LBM Equestrian

06/02/2026

A much needed discussion about burnout in the horse world.

I started training professionally in 2017.

For the first several years that I was offering public services, I was riding upwards of 20 horses a day.

Generally speaking, half of those would be racehorses and then the other half would be clients at my regular Barn.

Throughout this time, I sustained multiple injuries that I then had to ride through in order to continue to be able to make a living.

I galloped racehorses with a broken hand.

I rode after too short of a break following a concussion.

I sustained a serious fall and injured my back and only took a couple of days off, out of complete necessity because I was so sore that I could not ride.

I was often applauded for my work ethic and how much I was riding.

I took pride in my ability to ride horses through all sorts of behaviors, no matter how dangerous.

I maintained the perspective that if I wanted to “make it” I simply had to work harder.

Now, after a couple years of slowing down, I am still paying for the damage that I did to my mind and body burning myself out and the way that I did.

I am still trying to heal from long-term damage that was sustained due to chasing a dream.

My story is not unique. It also isn’t specific to only people who are training and riding horses.

We see similar stories of people who are working in barns as well.

The workload and what people are expected to sustain over a long periods of time often isn’t conducive to physical and mental health.

People are often encouraged to work through injuries, or, out of necessity, because if they do not work, they do not continue to make any sort of income.

This workaholic type culture that is so prevalent in our industry, ends up robbing people of their love for horses.

Even people who don’t burn out and take a break.

You see the impacts of burnout in how they treat the horses.

Lack of patience.

Easily frustrated.

Demanding.

Punitive.

Viewing horse behaviour through the lens of horses “intentionally” misbehaving.

Far too many people end up having their love for horses robbed or altered because of how unforgiving this industry can be.

For a decent portion of my professional career, I found myself in situations where I had to choose between doing things that felt morally wrong to me and getting paid.

This is the honest reality of so many professional trainers.

And while I have chosen to change how I go about my practice in order to maintain my ethics, this is easier said than done.

When you run the risk of no longer being able to pay your rent if you don’t do what your client is asking you to do, things get a lot more complicated.

I say this for the purpose of opening a discussion that revolves around ethics for both horses and humans.

I truly believe that the vast majority of people in this industries, choose to get into it professionally out of the love that they have for horses.

But, along the way, that love often gets skewed because of the demands associated with “making it” in the industry.

Oftentimes, what is most profitable is not aligned with what is most ethical.

And so, people find themselves in a cognitive dissonance.

When you need to continue generating an income and don’t want to come to terms with what you were actually doing to maintain it, it is easy to go into denial.

I think that is why we often see such a visceral response from so much of the industry when ethics are questioned.

I think one of the biggest ethical dilemmas that our industry faces is the amount of pressure that all sorts of professionals are under to maintain expectations of people within the competitive industry in specific.

This doesn’t just apply to trainers.

It is something that is applicable to saddle fitters, vets, bodyworkers and more.

When there is such a priority on riding and continuing to chase competition goals, any perspective that puts doing so in jeopardy can be dismissed.

So, a lot of belief systems are centred around maintaining the capacity for people to ride horses.

Whether it is in the best interest of the horses or not.

And, so, we see horses pushed into training programs that they are not ready for a physically or mentally.

We see horses with atrophied top lines being fitted for saddles by saddle fitters despite the fact that a horse in that condition should not be getting sat on in the first place.

We see Horse is getting injected with corticosteroids to mass the unsoundness that comes with tired and damaged joints from the workloads that they have been under.

We see horses who are physically damaged and incredibly sore being put through programs that serve the purpose of masking the pain as much as possible so that people can continue riding.

This is the reality of the industry, whether most professionals will admit it or not.

These ethical dilemmas exist constantly.

And there is so much pressure to maintain certain belief systems in order to remain palatable to the popular opinion in the Horse industry.

This is largely why I have taken such a massive step back from taking regular clients.

Because, repeatedly, I felt like I was being put between a rock and a hard place.

Where I had to choose between pleasing the client and maintaining access to them and speaking out for the horse.

So, overall, it was in my best interest to develop revenue streams that made me less reliant on the income generated from clients.

Otherwise, I was perpetually in a precarious position that tied my income to the decisions that other people want to make with their horses.

So many professionals in our industry become profoundly burnt out because of the ethical and physical demands.

Not to mention all of the emphasis on pushing through struggle, pulling up your boot straps and not complaining.

All of that comes at a cost, even if you don’t see it right away.

