Channel Archives: Learn

Chill Out in the Round Pen

I usually start young horses with the round pen before transferring that knowledge to the longe line. Like the “Discovery Ride” described in an earlier post, my first round pen...

For the Love of Freelancing

I know I keep banging on about horse-related expressions and words that have made their way into everyday language, but it fascinates me. I had a list of words I...

Why So Much Groundwork?

By now in this weekly column, you might think I never ride my young horse! I do, almost every day, but it is important in brain-based horsemanship to establish a...

The Racing Roots of Common Idioms

Since horse racing has been around for hundreds of years it makes sense that many of the expressions we use in our day-to-day life stem from the racehorse world. I’ve...

Do Horses Have a Poker Face?

Recognizing signs of stress in our horses is important for both their welfare and our safety. Unfortunately, this can be a tricky task, because their behavior doesn’t always match their...

Mr. Mouth

Young horses use their mouths a lot, and my three-year Warmblood True is no exception. As a baby, he wants to chew on his halter, his reins, his lead. Anybody’s...

Horses of the Coronation

Saturday, May 6, 2023, was a big TV day for horse lovers, royalists, race enthusiasts and eventers. With Badminton Horse Trials, the Kentucky Derby and a King being crowned, the...

What Does Trust Look Like?

One of the many reasons to use brain-based training is that it builds trust within the horse-and-human team. Think about it in human terms—we trust those who understand how we...

Too Busy to Ride?

Whew! There was a moment just before the release of Horse Brain, Human Brain when I thought my work on the book was done. Instead, it was released three weeks early during...

Shakespeare’s Hay Day

Never in a million years would I have thought I would voluntarily take on a Shakespeare quote to decode. Yet here I am, several decades from the perils of high school...

Canter Balance

Last week, I promised to explain the importance of canter balance in training young horses. Imagine throwing 10 to 15% of your body weight up on top of your shoulders....

What is Setoning?

This week I’ll do away with discussing my higgledy-piggledy process of how these posts are created and focus, instead, on this setoning business I discovered last week. The word seton...

Can Horses Experience ‘Flow’?

Intrinsic motivation is an ongoing discussion within the horse training community, particularly among positive reinforcement-based trainers. The idea that horses can experience intrinsic motivations and flow states similar to humans...

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