Adventure Neighground

05/09/2026

Ooo I have dropped followers
For those of you still following, what do you feel might be the problem?
You tell me ....
What works...

What doesn't...

03/09/2026

What IS social license to operate?
Who controls or defines it?
What might it mean for us in the equestrian world?

https://youtu.be/WhWj0BCRQmc?is=NbMoYiKSaFhyyZO3

Dr Gemma Pearson has produced a brilliant video on the link above, for the Pony Club (but tbh, I think ALL of us should watch it!)

If you saw my post about 'Should you use or carry a whip' from World Horse Welfare, well Dr Pearson was one of the main contributors to that publication.

Now here's a thing....
A few years ago I was a bit dismissive of the academics who (I thought) sat in offices, looking at data, analysing it, coming up with unrealistic expectations
Just two years ago that was my perception
And wow it has changed
Those academics are doing the detailed investigation into what is pain, how much rein pressure is acceptable, how tight a noseband should be, how does society influence decision making, what is the future of equestrian sports, how can we protect the horse, what's going on in the horse brain, how do they actually learn....
AND... almost all are experienced horse owners, like you, and me... But they have the tools, diagnostics and information to assess the stuff that matters to the horse.
It's not about what you think, and certainly not about what I think, it's ALL about what the horse is experiencing.

Watch Gemma's video if you are a yard owner, trainer, horse owner, riding school instructor, parent of a child who rides, you ride at a riding school, you are involved in equestrian activities in ANY way.

This isn't about my personal opinion. This is about many many brains much more brilliant than mine, thinking hard about horses.

The video is one of a series of videos, I haven't watched the rest yet, but I reckon they will be fabulous too.

Well done to the Pony Club for being forward looking, and for making these videos freely accessible!

This is part 1 of the Dr Gemma Pearson Lecture Series, in partnersh...

03/09/2026

September.
The start of enquiries from people who see that we have winter turnout not just a few hours a day, or a few days a week, but true 24/7 with ad lib hay provided. And they want that.
Yes you might have suddenly had your yard change their policy on winter turnout so now you need to move. However, more often, people have chosen a summer yard with turnout, but not actually checked the whole year turnout regime. Often that yard is cheap, and cheap BECAUSE they don't have full winter turnout, so they can pack more horses in than the land can support.

That is your responsibility. Finding a yard with turnout.

Before you move onto a yard, find out ALL the turnout availability.

So now, lots of folk want winter turnout and are making enquiries. Here's how it goes... They put their horse here for the winter, trash the fields, but that's ok (as far as they are concerned), then come spring they move somewhere cheaper. Let's face it, my fields will look rough compared to those which haven't had horses on them all winter. Those pristine green pastures are very appealing.

That's not ok.

Firstly your horse has just settled into the routine, got happy with his new friends, my liveries have got to know you, you have benefitted from the extra support we give each other in hard (winter) times. Then you bu**er off.

And leave me with trashed fields, horses here missing their new best friend, a livery space that I need to fill, liveries who have supported you and now get zero return on that.
That's not ok

So if you want to move here and are making enquiries, it needs to be for MORE than just the winter turnout.
Please read previous posts, read the website, be prepared to be interviewed. We are much more than winter turnout, and you need to want much more, be forward thinking and keen to learn about equitation, even if your pony is 11hh, 30 years old and non ridden (and I LOVE the oldies so much) - there is SO much to learn that will enrich their lives, and yours.

So please...
Think
Are you making an enquiry because you have suddenly realized your horse will lose his turnout and display difficult behaviour due to being very stressed (which you saw coming but your current yard is cheap/local/where your mates are)
Or
Are you enquiring because you want FULLY ethical horse care where 24/7 turnout is just one of the whole jigsaw of pieces, and where you are committed to looking at change, being a part of developing ethical practice, enhancing your horse's lived experience?

01/09/2026

Online courses vs face to face
Which do you prefer?

Would you be interested in any of the following?

Faecal egg counts... How to do your own worm egg counts - online or face to face?

Applying learning theory to equine work - online or face to face?

Scentwork online course

Equine body skills - finding heart rate, pulse, gut sounds for your horse, plus body condition scoring and muscle scoring, using a weigh tape and horse body dimensions for weight estimation - online or face to face

Face to face courses would be a half day, so approx 4 hours, on my site here at Accrington, or possibly at your site (weekends only) if there are enough people attending and you have a suitable space to use.

Drop your thoughts in the comments.

If there is interest in any of the above, I will get the courses up and running.

31/08/2026

Badly behaved horses.

Horses behaving badly.

