Rethinking Balance, Function, and the Thoracic Sling - Tara Osborne

All righty. So I typically kick the episodes off by having the guests tell us who they are and what it is they do. Greatly. I’m Tara Osborne and I run long drove holistic horse training, and there I help horses move past dysfunction and compensation into a better balance and alignment and more comfortable movement. And I also help owners spot dysfunction and compensations in their forces bodies so they can make informed decisions about the training and help their horse find more comfort in what they’re doing.

Awesome. Yeah. So part of the reason I wanted to invite you on the chat is because I love this idea of helping owners see the dysfunction, because sometimes as trainers, we see so many horses that it it can be easy for us to pick up on things that someone who’s looking at their one horse every day maybe doesn’t. See so when you’re. Working with owners and their horses, where do you start with them?

Two different ways really. Some owners come because they have already problems, so the horse maybe has already been diagnosed with something and they have potentially been trying to rehab and perhaps it’s not going so well. And some owners come because they think, well, they just feel their force isn’t quite right. So what what I do then is I either take them through an assessment process. I have a process that I use that will help guide me and the owner into what is going on in that particular horse’s body and then make a plan moving forward from there.

Or we go straight. Some people want to just go straight into helping and so we go straight then into training and then the assessment process is done just by my thought process. But as we were through, what I tend to find is people, often people just don’t look. And so because they don’t look, they don’t see. And quite often people don’t know what they’re looking at either.

They don’t know what they’re looking for. I think we are so accustomed to seeing horses in dysfunction. It is very normal. And so people just don’t know what function is anymore. And so when you start to help owners with their forces, they start to realise that the little things that they thought weren’t issues actually off.

And so then they start to piece that together for themselves. And then it is quite a beautiful process because then for me it’s they’re, they’re helping their horses by themselves. I’m not having to guide them so much. But I think it is a lack of education. I think it’s just knowledge that isn’t available.

Yeah, it’s very, I think for owners. Some owners find it very confronting when suddenly they realise, oh, I thought my horse was doing OK and it suddenly comes to their attention that the horses are not doing OK. Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s just a, it’s just education and that’s what I tried to do. So I do also run courses for people to go through that process as well, but I tried to get it so that they are looking at the day-to-day things and see things that perhaps they hadn’t spotted previously. Yeah, it’s, it’s so common, especially in a sport horse lens where we being in the United States, we import a lot of horses.

And I will find that not to talk poorly about the Irish, but we’ll get some Irish sport horses very commonly. And, you know, someone will go to mount up on them and like these horses don’t even know how to stand at a mounting block. So there’s there’s like a clear foundational piece that gets missed along the way. And a lot of people, you know, I hear so often, oh, my horse just doesn’t stand on the cross ties. My horse just always jigs after I get on at the mounting block.

Or my horse kind. And people think it’s normal. Yes, they’re they very much normalize these things that maybe that’s not necessarily physical dysfunction, but it’s definitely anticipation of something to come. And so how when earlier you kind of mentioned helping owners see these little things that maybe they didn’t think much of. What are some examples of some of these things that owners may be overlooking that actually could be the first signal that there is dysfunction?

I think one of the biggest things that I see and I, I would say it’s 100% of forces that I assess for sure that’s balance. So the balance from front to back. Obviously by nature forces carry much more weight over the forehand and that’s completely fine until we want to ride them. When we want to ride them, they need to be able to shift that balance back and I think most people don’t realise how much that is a problem and that it’s something that gets missed and not addressed. And so that is for me a massive starting point because those balance problems over time lead into heavy compensations.

And then you just get layer on layer on layer and it’s like peeling an onion once you start to unravel it. It is so many things going on. But for me, I think the biggest is balance. And I think people just don’t realise how the horses dropping in the thoracic sling and pushing a little through the chest and then once that starts, you pop a saddle on and a rider on that. That doesn’t improve.

