Classical Connection Equine - Rebecca Sayward

12/04/2026

Toran and I went out for our first little fun ride last weekend, just the short route, just for the experience.

You can see he has an awful lot of developing still to do before we tackle anything which might overly strain his young body.

We continue to practice short sessions of Légèreté at home, inhand, on the lunge and ridden, making sure we maintain and improve his understanding of impulsion, balance and relaxation. (Action, Reaction for example, for a young pony out in the big wide world is a game changer!....happy to explain this technique for anyone unfamiliar!)

Now that we have wheels again and slightly more motivational weather conditions I have a mini bucket list of things we are going off to do before our next clinic at the end of May.

Pole clinic (that's one's today!)
Intro dressage test
Local showing show
Further fun and social rides

All offer different environments, surfaces and learning opportunities... and yes... I may well get funny looks pulling out Action/ Reaction in the show ring and end up at the bottom of the line, but for me, rosettes are really not what it's about anymore, I just want to enjoy and do my best by my pony.

04/04/2026

Love this... Had to share!

04/04/2026

01/12/2025

In addition to my riding instruction I am also a qualified florist and experienced in teaching floristry classes. I have a few spaces available on my upcoming wreath workshops this weekend in Grafton Underwood should there be any other creative equestrians out there who would like to join!

(This also explains the lack of horsey content over the last couple of weeks ☺️)

01/12/2025

23/11/2025

Firstly apologies for the radio silence folks! I'm still here! Fully booked with lessons at Historic Equitation and also prepping for the wreath workshops I run (yes, fingers in many pies!) I've been running them now for 12 years and would have many very disappointed regulars if I retired! Additionally I have my floristry classes to thank I think for developing my teaching style and the confidence in myself to teach in the first place.

I did want to pop on today and share a little snippet of video from a lesson I taught this week at work.

Jane has been having lessons with me at Historic Equitation for about a year now I think and has fully embraced my French Classical methods.

The horse here is Esteban, our Welsh section D ex cavalry horse. Esteban is very long through the neck and the body, he is a fantastic jousting horse and has spent the majority of his career travelling in straight lines, consequently he finds bending a challenge especially in our small school and has developed a number of behaviors to avoid doing so, especially with less established riders.

Esteban now very much enjoys his lessons with Jane and I've managed to spend a little time recently riding him too. Although we ask him to work high and light to shift his balance backwards and more off his forehand he is offered equal opportunity to travel in neck extension which is very easy for him and also offered frequent breaks. Therefore is much more willing to try when we ask for something he finds more challenging.

In this video Jane is asking for jaw release and Flexions at halt, they are far from perfect, they are both still learning and had not ridden together for quite a while and Esteban does not make it easy. As you will see he sneakily lowers into the flexion and this is something to work on, improving clarity of the hands, however his releases were so huge his eyes were rolling back in his head you cannot deny what they were achieving.

I experienced a very humbling moment during this lesson, something I never have before, the endorphines Esteban was releasing literally flooded my body, I had tingles from head to toe. It was very special and just added one more affirmation as to why I believe so wholeheartedly in working with horses this way.

I am certainly going to work on my focus, awareness and being totally present in the moment for the horse as we know they pick up on our energy too and being ADHD I've usually, all be it subconsciously, got a million and one things darting round my brain. For every lesson we teach the horse they can certainly teach us more if we are prepared to listen!

Thank you Esteban x

09/11/2025

Both ponies back into work today (mainly due to the fact Ro-Ro casually popped a 5 bar gate yesterday so is clearly feeling extremely well at the moment!)
A big thank you to my non- horsey husband for leading out baby Toran with me.
,.... i realise I've not introduced them properly yet so will make sure to do so in due course.

I also met a lovely new client, little native cob Lottie who is incredibly sensitive and eager to please but with this comes significant worry and nervous tension. Her very compassionate owner has clearly worked hard to gain her trust and confidence and you can see that they have developed a lovely relationship but have hit a bit of a stumbling block with ridden work. Having assessed Lottie today and knowing her owner has been diligent with saddle checks, physio, teeth etc I believe that a lack of balance and resulting tension (much more obvious when carrying a rider) has been the main cause of any reactive behaviors. We will work to help her with this first in her ground work through exercises Inhand and on the lunge making sure she is relaxed and happy throughout and then gradually progress to ridden. She is a really sweet girl and I have no doubt she will be a fabulous ridden pony having already made excellent progress in her first session.

Far to cheesy for a tag line but helping horses makes me happy!