What do we mean?
Rearing, bucking, napping, refusing to be caught, pulling away, napping towards the gate, kicking out, nipping when being tacked up, not standing at the mounting block, not going forwards off a light leg aid, opening their mouth when a rein aid is applied.
These are commonly termed bad behaviours by people.
What the people mean is that the horse is not complying with what they want the horse to do, and very often the horse is then blamed. The horse may even be given derogatory names or attributes such as stubborn, lazy, a 'total git'.

What is actually going on?
The horse is giving you an answer which you don't like or want. There will be a reason for them behaving like that.
And the problem lies not in the horse.
It might lie in...
How their whole day looks (turnout, forage, socialisation)
How they feel within their body (arthritic joints, ulcers, muscle strain)
What they predict is going to happen (aversive riding, loading into a trailer where they have had a bad experience previously)
Their hormonal level
The events that just happened which you didn't even notice (a bucket in a different place, an odd noise)
They are confused by a mixture of signals and cues so they respond to the one which they find most important in that moment.

The horse is in conflict. And all they can do is behave in the way least likely to get them injured or killed (they are prey animals after all).

So that mouth opening with rein contact - that's telling you something about how your horse understands the rein aid, and how he feels in his mouth, and his body about what you are asking.

And that nipping you when you do the girth up - that could be ulcers, a sore back, not wanting to be ridden....

Napping at the arena gate when ridden - your horse wants to be out of the arena. Ask yourself why? What's so bad about being in the arena, and what is outside which is so much better?

When you start trying to think about WHY your horse gives you these behaviours, you can start to look at answers. But the answer is often in changing OUR behaviour, way of doing things, how we train, and in watching for the teeny indicators from our horse so we can respond and redirect things onto a path that the horse is happy with.
Because we ALL want our horses to be happy with what we are asking, and to do it willingly.

Linky for the curious who want to think hard about conflict behaviours...

Unwanted horse behaviours in human–horse interactions are often labelled with historical terms such as evasion, resistance, and disobedience, which fail to recognise current knowledge of the horse’s nature, as well as its mental and sensory ...

29/08/2026

Females in the UK equestrian world have a poor understanding of learning theory.
It probably has implications for horse welfare.
It can lead to behaviours being described as naughty, stubborn, difficult, mareish, bolshy, bargey, strong.

Read more about this in the link (there's a lot of statistical analysis but you can skip that and go straight to the discussion)

Next post will discuss some of those bad behaviours in a different light...

Previous studies have demonstrated poor understanding of learning theory amongst equine professionals, but further work is required to gauge the level…

27/08/2026

Next up, use of the voice as a cue/aid/aid/signal.

OK, here's the thing, your horse does not understand words. Not until you link them to something. They might understand tone, indeed there is evidence that they respond differently to an aggressive tone compared to a soft loving one. But that's different to saying UP for a hoof lift, or OVER to move across.
Now you CAN link a word to a behaviour, and this linking of a meaning to something which originally had no meaning is called Classical Conditioning.

Your horse understands it, and learns in this way. So do you.
Remember when you started school, and they did the very first fire alarm test? The alarm bell went off in a particular way, and the first time you had NO IDEA what to do... but when you practiced it several times it became automatic. The alarm goes off, you get up, go outside and line up. (You already knew how to get up, go outside, line up, you just didn't know that the alarm bell meant to do that)
Originally the alarm bell mean nothing, but by repeating the bell with the behaviour, you learned a connection.
Or your phone rings and you pick it up... you learned that by it happening several times. It wasn't a behaviour you were born with. (You already knew how to answer the phone, but you had to connect the ring tone to the behaviour)

So, with your horse, you link the word to the behaviour. But, that means they must learn the behaviour first. Up to the point of the horse knowing the behaviour, the words don't actually mean anything, and indeed you might accidentally link them to a behaviour you weren't wanting.

How do we do this?
First teach the behaviour through operant conditioning (see my last post on positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and combined reinforcement). Focus on your timing, especially of the release.

Next, once your horse is really good at the behaviour you can start adding a word. And here's the Top Tip. Give the word a fraction before you give the cue which the horse already knows. Soon the horse will be able to predict that the vocal sound means the cue is coming and they will be giving you the behaviour just on the vocal cue.
A slight caveat is that you might need to occasionally add in the original cue as this type of learning doesn't 'stick' especially well, but as you know how to use positive, negative and combined reinforcement you can easily add in a touch, a slight rope tension as required to refresh their learning.