It actually compounds unless it’s addressed. And so yeah, I would say that is the biggest thing. There are other things that that people notice once you start then on that path and that is weight distribution. So quite often I will have people look at their horses in various circumstances. So maybe grazing, standing in the stable, standing to be groomed or or tied up to be tacked up.

How are they actually organising their body? Are they standing the majority of the Times Square or are they always standing with one hind leg underneath one toe pointing out? And those, those things are also relevant. But people just, it’s so normal to see your horse stand like that, that they just don’t think it’s a problem, isn’t it? Sorry.

And when you’re to go back to your earlier point of balance, what because I think we all hear about shifting the weight back, getting the horses on their hind legs, getting the the weather up. But Yep, I don’t know that people actually know what that means. I agree, so it’s really thinking about how to organise the body so that the horse can actually come into self carriage. Bring the rib cage into the centre of the jest and actually connect so you’re not in a downhill balance. You’re not going to get the hind end and the front end connected because there is a slope from the pelvis to the front end.

So you get a disconnect in the back. And so then it’s a bit like having two parts. You’ve got the back end and the front end and the middle just isn’t connecting. And so it’s really important to be able to understand how the horse can lift the forehand and then come much lighter and off of the front, which then impacts the rest of the body. Because then you can connect the back to the hind end and the hind end can then function.

So it’s a whole chain of systems that need to work. And one of the things that we see quite often is the orientation of that rib cage dropping down and forward. And so you will always get in those circumstances, an upright shoulder, because then the horse has to stabilise in the shoulder to stop itself falling forward. So that’s also a common thing with horses in a downhill balance. And yeah, in it’s about organising the body, organising the internal structures in between those shoulder blades.

Bring that rib cage to centre point, lift it up and that is where you’re going to get. Then your with a lift your back connection and then your weight shifting. Bang. OK. And when you’re starting or when you’re starting to work with an owner in their horse, do you always have them start either on the ground or like what is the process of saying this is how you spot this?

So always, usually for me, I start everything on the ground because quite often it’s easier to get the horses into a New Balance by teaching self carriage on their own before you teach the rider. So with regards to yeah organising the body and showing that then what we have certain things that we want to look for in that particular way of moving. So if the horse is doing that, then quite often you’ll see. One of the ways I explain it to people is if you look at the horse from the side on and you imagine a seesaw and your seesaw, if your seesaw is having more weight over the over the front end of the horse, so in the shoulders and coming up at the back, your horse is downhill. If your seesaw is more neutral, then you’re more level.

And if your seesaw is coming up at the front and down at the back, the horse is then able to organise the hind, then lift through the thoracics, engage the spine and be in a more uphill balance. So that’s one of the ways, a simple way of thinking about it and looking for is the horse downhill. Another big thing is looking for the slope through the back. So if the horse is downhill, you can look then at the back itself. You’ll usually find like a like a Nike tick or AU shape in the spine if the horse is really dropped in the thoracics and pushing forward through that base of neck.

So that’s where we start. We want to start with looking and if we’ve got that will also impact range of motions through the forelimbs. So it will impact where a forelimb is placed. So another area you can look, is the shoulder able to actually move through the full range of motion? So can the horse actually take a step forward out in front of the chest, or is the forelimb coming much more backward all the time rather than coming out in front of the horse?

So you’ll find that backward motion is more dominant in a horse that’s dropped with an upright shoulder. Interesting. So what I find is I work with a lot of ex race horses, right Yeah. And so they’re the kings and Queens of of pulling in this like downhill. And I tend to find that a lot of the thoracic discomfort maybe stems from or contributes to because I know it’s all connected hind end dysfunction.

Like you, I haven’t, at least in the race horses really seen one without the other. Yeah, because it’s a whole system effect, isn’t it, basically? Yeah. But and so then my question is, you know, we’re living in this time where I think everyone maybe knows the term thoracic sling dysfunction, but I don’t think people actually know. OK, I’ve identified that my horse has this dysfunction through their thoracic sling.

