing, and on the role curiosity plays when a horse doesn't respond as expected. She speaks about developing your own internal dialogue and giving both yourself and your horse the space to figure things out without judgment.
This episode is an invitation to ride with more awareness and patience, guided by one of the most thoughtful voices in the sport.
Listen in and discover what can change when you shift from frustration to curiosity.
Watch Laura Graves Troubleshoots Common Flatwork Woes on NF+. Use the code DHW to receive 15% off an annual membership.
https://noellefloydplus.com/programs/laura-graves-troubleshoots-common-flatwork-woes?category_id=208907
Learn more about Laura Graves
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauragravesdressage/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauragraves.dressage/
NF+ :https://noellefloydplus.com/authors/author-B6lI72KCcaM
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Equine Digestion Explained: Sugar, Fiber, and Mineral Balance. — No Stupid Questions with Dr. Harry Anderson
16 december 2025 · 1 uur
Welcome back to No Stupid Questions, the nutrition edition with Dr. Harry Anderson. In part Part 2 we take deeper look at the physiology that drives your horse's behavior, metabolism, and overall health. Lees meer
We explore the way sugar, minerals, and fiber interact inside the horse. We talk about why some horses puff up, why certain forage creates sharpness, and how small choices in the feed room can shift the entire internal environment. This is the kind of steady, clear education most of us never received but always needed.
In this episode we cover:
• The horse's unique digestive design and how it works in real life
• The truth about fiber and why long stem forage is not the full picture
• How sugar and NSC influence behavior, energy, and metabolic health
• The role of key minerals like magnesium and manganese
• What causes swelling, puffiness, or digestive instability
• How to approach hay, supplements, and slow feeding with clarityReferenced Products and Resources:
Total Equine Feed
Total Equine LNSC
Ascophyllum Nodosum Kelp Research
Equine Hay Analysis Labs
Dr. Harry Anderson on YouTubeThis is Part 2 of a two part series, be sure to listen to Part 1 for the full foundation.
Learn more about Dr. Harry Anderson
Website
https://totalfeeds.comYouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@totalfeeds -
Horse Nutrition Explained: How Digestion Shapes Behaviour with Dr. Harry Anderson Part 1
9 december 2025 · 42 min
Most horse owners are trying their best in the feed room while quietly wondering if they are getting it right. You want your horse to feel calm, healthy, and steady in their body, but the information out there is overwhelming and often contradictory. One person says alfalfa is dangerous. Another says your horse needs hay 24/7. Someone else blames ulcers, sugar, or stress. And in the middle of all of it, you are just trying to understand what your horse is telling you. Lees meer
Dr. Harry Anderson has spent more than fifty years studying animal physiology and nutrition, and he has an uncanny ability to explain complex processes in a way that immediately lowers your shoulders. He walks you through what is actually happening inside a horse's digestive system so you can finally understand which choices matter, which ones don't, and why your horse responds the way they do. If you want to feed your horse with confidence, clarity, and compassion, this conversation gives you the framework you have been missing.
In this episode you will learn:
Why micronutrients often shape behavior, energy, and overall wellbeing
The essential role of the small intestine and why it determines so much of your horse's health
How hay type and NSC values influence digestion without the fear based narrative
What we misunderstand about ulcers, stress, and stomach acidity
Why alfalfa makes some horses feel reactive and what is actually behind that response
How to support horses who are anxious, metabolic, or recovering from laminitis
Stay tuned for Part 2.
Learn more about Dr. Harry Anderson:
Website
https://totalfeeds.comYouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@totalfeeds -
An Olympian's Approach to Building Horses, Not Breaking Them: Dear Horse World, It's Will Coleman - Sponsored by Yeti
2 december 2025 · 1 uur 12 min
Eventing is equal parts strategy, skill, and mental game, but for many riders it can feel like a constant battle to balance all three phases, keep their horse sound, and make real progress. How do you build a horse's confidence and physical strength without rushing them or burning them out? Lees meer
In this episode, Olympian and 5 star eventer Will Coleman joins us to break down what truly drives elite performance. A lifelong student of the sport, Will shares the mentors who shaped him including David and Karen O'Connor and Anne Kursinski. He talks about his early exposure to natural horsemanship, the lessons he wishes he learned sooner, and the systems he and Katie use to develop sound confident horses who stay happy in their work.
