Equisentient Coaching

29/04/2026

Empathy is the antidote to shame and is the heart of connection - Brene Brown, book, Raising strong.

There’s something I keep coming back to lately… the quiet power of empathy, and how much it shapes the way we show up not just for each other, but for our horses too.

In Rising Strong, Brené Brown talks about how we rise after we fall, how we meet ourselves in the hard moments, the messy emotions, the stories we tell ourselves when things don’t go to plan. And honestly… if you’ve ever worked with horses, you know exactly what that looks like.

Because horses don’t let us hide do they.

They feel the tension we try to ignore. They mirror the frustration we push down. They respond not to what we say, but to what we bring. And in those moments when things fall apart, when the it doesn’t go right, when communication breaks down, it’s so easy to slip into blame. At them. At ourselves.

But what if we met those moments differently?

What if, instead of reacting, we got curious?

What if we paused and asked:
“What am I feeling right now?”
“What might my horse be experiencing?”
“Where can I soften instead of push?”

Empathy isn’t just something we offer others, it’s something we practice within ourselves first. And horses… they teach us that better than anyone. They don’t need perfection. They don’t need control. They need presence, honesty, and a willingness to listen.

The same goes for our community.

We’re all figuring things out. We all have hard days, setbacks, insecurities we don’t always talk about. A little more compassion, for the rider who’s struggling, for the horse who’s “not behaving,” for ourselves when we feel like we’re getting it wrong, goes a long way.

So maybe rising strong isn’t about pushing harder or doing more.

Maybe it’s about staying open.
Choosing connection over correction.
And remembering that growth, real, lasting growth comes from understanding, not force.

You’re allowed to take your time.
Your horse is too.

And there’s something really beautiful waiting on the other side of that kind of partnership.

💜&✌️

29/04/2026

29/04/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ZvxfrAvSM/

A threat is only as powerful as the learner’s belief that it will be followed through. No history of follow-through, no credible threat.

This is the mechanism. Not the threat signal - but what the learner’s history tells them the signal predicts. A child who has learned that the count of three never actually culminates in punishment will ignore the count entirely. They have been taught, reliably and repeatedly, that the warning is just noise.

The same whip waved at two different horses can produce two entirely different responses. One has a history that makes the prediction credible. One doesn’t. The whip hasn’t changed. The learning history has.

But what about the person who walks into a yard and immediately unsettles a horse they have never met? No history. No previous contact. No whip.

Some of it is stimulus generalisation. The horse doesn’t need a personal history with that individual. They have a history with humans. Size, posture, directness of gaze, the way they move, are readable signals. If they overlap with signals that have previously predicted something aversive, the response will transfer. The conditioned template doesn’t require the same person. Just enough similarity.

But there is something else worth considering here. Certain signals like dominant posture, direct and sustained eye contact may not need a strong individual learning history. We appear to be primed to pick these up quickly and generalise them widely. Horses almost certainly are too.

Which means the person who exudes threat without intending to is still doing something. The signals are there. The learner is reading them and intention might be irrelevant to the receiver.

I think this is important, because it means the welfare cost of aversive-based training is not only present at times of contact. But is present in every moment as the horse scans for warning signals. Some horses may not be living in a series of discrete aversive events but living in a state of constant vigilance. That has physiological costs. And in many training contexts, it is almost entirely invisible.

This is where it becomes a bit mucky.

Anticipation is not the enemy but the mechanism. Training is always, in some sense, teaching a learner what to expect.

When a horse moves away from a raised whip they are responding to anticipation. So is the horse who wanders over when you pick up the clicker or food bag. Horses offer behaviour readily when their history tells them that engagement is worth it.

Both horses are responding to an expectation.

The difference is in what they are anticipating. And what it costs them to live with that anticipation day to day.

R+ based training does not remove horses from a world of consequence and expectation. It deliberately builds a particular kind of expectation. Interaction with a human predicts good things and safe engagement. This is not a consequence-free approach. Nor is it magic. We can intentionally choose the consequences our learners spend their time anticipating.

R+ based learning is also full of anticipatory behaviour. The horse learns that their human predicts food. They respond to that prediction, sometimes with such urgency that it becomes hard to work with.

