Basis Equine

10/09/2026

09/15/2026

My second ever bosal! Paracord over a lariat core. The more I braid the more I see that can be improved in my work. Isn’t that always how it goes?

09/13/2026

I’m sick of people screaming “stop the round ups!” Without any plan of what to do. Then when mustangs are starving and dead around dry waterholes, who gets the blame? Usually the BLM that was prevented from doing their jobs in the first place.

09/11/2026

If we have chatted about horses anytime recently, you have probably heard me talk about my frustration with hind end disengagement. It’s a tool, but has become a crutch for too many horses and people. I’ve been a bit obsessed with the antidote, the turn ON the haunches. It’s been helping so many horses in my practice that suffer from defaulting to disengagement.

Here is my problem with natural horsemanship. It is step one of a horse training program that somehow got marketed as the whole damn education.

It is basically horse training for dummies. Move the feet, yield the hip, back up, lick and chew, and walk circles around somebody wearing enough turquoise to interfere with air traffic. There is nothing wrong with starting there, but quit pretending the horse has a university degree because it passed kindergarten.

If every problem gets answered by tipping the nose and disengaging the hindquarters, you are not fixing the problem. You are taking the horse’s power away until it physically cannot continue doing what it was doing.That is not the same as teaching it. The hindquarters are the engine of the horse. The stop, turnaround, lead departure, lead change, forward drive, and nearly every athletic movement come from the hip.Then the natural horsemanship crowd spends every day disconnecting that engine and acting surprised when the truck will not pull a trailer.

When you disengage a horse, the inside hind foot steps across or behind the other hind foot. The hip swings away, the horse loses its power, and more weight falls onto the front end.Try it yourself. Put your left foot behind your right foot and try to walk forward with any speed. You will either have to straighten yourself out or trip over your own feet. If you fall down, just lick your lips. Apparently that means you learned something.

So you take all the power away from the horse’s hip, then expect it to stop hard, turn correctly, change leads, and perform athletically. When it stumbles, falls onto its shoulders, leans in the stop, bottle spins in the turnaround, or changes leads late behind, everybody blames the horse. Well no s**t. You spent months teaching it to throw its ass away every time it felt pressure. Now you want it to stay straight, keep its hip underneath itself, and drive forward.

You taught the wrong answer and now you are mad because the horse remembers it.

The bucking argument is just as stupid. People are taught that if a horse bucks, pull its head around and disengage it. Go watch a good bronc rider. A horse bucking straight can often be ridden because the motion is still predictable. What usually launches somebody is when the horse changes direction, jumps sideways, ducks through a shoulder, swaps leads, or throws its hip out.

So why would you take a horse that is already bucking and purposely pull it farther out of balance? Now the head is going one way, the shoulders are going another, the hip is swinging out, and the hind feet are crossing. The rider gets thrown to the outside, falls behind, gets launched over the hip, and possibly hangs a foot in a stirrup. That is where those dreaded spur marks dragged across the top of the saddle come from. But do not worry. Somebody standing safely on the ground will explain how you lacked connection.

Disengagement does have a purpose. It can establish basic control, redirect a young horse, or prevent trouble before it gets started.But it is one tool. A hammer is useful too, but if you use it to fix everything, eventually you are just the idiot beating on a washing machine.

Natural horsemanship has taught plenty of people how to perform exercises without teaching them what those exercises actually do.
They know how to move the hip, but not where the feet are going. They know how to bend the neck, but don’t know how to direct the shoulders or what is happening through the body.

They know how to make a horse look quiet, but not whether it is balanced, connected, confused, or mentally checked out.
Funny how every “liberty horse” has its ears pinned and its tail spinning like a helicopter blade.

A horse licking its lips does not mean it is trained. A horse following you does not mean it is broke. A horse walking circles around you does not make you a horseman. Sometimes it just means you both got your steps in for the day.

Can the horse stay straight? Can it carry itself? Can it drive from behind? Can it stay between your hands and legs? Can it handle pressure without falling apart? Can it still perform when things get fast, loud and hard?