Where do I then start? So again in the start point then it is individual to the individual horse. Most horses will organise their body in an individual way. So what you might find is you might have a general balance problem but you where that problem comes out comes out in different places. So some horses will be in a downhill balance and then will bring the neck quite high.

Then the find that in the thoroughbreds quite a bit and some, but some will do the opposite and they’ll drop quite low. So it’s important to assess the individual and then go from there. So what you’re looking for is to find functional form for the individual horse. So that means finding the balance, so the balance point where you can lift a little bit in the front, you can find the point of the frame, so where the neck needs to be positioned in order for the back to activate a little bit. And then you can then work into the hind end.

So you’re going through a process of almost like a checklist, but it’s for the individual. So again, that’s why it’s important for people to look because you need to know what you’re looking at. Have I got this? Then what do I do? Is this activated?

Then I can move on to the next phase. So yes, it impacts the entire system. And so the fix is also almost reversed engineering that and figuring out, OK, what have I got? What is going to get me back to where I need to be so that I’m organising that horse in a particular way to switch on the muscles, switch on the areas that maybe are out of balance or restricted so that you can then get to everything working again and get to where you want to go? Yeah, it’s, it’s so funny having a podcast where horses are so individual that it’s so hard to be like, OK, what’s the at least for the most part, an unbalanced horse is an unbalanced horse.

You can kind of tell when the balance is going down towards the ground versus, you know, traveling in parallel or up from the ground. But the, the different modalities of therapy per SE can differ so much per horse. And that’s been one of the things that I found in sort of recent sport is back in the day, yeah, all of the, so I primarily event and for the most part, a lot of the horses that we grew up eventing were just thoroughbreds, right? But now we have all of these horses which I would deem are moving towards that hypermobile way of going. And I, I have this horse in training right now where the, the owner actually has an off the track thoroughbred and she has this warm blood mare.

And I go with the thoroughbred. We’re doing so much lateral work to sort of unlock the spine and get her moving forward and freely. But then with the warm blood, we have to do so much stabilizing work. I go, we’re almost doing Pilates with this horse versus doing strength training or even yoga. And I think it can be really hard for people to understand why a hypermobile force needs the stability like it.

To me as a horse trainer, it makes sense that, you know, you can’t really build up a spine if the spine can kind of move all over the place. But for people who maybe don’t even know that they’re on a hypermobile horse, what are what would you say are sort of the classic differences between sort of a, quote normal horse and maybe a horse that’s more geared towards this hypermobility spectrum? So quite often in hypermobility you also have a lot of tension. Because the horses feel easily out of alignment and out of balance and so that will then trigger the nervous system to over fire. They tend to find or they have to find more compensations.

So what? One of the biggest things with hypermobility is when people want to bend, the horses will really use the neck in a very sort of snake like way and really over bend as in over bend left and right, but also over bend as in coming behind the vertical because they’re trying to solve the stability problem in the body. So you find an awful lot of these things come and they riders who ride those types of horses, these things happen and they’re happening quite fast a lot of the time because there’s so much going on for the horse because the horse is having to rely on the feedback coming from the body and the body is just so mobile. So the information coming in is thick and fast. So the changes are very frequent.

If it’s so, yeah, those horses, they, they can feel quite a lot like riding a sneak really their, their bodies just go everywhere. And so they get out of balance and it can, for the horse itself, it can actually be quite a frightening experience to be so out of control of their own balance and body really. And then if you’re having a rider on top of that, that then is compounding for that particular horse. So yes, it is. It is a common and like you say, it’s something we find that has been bred more and more in.

And the problem with the instability is they make them quite tricky to ride and sometimes to handle too. And they are more prone than to issues because because of the lack of stability. So you have areas there that are going to be overworking and areas that are underworking because everything just comes from motion. Yeah, it’s such a fascinating sort of time we found ourselves in sport because I know with social media, you know, dressage as a sport has been under a lot of scrutiny for the way horses go in competition. And so often I feel that the riders are buying the best horse they possibly can, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t also struggling to get that horse to go properly.

