Yield To Horses

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The Equine Wellness Alliance Where collaboration comes before competition.

⬇️ THE BODY REMEMBERS.
We often look at a horse standing in front of us and see what is happening in the present moment.
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Forgetting the body has a history: years of repetitive movement, old injuries, uneven loading, compensation, bracing, and postural habits.
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An OTTB will carry patterns developed by hundreds of miles of repetitive work. But this isn't just an OTTB conversation.
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A barrel horse, reining horse, dressage horse, eventing horse, and any other competitive sport horse will develop patterns based on repetitive work.
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Any horse can develop patterns that become so familiar they eventually look "normal."
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I've learned over the years that one of the most valuable things we can do is learn to notice before we try to change.
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How does your horse stand when you aren't asking anything of them?
Which foot do they rest?
Do they consistently carry their head or neck one way?
Do they always feel different in one direction?
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Sometimes the first step isn't fixing. It's noticing.
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What have you noticed about your horse that makes you wonder, "Why does he/she always do that?"

If we change our focus from "How much do I need to feed my horse for them to 'look' good?"

And instead, start asking, "Does this diet support a healthy gut and a regulated nervous system?"

❗️Those are two very different conversations❗

The gut and nervous system recover together. They're often not separate problems, just different pieces of the same puzzle.

Great advice!

Your horse's behavior may be telling you more than you think. Tension. Spooking. Difficulty standing quietly. Constant movement.

Sometimes these aren't training problems but rather signs that the body isn't comfortable.

The gut and nervous system recover together.
It's ALL CONNECTED!

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Great reminder to OTTB owners

There’s a stage with OTTBs that almost nobody talks about.
The in-between...Not the track anymore, and not settled into their new life yet either.

We are excited and want to know the "plan" and the answers.

“What supplements should I add?”
“What training program should I start?”
“How fast can we get going?”

I beg you...Please don't rush this stage, this is where trust is built.
Where curiosity matters more than control and where observation matters more than assumptions. Keep it simple in the first days, weeks, and months.

The horses who transition the best are often the ones given space to decompress, express themselves, and slowly show us who they are underneath survival mode.

Sometimes the most important work isn’t training at all. It’s learning how to listen in the middle of the unknown.

Michelle Scarzone - a great reminder!

There’s a phase in OTTBs that most people miss. It’s not the arrival. It’s not the “problem phase.” It’s the in-between.
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Where they are quiet, but not settled, compliant, but not confident, present, but not expressive.
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This is where they’re deciding, “Is this a place where I can be myself?”
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How we handle this phase determines everything that comes next.
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If you push too soon, you build tension. Misread the quiet, you miss the signs.
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If you give them space to process? That’s where curiosity starts to come back.
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This phase is foundational, as uneventful as it might be.
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Have you noticed this stage in your own horses?

Need to know…

Letting a horse have a voice doesn’t make them unsafe. But ignoring it sure does.
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This is what I hear, “If I let them express themselves, won’t that create problems?”
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Um, no, here's what I have witnessed over the years.
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Horses that are never allowed to say “no” don’t become safer, they become quieter until they aren't, until they can't hold it in any longer. Then you see an explosion, they are maxed out, they can't hold it in any longer.
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Expression doesn’t create chaos, it gives you information!
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It tells you:
→ where they’re unsure
→ where they’re holding tension
→ where they don’t understand
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Give them a chance to be heard, let them express themselves, and watch the trust build.
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A horse that can communicate is a horse you can work with.
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Have you ever had a horse change once they started expressing themselves more?