Equestrian Voices

We know, we know... flatwork is so crucial for training and athletic development, but boy can it be frustrating when you’re dealing with an ongoing training or behavioral issue. Good flatwork feels amazing; bad flatwork feels like the longest 45 minutes of your life.

In this episode, host Caroline Culbertson sits down with Team USA’s Silva Martin to dissect 3 common flatwork woes. Ride horses long enough, and you’ll probably encounter all three. Hooray!

1. The horse that jigs at the walk.
2. The horse that is stiff in one direction (or easier to bend in one direction).
3. The horse that leans on the forehand.

They discuss how to think about these problems, what is happening biomechanically, what doesn’t work (tempted though we may be), and what exercises to focus on instead. Silva has seen it all, and each of these problems can be improved greatly. There’s hope for us yet!

If you’re in the horse world long enough, you or someone you know will probably experience trauma. For almost all of us, it has been – or will be – a part of life and the horse world is no exception. And horse people are really, really good at trying to ignore it or “tough it out”.

Many of us can miss the signs of it or feel confused about why we’re feeling overwhelmed, or irritable, or can’t sleep, or just don’t feel like ourselves. Horse people value grit and toughness and think that means ignoring those feelings and signs. But here’s the thing: healing from trauma will improve your experience as a rider... and as a human.

What is trauma? Where do we begin?

In this episode host Caroline Culbertson is joined by Lisa Weiss, LCSW, and Meredith Varie, an amateur hunter-jumper rider. Through the lens of Meredith’s experience, we explore:

• What trauma is and how it affects the brain
• The symptoms of trauma to look out for
• Meredith’s experience with trauma evolving into more complex and very concerning symptoms
• Why we can’t rely on white-knuckling our way through trauma
• Talk therapy vs EMDR for trauma
• What happens in a therapy session, how to get started, and how to break up with your therapist if it’s not working out
• How medication can factor into the equation (sometimes, but not always)

Note: if you’re looking for therapy and need help navigating the process, MiResource is an excellent place to start. Founded by an equestrian, too! If you or someone you know is in crisis, please go to https://988lifeline.org/

Your horse nips at the girth. He shivers when you run the brush over his lumbar. He’s always on the forehand no matter what you do.

Wouldn’t it be great if horses could just tell us what was going on inside their bodies? What ached, what felt sticky or clicky, what caused them to start stopping at jumps they used to do with ease?

Most of us are clued into the fact that when horses start demonstrating some behaviors, a physical investigation must come first. Saddle fit and pressure distribution are a big part in what can contribute to (or take away from) our working horses’ comfort, and there are some common culprits and themes that experienced saddle fitters and equine physios see a lot of.

Enter: Carolyn Cohen. She’s an equine bodyworker, biomechanics expert, and independent tack fitter who founded her company, CC fits, in 2018. In this episode, Carolyn and host Caroline Culbertson walk through 4 things that Carolyn wants every rider out there to know about their horse’s body and tack.

They discuss:

• The crucial importance of girthing systems and what to look out for
• How saddle fit issues can manifest in less obvious places in the horse
• The problem with focusing on the saddle only fitting the horse
• Where to begin with building your team of support people for your horse’s athletic journey (hint: you don’t have to do it ALL)

The show jumping portion of the women's modern pentathlon at the Tokyo Olympics is making headlines - and not in a good way. It was so stressful to watch, there were many rider falls, and lots of stressed out horses who clearly didn’t understand what was expected of them.

How do we make heads and tails of this? Are there solutions? Host Caroline Culbertson is joined by Tik Maynard, Rick Maynard, and Peter Holmes - who cumulatively have decades of experience in pentathlon as athletes, coaches or course designers - for a roundtable discussion in response to this troubling display of riding.

In the second of our 2-part episode about bits, FEI rider/trainer and certified bitting specialist, Stephanie Brown-Beamer of http://horsebyhorse.com, and host Caroline Culbertson continue their chat from last episode (so listen to that one first!) as well as answer some listener questions.

In this portion of the episode, they discuss:

• The type of mouths we’re seeing on many of today’s horses
• What about tongue relief bits?
• How do we properly size our bits when we’re buying them?
• Demystifying the dull-mouthed horse
• How to know when a bit is “as good as it gets” and to stop searching