And even though they’ve made it to a top level of sport, I think there’s just a lack of information on actually producing these horses thoughtfully at a young age. So by the time they get to top sport, they have the skills to, to and the, the muscling and, and I think with the hyper mobile horses, it even goes down to like the tendons and ligaments being just stronger. And my first time on a hyper mobile horse a few years ago, I remember asking someone, I was like, is this horse walking laterally where the outside legs and the inside legs are walking at the same time? And they were like, no. And I was like, this is the weirdest feeling.

And that’s when I sort of went down the hyper mobile rabbit hole. And the more you get into the breeding aspect in the OK, this is like almost a completely man made problem. And but in a horse world where we’re so focused on finding lightness and unblocking horses, it’s almost the complete opposite for these hyper mobile horses. And so I feel like not enough people are talking about the differences in riding a thoroughbred versus riding something with hyper mobility because it is just such a different feel. But.

I think as well, I think it’s you see a lot of those top horses that are hyper mobile. And what it has done is it’s also changed how people need to ride. And so in order to have maybe some of the stability, then there has to be a little bit compensation. I think we see that in the rain contact. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s the rain contact is too strong because everybody’s trying to keep everything together because the horses are so loose and a little everywhere.

And so then you have to have this sort of strength in order to stop things falling apart. And you know, that is also a problem because ultimately then the horses are then being held and stabilizing in the neck quite often. And that’s also not where the stability needs to be. So then we see horses that have to compensate by over exaggerating limb motion because they just don’t have the stability in the top line muscles in order to to use the body correctly. And so as we’re thinking about developing horses for sports specifically, how do we go about if, if you could hold a committee meeting tomorrow for all, you know, all sport horses, what is the thing that you would push for the most in sport and the way we produce horses now?

Functional for for sure we need to produce horses that can actually function correctly. So that means educating so as to what function actually looks like. And by that I mean functioning correctly through the entire system. So not having horses that are leg moving and the forelimb motion is not matching the hind limb motion and we’re having to have the necks too short in order to compensate for that. So for me it would be prioritising functional form and taking that one step further probably for the individual as well.

So the criteria would be OK for this horse, Can this horse actually connect? Are we seeing that the back is actually connecting the back end and the front end? Are we seeing that the force is light and open in the neck and carrying itself with the pole at the highest point, and it’s able to do that by working more through the top line than being reliant on limb motion? Yeah. And I know in jumping horses specifically, when horses land from jumps, there is a disengagement of the thoracic sling.

And when post competition there isn’t a, a set, you know, session or few sessions to get things back to where they were, we just maybe proceed it through the season or whatever. And so four horses who maybe do jumping and maybe are in a competitive season in their life, what are some things you would recommend to those riders to say, hey, after the competition, Like these exercises will really improve the thoracic sling or the hind end or whatever going forward. So that baby, you’re not having to do a lot of injections or a lot of whatever at the end of the season to prepare for the next one because you’re keeping the horse in a state of functionality. So there I would go with groundwork exercises. So then you’ve got that possibility that the horse can actually create a little bit of space.

It’s all about compromise. Yeah, so with sport, obviously it is a compromise and everybody is having to meet their requirements to do the thing. But we have to make sure that the trade off in that situation is not the horse’s body, otherwise we’re not able to keep that going for a length of time because it’s just not viable for the horse. So things that are possible is to work on things like thoracic sling lifts. So actually teaching that lift through the thoracics and being able then to open the net.

So working through those exercises, just daily things to actually lift. And that’s something that everybody can do before they even get on. So just a bit like doing a push up. Yeah, so just. Teaching the horse to lift and engage so that the rib cage moves a little bit up and then you have more space between the shoulders and the lower neck can also come up.