03/02/2025

A horse trained with patience and lightness will outshine one trained with force. 📚 Visit our bookshop: www.elaineheneybooks.com 🐴 Documentary: www.listeningtothehorse.com

02/17/2025

This is proper horsemanship at its best. What a beautiful quality training experience this horse received, in a way that wasn’t forceful.

08/24/2024

Dropping The Knives

We are going to talk about this meme a bit, because I’ve seen it pop up a lot and it makes me a bit sad.

I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to hoofcare friends around the world lately, and we have all come to a similar conclusion:

This job can be really dang hard, my friends.

For those of us in hoofcare, summer starts “burn out season”- not only does it often feel like 800 degrees in our bodies as we are working to hold up a couple hundred pounds of horse limbs while they try to use us for balance while simultaneously stomping at a fly, but it’s also the season when owners are often riding more, doing more, and wanting more from their horses- and expecting that we will make all their riding dreams come true with our rasp and nippers.

We want that, too. We want to make your horses comfortable and sound. We want to do our best to advocate for your horses and set them up for success.

And I feel like every year, I still have to do a post about how it’s also not all up to us as the hoofcare provider to make that happen.

When it comes to soundness, yes- the trim and whatever we do to the foot as professionals is incredibly important. We can cripple the horse in a second, we can also bring relief. Of course, that’s not the only thing responsible for a horses’ soundness. Their diet, environment, turn out schedule, stress levels, gut health, biomechanics, saddle fit, dental status, metabolic status, and so much more all play a role in how comfortable they are before and after a hoofcare appointment.

I was chatting with some friends today and all of us had stories about how we often are expected to be “Mr. Fix It”- with the silver bullet, magic wand answer to get your horse back out showing tomorrow - and it can be an immense amount of pressure.

Add in the fact that often, if anything goes sideways soundness wise, we are the first to get the blame.. even if the owner hasn’t called us in 3 months, or the horse is fed a straight corn cob diet and kept on lush grass fields during the day with enough fat pads to become a literal couch. It can be hard to not just feel like everyone is throwing the hoofcare pro under the bus (hence the meme).

If we read the foot and do the same trim that kept them sound and comfortable 3+ years in a row, and that horse isn’t happy after we see them, my first thought is “what has changed in their diet? Their environment? Their health or stress or whatever else to cause inflammation in the hoof that hasn’t been there in the past?” But it can be easy to just blame the farrier.

Most of us spend a huge amount of our “free” time reading, talking to others, going to clinics and conferences, sitting in on webinars, documenting and learning to “read” the foot, talking to vets/bodyworkers/trainers/other farriers, and working hard to learn to do the best we can. This job takes a huge amount of critical thinking, decision making that we know can go either way in many cases, and none of us are right all of the time. None of us - hoofcare pro, owner, vet, bodyworker, … no one.

Are there times when our hoofcare decisions aren’t right for the horses? 10000%, absolutely you bet. And as many times as that is true, there are times when something else is causing an issue and we are only able to work with the feet we are presented with- we can’t work miracles.

To the clients who view us as team members collaborating to keep your horse in top shape- you’re the real MVPs. Thank you for trusting us, for working with us, for looking for ways you can improve your horse’s hoof health and soundness and make our job easier. If all of our books were filled with clients like you, our jobs would be a breeze.

I am so thankful to have so many amazing owners and professionals I work with, and working on horses with them makes the hard days worth it.

For others who have had difficult times with your horse and are working to get them sound, remember we are on your team. We want to see your horse comfortable. And we love when we are able to be a part of the collaboration to get that done ❤️

08/15/2024

What constitutes a circle? It’s probably the most mis understood, over done and poorly executed exercise in the mainstream horse world

A poorly done circle is a wet noodle flopping around, a disconnected body with a nose pointed onto a figure, while the hind legs flail around and the rib cage collapses.
A poorly done circle is a plywood board that someone is attempting to pound softness into, by pulling pieces and parts around

A well done circle is a masterpiece, a thing of beauty
A well connected body, straight on a curve

But the horse has to know how to turn with the shoulders, and to keep the hind legs behind them
A horse has to learn how to keep their neck center
A horse has to know how to expand the rib cage to the outside
A horse has to know how to stretch the outside of the body

That’s no small feat, and it’s quite the athletic endeavor, not to be taken lightly, and nothing to flop around on mindlessly

A circle deserves our respect, awareness, and time put in to develop it well

05/27/2024

05/14/2024

Welcome to Trainer Tuesday! Each week we ask trainers a question and gather their answers for you. These trainers have a range of experience, backgrounds, and focus points of their programs, so the answers have as much variation as you would expect and also probably much more similarity. This week....