It becomes easy for critics to say, ‘food creates poor behaviour’. And there is something in that. The same mechanism is in play as when a horse flinches from the threat of a whip. A strong prediction has been built, and the learner is responding to it. Different currency same mechanism.

Every interaction is a prediction. Every session adds to or subtracts from the learner’s understanding of what an environment means, what a human means, what the cost of engagement might be.

We are not just reinforcing behaviours. We are creating an anticipatory landscape.

Instead of wondering how to get responses without punishment we could ask what the horse is anticipating, and is that what I intended?

A horse with a rich history of reliable, positive predictions can tolerate some ambiguity. They have enough in the account to cope in the moments that aren’t perfect.

But we should look more closely at the anticipatory experience of our learners - not just the behaviours we can clearly see, but the expectations we have built that lie underneath them.

Positive predictions also carry responsibility. A horse who has learned that their human reliably predicts food is also a horse who notices when that prediction isn’t met. Frustration is not exclusive to aversive-based training. It is the predictable outcome of any strong expectation that goes unfulfilled. We are not exempt from that simply because we have chosen a currency of food.

Building a rich reinforcement history with clarity about when and how reinforcement arrives, and what the learner can reliably expect is the goal, not just positive anticipation - because a learner who feels safe enough to think is a learner who can actually learn.

A very different and more precise goal.

Photo Rex Pickar

25/04/2026

Here are some SubStack thoughts on mistakes. 🤠

https://open.substack.com/pub/markrashid/p/mistakes?r=5jzp56&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

25/04/2026

Horses will always be my favourite subject ❤️ this is Brad 🥰

I only used greys, black and dark indigo for him so no actual colour - and I love the effect - particularly in love with his faded body and neck 🥰 that’s something I’m striving for with this kind of piece and I think I did ok with this 🥰

I got his owners reaction in a video and I sat there in tears watching her opening the enormous box and just staring at him - all you guys who create commissioned pieces, we don’t always see the reaction but know that you are bringing so much joy into others lives - and as much as it can be challenging sometimes, knowing you’re creating such happiness is worth every single penny 🥰

Pastelmat with polychromos and pablos approx 35x50cm

Sharing with clients permission

25/04/2026

That face... those lashes... that little pink nose...

25/04/2026

He is not trying to be anything yet.
No role, no expectation, no need to prove.

Just a young stallion, feeling his way through each moment,
learning what to trust, what to question, what to step toward.

If you meet him there, without hurry or agenda,
you will see something rare.

A mind still open,
and a spirit that has not learned to close.

25/04/2026

What led you to Rachael? I spent three days on a camp with my horse and I was introduced to the card deck (which I have since bought) that was produced by Rachael, and I wanted even more insight to my connection with my mare so I decided to have a call

How was your call helpful? It laid to rest all the questions that have been going round in my head for years!

Was it what you expected? Yes it was, and more

What was the most valuable aspect of your call? Just putting my mind at rest, and knowing that what I’m doing for her is what she wants and that she knows I care deeply for her

A potential client is on the fence about whether to have a call with me; what would you say to them? Go for it! Rachael is so easy to chat to and very friendly

Curious about Animal Communication and how it could help you and your equine? Learn more via www.equisentientcoaching.com/services or simply book your Call now www.equisentientcoaching.com/call-check-out

To Deepening Your Connection 💞

25/04/2026

Have you ever watched this Demo recorded for the Horsemanship Showcase a few years back?

Are you curious about how Animal Communication works? Would you like to see me communicating with two young geldings remotely? To see the kind of things equines talk about when given this opportunity and what can happen in a remote session?

You can now watch the Virtual Equine Communication Demo recorded by Organised Equestrian Events for their Horsemanship Showcase Event last November for FREE via my homepage 👉www.equisentientcoaching.com featuring Larisa Tasker (one of the ladies behind OEE), her two young geldings and myself.

Also viewable via 👉 www.equisentientcoaching.com/watch-rachael-in-action/

Do let me know your thoughts and any questions after watching it ...

To Deepening Your Connection