So that tool as an individual exercise is something everyone can do and it will help in order to create the space, especially after you’ve had maybe some days where you’ve been competing and there is then compression and some perhaps things that have have gone on over that time and that the horse actually then needs to rebuild. So doing those things would be really good. I use a lot of the ability exercises with poles as well. So things like coming up to a pole and then having the horse stand just with the toes, the front toes at the pole and then just lifting the front feet over the pole and stopping. So if you have a ward that is struggling with balance and then also struggling with the ability to lift in the thoracic there what you’ll find is they will just walk, carry on walking.

So because they don’t have the ability to lift and lift a shoulder and land and then lift the other shoulder and land and then stabilize themselves, they’ll just tumble forward. So that exercise again, is, is partly diagnostic, but also a good solution as an independent exercise to especially for horses because they’re very visual. So once you start using visual things, then they, they are more likely to go, oh, OK, there’s something there on the ground. I need to come over that. But again, that’s about form.

So it’s not just about doing the pole, it’s about bringing the horse into the body and thinking about how can we influence that horse and bring those wall limbs up and forward. So the horse is having to really use the thoracics to lift up and over the pole. So those things are are good. I also use like podiums though, coming and stepping up on top of something. So if a horse can step up, so it doesn’t have to be anything big, but, you know, just a little step up where you get the forehand up, that also means a very useful exercise to use because in order to come up, the horse has actually got to lift the shoulder stand, place the foot down again, and then come up onto the podium.

And then you’re really lifting the rib cage up and in between the shoulders. So I like to tackle all of these things in all sorts of ways. So I’m quite inventive about how those things happen because exercises, repetitive exercises are just boring. And so tackling it in all sorts of ways is the good thing to do. But yeah, if you’re at a competition and you want to just help that horse in the moment or you’re, you know, you haven’t got access to those things, then thoracic sling lift will help.

Always say things like working across an incline. So I have, it’s ever so slight, but on my yard it’s just ever so slightly slope. And So what you can do there is go diagonally across the slope. So the horse then has to be organised in the shoulders and has to organise itself coming up the slope. But because you’re like going across the slope, you also get that left to right balance as well.

And then coming down the slopes, that’s another way you can diagnose balance because then if you’re coming down an incline, what is the horse doing? Is it just dropping the whole front, going faster? Or can it stay up and lifty and still bring the foot in front of it? So those, and you only need a little slope, you don’t need have like massive hills to make those work. But yeah, those those types of things, balance pads are also really useful and that’s some bit simple that you can have, you know, around the place, you can take them to competitions and things.

They’re really useful. I had a vet on the podcast maybe about a year ago, and she made a comment that in order to get better stability through the legs, they need to be in full extension. But when they’re standing on the ground, they’re not actually in full extension because they’re hitting the ground. And she recommended the balance pads because it kind of helps create that spacing. Yeah, what you’re doing is losing balance to gain it.

You know, you’re creating a bit like they’re really good as well for the, as you were talking about the hypermobile forces, because they will teach stability because they, they make the instability more obvious. So when you’re in order to find balance, you have to be able to go through degrees of imbalance or unbalance to be able to understand, OK, now I am in balance and actually organised in my body. So that’s what balance pads will do. But it’s not again. So again, it’s, it’s for me, it’s about using the balance pads and then not just especially after the horse is understood.

Oh, I can actually use the balance pads then stay here. What you need to watch for them is that they’re not using a compensation just to stay there. So for me, I then you move on to, to actually using exercises on the balance pad. So you can do things like your thoracic sling lifts on the balance pads. You can do things like not just placing your horse on the balance pads, can they actually step onto the balance pads So accuracy, can they step up, stop?