We dig into how Will cross trains his horses, how he studies top riders across disciplines, and why rider fitness and honest feedback are essential for anyone who wants to improve. Will also opens up about the heartbreak of preparing two Olympic horses only to watch the Games from the sidelines and what that experience ultimately taught him.
This conversation will leave you with a clearer sense of how to build feel, develop your horse with integrity, and make better long term decisions in your training.
Tune in to learn:
• How Will Coleman approaches training as a lifelong student
• What he learned from David and Karen O'Connor and Anne Kursinski
• Why cross training matters for building sound confident horses
• The role of rider fitness and body awareness
• How to know when to push and when to pause
• What Will learned from the disappointment of missing the Olympic start boxWill's book that he would read to the Horse World - Secrets and Method of a Great Champion - Michel Robert
Learn More About Will Coleman:
• Website: https://www.willcolemanequestrian.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willcolemanequestrian
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/willcolemanequestrianThis episode is brought to you by YETI.
Made for early morn…
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We are Back! Embrace Season 2 Premiere: Creole Cowboys, Cowgirl Spirit & Riding Adventures and more!
28 november 2025 · 36 min
We're back with Season 2 of Dear Horse World, premiering on December 2nd! Lees meer
This season, we bring you some of the most iconic voices in the industry, featuring legends like Will Coleman, Lindy Birch, Rodrigo Pessoa, Laura Kraut, and the unforgettable Boots O'Neill.
Their wisdom and experiences reveal life-changing insights into the sport, horses, and horsemanship.
Additionally, don't miss our Black Friday sale starting November 28th for an exclusive 50% off annual NF plus membership.
Join us for another incredible season and elevate your riding to the next level!
00:00 Season Two Announcement and Black Friday Sale
01:15 Karen Rolf's Disney Moments and Training Advice
03:02 Jim Masterson's Animal Communicator Story
05:03 Dr. Ellen Staples on Farrier Relationships
07:20 Dr. Harry Anderson on Equine Nutrition
10:21 Lindy Birch on the Cowgirl Spirit
14:24 Craig Cameron on Positive Thinking in Competition
19:21 Sharon Maadere Understanding Animal Behavior
23:38 Boots O'Neil Qualities of a Great Ranch Horse
28:42 Drake LeBlanc The Unique Identity of Creole Cowboys
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Groundwork Guys Mini-Series Ep#5: How to Help a Horse That Pulls Back, Panics, or Won't Load | Sponsored by Jug Waterers
18 november 2025 · 41 min
Some horses come with a few challenges. This one came with a list. In this episode of Ground Work Guys, Nick and Tik meet a mare who pulls back when tied, rushes off the trailer, fidgets for the farrier, and gets jumpy around the saddle. Instead of diving straight into solutions, they do what they do best: take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Lees meer
What unfolds is an honest, funny, and surprisingly tender conversation about trust, patience, and why most training problems are really just relationship problems in disguise. From clicker training to pressure and release, from soft timing to emotional awareness, Nick and Tik unpack how small wins build true confidence for both horse and rider.
Here's what you'll learn:
• How to rebuild trust with a horse that pulls back or panics when tied
• Ways to help a horse back quietly off a trailer
• How to turn foot handling from a struggle into a confidence builder
• Why rewarding relaxation matters more than rewarding obedience
• How clicker training and pressure and release can work together beautifully
• Why progress often looks more like a circle than a straight lineIt is a thoughtful, down to earth episode that leaves you smiling, nodding, and maybe rethinking the way you handle the tricky moments with your own horse.
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Episode Sponsor: Jug Waterers
Thanks to the open bowl design and unique draw tube water supply system, animals can see and smell clean, fresh water. No learning how to lift flaps or push balls or float out of the way to get a drink. An animal simply places its mouth in the open pool of water in the drinking bowl and sucks up the water just as it would from a natural water hole.