That is where you find out what you have. The clock does not care about your groundwork philosophy. The judge does not score licking and chewing. The steer does not slow down because your horse followed you around without a lead rope.

At some point, the horse has to go do an actual job.

Natural horsemanship teaches the ABCs, and there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone has to begin somewhere. Just quit pretending you wrote the whole damn book because your horse can spell its name!
Written by Dusty Harvey

09/11/2026

When “I Just Want to Ride” Becomes the Problem🔥

A trainer friend of mine recently lost it with a client. This bothered her enormously because she is normally incredibly patient. She is also kind, experienced and genuinely goes out of her way to help people.

The client was lovely too, and that matters. This isn't a story about a horrible person mistreating a horse. It's about a perfectly nice person who loved her horse, wanted to ride her horse and was struggling to see that some of the things standing between her and that goal weren't going to disappear simply because she really wanted to ride.

For a couple of months, my friend had been helping her with an anxious, spooky mare. Quite quickly, she noticed several things. The mare appeared mildly footsore. Boots were purchased, but my friend suspected more investigation was needed, including looking at diet and hoof care. The saddle had also never been properly fitted.

Then there was the riding. When the mare became anxious and rushed, the rider would shortened the reins and pulled harder on her mouth. On the ground, her handling of the lead rope was inadvertently creating confusion. Nothing malicious was happening. She simply didn't yet have the capability or insight to recognise how these interactions might feel from the horse's end of the rope.

So my friend went back to groundwork. Not because groundwork is some sacred spiritual practice, but because the woman needed to learn how to communicate with her horse. The mare was already showing some anxiety on the ground, and my friend wanted to help the owner develop the skills to guide and support her there before adding the complexity of riding. The groundwork wasn't really about groundwork. It was about helping the human become clearer, more reliable and more capable of guiding the horse when things became difficult.

Each lesson, my friend explained what they were doing and why. She demonstrated, coached and gave the woman things to practise. Unfortunately, very little was practised, so they kept returning to much the same place. This wasn't a case of a trainer endlessly insisting on groundwork while refusing to let someone progress. The things preventing that progression weren't changing. The mare was still showing some anxiety on the ground, the owner's handling wasn't improving because she wasn't practising, the feet remained questionable and the saddle remained unchecked. They couldn't progress simply because time had passed when the problems they were trying to resolve were still sitting there waiting for someone to resolve them.

Then one day the client announced that she was sick of groundwork. She wanted to ride.🤨

Somewhere inside my friend's normally well-regulated nervous system, a small fuse finally reached the explosives.💥

Because the groundwork wasn't preventing her from riding. A collection of unresolved problems affecting the horse was.

The horse's feet were uncomfortable. The saddle hadn't been assessed. The owner still struggled to guide the mare clearly, and when the mare became worried under saddle, the response was to restrict her further. Getting on and riding wasn't going to magically make any of that disappear.😑

In fact, it potentially bundled all the problems together and added a human.

This is the part of the story worth committing to your memory banks.

When we describe a horse as anxious, spooky, reluctant, resistant or lacking confidence, we are describing what the situation looks like from our side. We still need to ask what the situation might look and feel like from theirs.

Perhaps the horse isn't simply anxious about the world. Perhaps she is anxious about experiencing the world while her feet hurt. Perhaps she is reluctant because the saddle is uncomfortable. Perhaps every time she becomes worried, the human shortens the reins and increases the pressure. Perhaps she doesn't feel particularly secure with the person handling her because that person is still learning how to communicate clearly.

Then we climb aboard and wonder why the horse isn't confident.😑

Determination is a wonderful human quality, but it has limitations. You cannot out-determination sore feet. You cannot positive-think a poorly fitting saddle into fitting. You cannot repeatedly confuse a horse and overcome the consequences by deciding that today you are definitely going for a ride.😑

My friend eventually lost her temper. She wishes she hadn't, but I understand why she did. Perhaps a boundary could have been established earlier, but hindsight is wonderfully articulate. She had spent weeks trying to help someone understand what she believed the horse was experiencing, and eventually her frustration got the better of her.😕

There is a useful warning here for all of us. Horses don't experience our good intentions. They experience what actually happens to them.