Can they then place the other the other foot on? Because it’s really easy for ingrained compensations to come back and, and that’s the best thing that will happen once you start to, to maybe change the OR get into a routine where the exercises are established. That’s why it’s so hard, because things come back really easy. And that’s why it’s important to be able to see and to look. And so I want to talk a little bit about the mental side of this work because I know as a professional, it’s pretty easy to, we’ve seen enough horses that for us, it’s easy to know, OK, the horse might be a mess right now, but I’m just going to trust the process.

I know, well, for the most part, we can come out the other side of this. But for an owner where maybe they didn’t realize their horse had as much dysfunction as they’re showing after running through some of these exercises, what like, how do you handle? And maybe you don’t see this because people are coming to you looking for help with the dysfunction. But how would you handle it with owners who all of a sudden are realizing that their horse has dysfunction and maybe feel personally about it or feel guilty about it getting to a certain point? Because I know it can be hard to go, OK, yeah, you thought that you were at this place with your horse, but actually like your horses is they really need to go back down to the ground floor and just rebuild a whole new building.

That can feel really bad and intimidating. Yeah, I think so. For me, that’s why I’m actually here. So I am a former dress arch rider and the reason I left that is because I just kept finding, you know, the horses were not right all the time. And so I’ve been there.

I’ve been there and had that realisation that you are what you thought was OK is actually the underlying reason why maybe things aren’t going so well. And so having been through that myself, I, I can help people through it. It is quite confronting when you think, especially when you feel like you’ve done everything possible, like you’ve had the good trainers and you’ve had the physios and you’ve had the sables checked and all of those kinds of things. And then you realise that perhaps still the horse isn’t doing so well. And I think there is also an overwhelm with that because there is so much information now available.

Quite often what I find is people, people perhaps are just overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that they go into freeze mode and they just can’t do anything. And so it is. But ultimately, unfortunately, it’s normal. A lot of people are in that boat and a lot of people are in that position. And it’s, it’s a lack of education and a lack of knowledge that has has got us all there.

And so, but the, it is possible to get out of it. So you can actually come forward. And that is about taking just the initial small step. Owners feel so much better when they do something and they can see that that there is a difference. They’re starting to make a difference.

But when they sit in information overload, it is just overwhelming and they can get stuck in this freeze mode and it’s just they find it very difficult to get out of. So ultimately everybody’s path is their own. You can’t force someone through that, but obviously if you’ve been, as I’ve been through it myself, it, it’s easier for me to guide people through that situation and then to help them out the other side. And I think also when you can show them case studies and, and that there is, there is a lot of stuff going on for everybody and that you can get to the other side. It’s just means it’s work.

I think one of the biggest things is when when people perhaps need to stop riding for a little bit. I think that is sometimes the thing that people are very attached to. But ultimately what we’re trying to do is create a horse that’s rideable well into mid the late 20s rather than ending its career at 12, which is what we see an awful lot of. And that’s shouldn’t be the case. And so yeah, it’s helping people see that there is an end and it’s just that you can get there and get back to doing the the thing that you want to do.

It’s just temporarily might take a little bit of a deviation along the way. Yeah, I find it so often when riders will come, I’m in a a very horse hub area in the United States and a lot of people will come to me sort of after they’ve had the Grand Prix show jumper work with their horse or after the Five Star Adventure has worked with their horse. And they’re still kind of in this position of like my horse is still just not right. And I, I always say like I’m typically a last resort type trainer, not necessarily for behavioral issues, but for functional issues. And so often when I go, yeah, your horse for the next 6 sessions, it’s only in hand.

And to start it might only be 10-15 minutes because they start to pick up on it. And before that compensation pattern takes over, you know, we kind of got to quit while we’re ahead and build confidence. But it really can feel so devastating to some riders to be like, I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars. And it really does come back to, you know, I think it’s not necessarily lack of total education, but it is lack of functional education. And it’s like we we have all of these trainers that maybe go by the German scale, but they don’t necessarily care that the horse that’s leaning on the right leg never gets better because they can still do all the movements And maybe they’re even in a, a pseudo relaxed state or, or whatever, which I tend to not see.