Visit - bakkoindustries.com
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Groundwork Guys - Now streaming on NOËLLE FLOYD's new platform Camp HorseWorld" linked to https://camphorseworld.com/pages/groundwork-guys
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Groundwork Guys Mini-Series Ep#4: Groundwork for Spooky Jumpers: Building Confidence Over Liverpools | Sponsored by Jug Waterers
11 november 2025 · 39 min
Meg writes in about her daughter's experienced 1.25m jumper who's suddenly backing off liverpools (water jumps), and the Groundwork Guys, Tik Maynard and Nick Rivera, dig in to help rebuild his confidence from the ground up. They start where all good training starts: ruling out pain. From there, they look at what the horse is telling them through his reactions, his body, and the way he thinks about the task. Lees meer
They unpack how fear can look like enthusiasm, why overjumping isn't confidence, and how the words we use, such as always, never, or tried everything can quietly shape the way we train. Then they shift gears to curiosity, showing how to help a horse investigate instead of react, using simple groundwork and obstacles to rebuild trust and calmness.
Here's what you'll learn:
• Why pain and tension need to be ruled out before training begins
• What overjumping really means and how it connects to anxiety
• How target training and draw build curiosity toward something new
• When to send instead of lead and why it is often the safer option
• Four ways to approach a Liverpool from the ground before ever riding it
• How to spot the moment curiosity replaces fearIt's a thoughtful, practical episode about turning pressure into partnership and helping a horse find the confidence to think his way through a question instead of just trying to survive it.
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Episode Sponsor: Jug Waterers
Thanks to the open bowl design and unique draw tube water supply system, animals can see and smell clean, fresh water. No learning how to lift flaps or push balls or float out of the way to get a drink. An animal simply places its mouth in the open pool of water in the drinking bowl and sucks up the water just as it would from a natural water hole.
Visit - bakkoindustries.com
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Groundwork Guys - Now streaming on NOËLLE FLOYD's new platform Camp HorseWorld" linked to https://camphorseworld.com/pages/groundwork-guys
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Groundwork Guys: Mini-Series Ep#3 - How to Help a Horse That's Afraid of Spray Bottles | Sponsored by Jug Waterers
4 november 2025 · 34 min
Some horses just do not do spray bottles. One sound, one mist, and it is all over. In this episode of Ground Work Guys, Nick and Tik meet an 18-hand draft mare who panics at the very idea of being sprayed. Even hearing a bottle on the other side of the trailer is enough to send her sky-high. Lees meer
Instead of fighting through fear, they talk about how to rebuild trust one sense at a time. You will hear them unpack why spray bottles can feel like predators to horses, how to take the mystery out of the sound, and why relaxation beats tolerance every time. They explore ways to use rhythm, predictability, and even curiosity to help a horse think her way through fear rather than run from it.
Here is what you will learn in this episode:
• How to safely reintroduce scary objects using sight, sound, touch, and smell
• Why a horse's reaction to a spray bottle often has more to do with past restraint than the bottle itself
• How to replace panic with predictability through approach and retreat
• The difference between tolerance and true relaxation — and why it matters
• Why training in short, frequent sessions helps horses learn faster
• How to turn desensitizing into a conversation instead of a confrontationThis episode is full of insight, humor, and a few classic Nick and Tik moments that remind us training is as much about staying curious as it is about staying calm.
Watch the full video lessons on Camp HorseWorld, where every rider's journey finds its path.
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Episode Sponsor: Jug Waterers
Thanks to the open bowl design and unique draw tube water supply system, animals can see and smell clean, fresh water. No learning how to lift flaps or push balls or float out of the way to get a drink. An animal simply places its mouth in the open pool of water in the drinking bowl and sucks up the water just as it would from a natural water hole.
Visit - bakkoindustries.com
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Groundwork Guys - Now streaming on NOËLLE FLOYD's new platform Camp HorseWorld" linked t…