If you choose to use a clicker, you will have had to teach the horse that the click means 'good thing coming', so that is classical conditioning because originally the click means nothing to the horse. You have to repeat click, reward, click, reward until the horse indicates that they know a reward is coming when you click - perhaps an ear flick, a look towards you, an increase in alertness towards you. So if you do clicker training, you are using both classical conditioning first AND THEN operant conditioning.

Linky provided if you want to read more :-)

Get answers to common questions about this equine-welfare-friendly training method.

25/08/2026

https://equicoachlife.substack.com/p/a-good-life-on-paper?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5vkgfr

Worth reading
And very much worth checking out the new Scottish guidance on Equids Welfare.
We can only await England catching up....

What Will Become Different for the Horse?

25/08/2026

Following on from the post regarding use of the whip...
If you looked at the pdf resource on the linkn, you will be aware that correct use of the whip (should you choose to use one) relies on correct release of the press (or taps, and I mean TAPS) of the whip. This is negative reinforcement.
If you aren't familiar with operant conditioning, you might want to check back on the pdf which has a useful circle diagram showing the 4 quadrants (four ways of doing) operant conditioning, and the outcomes of each.
Lets compare that with positive reinforcement (training with treats and rewards).
Let's just add I am VERY happy for anyone who uses operant conditioning to contribute, discuss, disagree etc - let's talk!
In positive reinforcement, the horse gets a reward (treat or wither scratches are the most common rewards) for doing the right thing. The reward may come during the behaviour. The 'ask' for the behaviour is not removed as such. The aim is to teach the horse to DO something.
In negative reinforcement, the 'ask' is removed immediately the horse does the behaviour.
Both are powerful ways to train a horse.

But here's another thing - you can actually combine them together. This is then termed Combined Reinforcement (pretty straight forward).
You ask the horse, then when you get the behavoiur you remove the ask AND you provide something nice. This makes the training even more effective, faster and still enjoyable for the horse.

So let's think how this works in real life.
Your horse won't stand still with their hoof down so you can wash their leg.
You have two ways of thinking of this (probably more).
You can tell the horse not to move, not to lift their leg. That's not very efficient as it doesn't tell the horse what you want it to do, only what you don't want.
Or you can focus on what things you WANT> stand still here... hoof remains on ground. NOW you know what you want to train, you break it into little pieces and train it one chunk at a time - this is called SHAPING.
So you ask the horse to stand, perhaps by training it to place their front feet on a mat. You might lead them onto the mat, so your ask might be from the rope. Once on the mat, you release the rope tension AND you give a reward.
Repeat this until you can get three immediate 'correct' answers in a row. You don't need to train every day, maybe every few days.
Then you train your horse to keep their hoof placed on the floor. Same thing, an ask (perhaps your hands on both sides of the leg) and you release them and reward your horse when their hoof remains on the floor.
Notice I haven't said to use any words... that will come in the next post because using a word isn't operant conditioning, it's something else.

If you got this far, well done! You are one of a minority of horse owners/trainers who is getting to understand learning theory and how to apply it to their horse handling.

Let's see if together we can make training the horse more easy for them to understand, clearer, and more enjoyable :-)

Feeling geeky? Curious to know more straight away? There are lots of websites out there, but for a properly deep dive, here's a linky for you.

24/08/2026

Livery space available
Due to the sad loss of a livery horse, and a loan pony returning to his owner, we have livery space.

We offer
24/7 turnout with ad lib hay in fields including during the summer if you require it like this year (full bales, netted, in hay bells)
Electric fencing for your herd group to manage grass restriction as you choose in spring or on field rotation
Small happy herds with slow careful integration of new horses
Stables in our American barn
Arena with floodlights, poles etc
Direct access to bridleway, plus our own off road riding available all year round
On site faecal egg counts
Included service daily of a turnout, bring-in or feed, other livery services available up to full livery for holidays etc
Brew room, toilet and rest room (also used as a training room)
Access to a wealth of books to loan on a wide range of topics from biomechanics, behaviour, training methods, Masterson method, equine physio exercises to lameness, stable management and equine psychology.
High emphasis on equine welfare, following the world renowned Dr Andrew MacLean Equitation Science Ten Principles

The right people for our yard are already open minded and curious about how to provide a better life for their horse or pony. You will join our own learning journey as we continue to evaluate our management, interactions and training. You might not already understand the Ten Principles, but have a strong desire to learn ethical principles which apply across all disciplines from dressage to driving.

No children, no dogs, no stallions, colts or rigs, no drama-seekers. We are a quiet, reflective yard, hugely supportive of each other not only with horse care and learning.

Contact me if you would like to come for a chat, view the facilities and meet the current liveries.