But if they feel the horse is relaxed and I totally resonate with, I have taken A2 year hiatus off of competing because it can be really hard to show up at competitions once you’re aware of the tension. And just seeing, I mean, I see some forces jump with such horrible form. And part of me is like, hey, you know, sometimes I’m like, good for them for being able to get that there. And then I’m like, but I would never put myself in that position or put my horse in that position. And it can be really hard when those are the horses that maybe when you know, I know in the dressage, sometimes the horse with the most amount of tension still wins the class, which almost feels like the complete opposite of what should be getting rewarded.

And so it, it can be, you know, although we’re, we’re focusing on a physical thing for the horse, it can be really mentally tough for the rider or the trainer that’s now working with that rider. So it’s, I think so good for the owners to hear that. Hey, anyone who goes on this journey is going to be so awestruck at first with how kind of screwed up everything is. But the cool thing about horses is they’re actually so smart. And once they find this better way of going, they tend to be like, OK, yeah, this is just the way I go now.

As long as we stay diligent in keeping those compensation patterns at Bay once we’ve figured them out. Absolutely they are. Horses are so adaptable and for me once you, you know, I can see changes in 2-3 sessions and it’s just awesome. And then people are like whole now I see the difference, but it’s just getting them there to start with. And yes, you’re, you’re absolutely right.

It, it, it when you come to the realisation it, it that that sport is, it can be very, very difficult to see. I I’m at that point now where I can’t watch a sport that I loved because I just see soon too much. I can’t, I just can’t watch it anymore because it’s, there’s so much going on and it’s just too difficult. And it’s a shame because ultimately and, and, and that is also a problem because owners then see that and see that that is what’s winning. And so of course feel like that’s their aim.

And so that gets very normalised and the horses that perhaps are more functional and are more correct perhaps don’t get the marks that they should. And so it’s a very difficult place where we are right now, I think. And I’m hoping that that there will be some changes in the future so that it is a bit more of a positive experience for everyone really, and that that there is more education about function and that function is more rewarded. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And not that I want to get into the whole AI conversation, but it is interesting to think of how we can utilize something like these things that can overlook sort of a whole frame versus just aspects of movement.

Yes, that’s. That’s that will be a really good thing if we can get into into that. But obviously that that then needs to be fed with the right information. Exactly. That is something, you know, that’s a whole other thing, isn’t it?

It’s like, what information are you going to feed it in order to, to give it the right information? And, and at the moment I think we are at this, there is a divide between maybe the more competitive riders and the people that that just maybe want to ride and don’t want to look and to do the right thing. And there’s the people that then are realising maybe there’s another way. And there has to be a bridge between the two in order to start to facilitate real change, I think. Yeah, for sure.

So as we sort of start to wind this down, what advice do you have for riders who are maybe looking to improve their relationship with their horse or the way their horse goes? What advice do you have to to riders in in that boat? Trust your instincts, really. If you think they’re something not quite right, then follow it through. Because ultimately, trust your relationship with your horse, Trust what your horse is telling you, and follow it through.

And there’s nothing wrong with experimenting and trying something different, trying some groundwork, experimenting with some of the exercises that I’ve explained earlier on, and just finding out what’s going on. The information is in the horse and it’s in the horse’s body. It’s just about looking and then taking action on that information. And there are lots of us out there now that can help. So if you are looking for help in that direction, then there are more people doing now.

And so it’s not, it’s easier to find than it was, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining me. How do people find you?

Follow along with what you do, All of that good stuff. So I have Facebook and YouTube and the website, so even you can just Google search long drove holistic horse training and all of those things will come up. Most active on Facebook. Yeah. If you want lots of in depth information, then the website is probably where to go.

If you want to watch some of the things I’ve talked about then YouTube has various videos on. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me this. Is great. Thank you.

Yeah, it was brilliant. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate that.