You can adore your horse and still accidentally make their life difficult. That doesn't make you a bad horse owner. It gives you something to investigate, learn or change.

The problem begins when the horse keeps providing information and we decide we don't want to hear it because it interferes with what WE want to do.

So perhaps the uncomfortable question is this: do I want to solve the problem my horse is experiencing, or do I just want my horse to stop having a problem with what I want to do⁉️

Because there comes a point where saddling up and getting on is no longer perseverance. If the horse is uncomfortable, the equipment is questionable, the communication is unclear and the horse keeps struggling, but we choose to ride anyway because riding is what WE want to do, perhaps we need to stop calling that determination.

At some point, refusing to listen to the horse in front of us becomes disregard for their experience.

And surely, if WE genuinely care about horses, that should matter more than whether we get to ride today.❤

Collectable Advice 289/365

Please SHARE this one, especially with the coaches and equine professionals who have found themselves in this exact situation. I suspect many of you will read this story and think, “Yep. I’ve lived this moment too.” Sometimes the hardest part of helping the horse is helping the human see what the horse has been trying to tell them.🥹

PS. I am looking forward to Project Reboot ❤

08/24/2026

I saw a comment recently that said horses should have the right to say no—to loading, tying, being led, being rugged, having their feet done, etc.
And I think there’s an important conversation here.
At what point does giving a horse the right to say “no”become failing to give that horse an education?

Because we aren’t just our horses’ friends. We are their guardians.
What happens when there’s a wildfire and that horse HAS to get on a trailer?
What happens when he’s injured and needs to load to go to the vet?
What happens when the farrier needs to work on his feet because his health depends on it?
What happens if, God forbid, you die tomorrow and somebody else has to care for him?

A horse that has spent his entire life learning, “If I don’t want to, I don’t have to,” may eventually find himself in a situation where “no” isn’t an option. And now the horse pays the price for an education we chose not to give him.
That is where I think we have to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions.

At what point does it become irresponsible? At what point are we actually doing the horse a disservice in the name of kindness?
Fairness does not mean a horse never has to do something he doesn’t want to do.
My horses are absolutely allowed to have opinions. They’re allowed to be unsure. They’re allowed to tell me something is difficult. They’re allowed to need more time, more explanation, or a different approach.

I will listen.
But listening to an opinion and giving a horse the final decision are two very different things.
If I ask my horse to load, he needs to load. If I ask him to stand tied, he needs to stand tied. If I need to handle his feet, lead him somewhere, doctor him, or move him out of danger, I need to be able to do that.

And in return, I owe him fairness.
I owe him good timing. I owe him patience. I owe him clear communication. I owe him the responsibility of never asking more than necessary and never using force simply because I can.
That’s leadership to me.
And I genuinely believe that’s part of why my horses trust me. They know I’m fair. They know I’ll listen. They know I’ll take care of them.

So when I say, “I need you to do this,” I want them to have enough trust in me to say:
She’s never steered me wrong before.”
Giving a horse an education isn’t taking away his voice.
Sometimes it’s one of the greatest protections we can give him.

08/21/2026

Super model Cove is in the barn for a week of refresher. He has gotten to hang out in the pasture with the mares for the summer and grow up. And boy is he growing up nicely 😍. Figured I’d brush up on his skills this week and then he will go back out until October or so. At that point, it’ll be time to really get to work.

08/06/2026

THE WAY FORWARD…

Over the last few days, I’ve seen a lot of chatter about issues with forward movement…

I’m going to share what I’ve observed over the last 20 years, across the spectrum of traditional and natural horsemanship, positive reinforcement and ‘alternative’ horsemanship, and what I’ve seen happening the last few years, in particular.

Lack of forward movement is definitely an epidemic in the horse-centric community.

I run into it every day.

Some of its origin lies in the fact that many of us have become afraid of it…

Maybe we’re getting older, or we’re not riding as much as we used to, or we’ve had accidents, and the emotional and physical intensity that comes up for both horse and rider during forward movement in all gaits doesn’t feel safe anymore.

Sometimes it comes from attempting to start our own colts when we’re rusty, or inexperienced, because we’re uncomfortable with the idea of sending a young horse out into the questionable world of trainers.

I’ve definitely been guilty of dampening the forward movement of colts to match my own comfort zone, and I start colts for a living.

Some of it has to do with the narrative around lunging, and round penning, and skeletal maturity, and the pressure to not use pressure, or to keep horses ‘under threshold.’

The truth is, a lot of the things that have made us more thoughtful horsemen over the last decade, have also led us into overthinking, and paralysis of analysis.

Too much medicine can be poison.

The fear of making mistakes can bring us to a screeching halt- or leave us stuck in walk purgatory.

Don’t get me wrong, walk work is very important in my program, as well, but horses need to be allowed to go forward IN ALL GAITS.

I get horses in who do not understand how to move forward away from handlers at all, and all the safety and boundary issues that come along with that.

I get horses in who do not feel comfortable with forward movement initiated by humans, and who almost seem to fear their full range of motion and emotion.

They can be a combination of dull, and overreactive once in movement, when the emotional and physical intensity that comes up during forward movement in all three gaits feels overwhelming and overstimulating.

I’ve seen a huge uptick in bolters as related to horses not understanding how to manage their motion and emotions in relation to humans.

Bolting that isn’t based in fear, but more related to whether or not they know how to manage a feel during the emotional and physical intensity of all their gaits.

That’s the horsemanship part of it…

The other part of it, is that horse-centric nutritional programs often leave horses at a deficit once they’re in training.

Horses who might do fine on free-choice, low-protein, low-calorie forage at home, often plateau in their work when I start advancing their training.

That’s why I’ve put a lot of thought into my nutrition program, testing hay and working with a nutritionist, so that client horses have the protein necessary to build topline, and the calories necessary to advance.

The other part of it is, horses will plateau if their hooves aren’t where they need to be, especially if they have low angles, where a lack of equilibrium between the flexor and extensor systems limits their spring and forward thrust.

I’m a barefoot trimmer, and I will say that I still see a lot of horses who are subclinically lame and reluctant to move forward, because they are getting over-trimmed in general in certain barefoot styles, or because their heels in particular are getting over-trimmed.

In an effort to keep horses more naturally, we sometimes see over-trimmed, under-protected hooves, combined with low-nutrition hay… a recipe for lethargy.

I spend a lot of time re-introducing forward movement with clients and their horses…

Fixed-point lunging is a huge part of teaching both horse and handler how to follow a feel, before introducing traveling lunging, and yet, so many people are afraid to do it.

I would really like to see us re-embrace lunging, and double lunging, and round penning, and more work that allows the horse to express the forward movement that is so natural to them.

There is absolutely biomechanically safe way to do it.

There’s a reason why classical work emphasizes forward so much…

It’s part of who the horse is.

And if we’re going to allow them to be who they are, we have to rethink some of the ideas we’ve been fed about thresholds, and stress signals, and remember that the horse is a dynamic, expressive being.

Something troubling that I’m seeing more and more, is horses who are disassociating… going into a very introverted state that is often labeled as relaxation, or ‘processing.’

But they aren’t blinking, they aren’t breathing, they aren’t engaging, they aren’t invested…

They’re hiding.

I see this when there’s too much ‘up close and personal’ touchy-feely work that overstimulates the horse, while requiring them to physically shut down, which often leaves them shut down mentally and emotionally, as well.

This includes bodywork, flexions, static thoracic sling work, front-to-back focused work, and positive reinforcement work, that isn’t balanced by freedom in the gaits.

We need to allow horses time and space AWAY from us.

We need to give them an emotional and mental break from us.

They need to be allowed to get back into their own body, to re-explore their own movement.

Motion is medicine, brain and body.

What have YOU observed? What do YOU think is the way forward?

08/01/2026

I don’t think Legs is too keen on this whole touching thing.

July 22nd. (Yes. Last week)