Inside Out Horse Training

10/01/2026

People often ask me how to “de-spook” their horses. They are afraid of their horses energy and physical capability. A horse is a powerful animal, so this fear is rational.

But a horses’ main job, after eating, is to be wary. To look out for danger. This ability has kept him alive and evolving for centuries. In my opinion, it is completely unethical to take the horse out of the horse by systematically dulling them to outside stimulus. Bombproofing clinics, methods and tools are wildly popular because the average rider grapples with fear as part of their ride experience frequently.

But the reality is, shutting down a horses movement instead of becoming a better rider and trainer is a cop out, and not a kind one either.

That being said, it’s incredible what horses can adjust to. They’ve been into battle, on ships, they pull carts and logging equipment, they work in inner city riots, they go into hospitals and nursing homes, and can handle quite a bit more than we give them credit for.

So how do you get your horse to relax and not spook? First of all, a good seat in IMPERATIVE. Even if you just trail ride, it is absolutely 100% important that you learn to ride well- at the walk, trot and canter. No way around this if you want to ride without relying on fear based control methods. If you must shut the horses energy down by pulling every time the horse has a little movement in his body or feeling, the horse will likely not feel safe with you aboard.

Next, learn to communicate and direct your horse. Learn what bothers them, what tension and relaxation feel like under you, learn to read expression, and learn to get ahead of bother and help them come back to you mentally. You can’t just sit up there and hope for the best - you need to direct, watch, be a partner. The amount of people who say they want to be the horses boss or partner, but offer no support or direction is staggering. Direct, support, and help them.

And lastly, expose them to new things. Don’t expect the world around you to cater to your horses’ fear. Not everyone is going to call out “door” before they come into your groomed arena. Surprising things can happen when you ride - life is unpredictable. Give your horse new experiences, new jobs, go new places, in small pieces that they can handle, and keep doing it. When their (and your) comfort zone is not expanding, its shrinking.

Give the horse a solid base of communication with which to build on; be a true partner for your horse and observe and guide them; create confidence building experiences, don’t over expose, and continue learning to ride well so you don’t have to pull on your horse every time they move with a little energy.

After all this, ride with confidence, knowing you’ve prepared your horse, know how to sit, and can direct them through trouble if needed.

A true horseman doesn’t spend his time around horses opposing their nature - he understands it, works within it, and hones it.

09/26/2026

We had a great day for our obstacle/confidence class today! Everyone did a great job focusing on helping their horses develop confidence!

09/18/2026

I love how Amy Skinner says the hard things so well!

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Leadership is so much more than just telling the horse what to do and what not to do. True leadership comes from a person who has a clear focus on where they and the horse are going. They think, move and behave the way they want to show the horse to be. They don’t get pulled into the chatter, mess, and noise of the folks at the barn, whatever new training fad is popular, what others think of them. They don’t fight or argue with horses - they show the horse a clear, calm and consistent path, and they walk it with the horse. Leadership is taking responsibility, accepting your weaknesses, developing your strengths. True leadership takes every ounce of brainpower and focus. It’s being flexible when needed, firm when needed, but always with the well-being of the horse in mind.

Leaders don’t just boss others around. They take control of their own mind and body, and lead by example.

Photo by Jasmine Cope

09/02/2026

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08/17/2026

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With all the confirmed cases of rabies recently found, we wanted to reiterate the importance of the rabies vaccine.

Rabies is a fatal disease that can affect horses and poses a serious risk to people as well. Because there is no cure once clinical signs develop, prevention through vaccination is key.

Talk with your veterinarian about keeping your horse’s rabies vaccination current. A simple vaccine can provide life-saving protection. 💉🐎

08/17/2026

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Friends, may I ask a favour?

One of the hardest parts of releasing a book is reaching beyond the people who already know my work. Red Barn Books is a small independent publisher, which Ayesha runs alongside her work as a teacher. With only a small advertising budget, word-of-mouth truly does make a difference.

If you’ve enjoyed my writing over the years, would you consider sharing this post? You might add a few words about why you follow my writing, or simply say, “I thought someone here might enjoy this.” A personal recommendation carries more weight than any advertisement ever could.

There is absolutely no pressure to order a book yourself. Helping us introduce THINK. FEEL. RIDE. to someone new would be a wonderful show of support.

Here’s just one story we’d love you to share — with a horse-loving friend, or in a group where book recommendations are welcome. Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing and making this community what it is. Every book that finds its way to the right reader begins with someone saying, “I think you might like this…”

***

RISING TROT

Can you recall your most sublime moments in the saddle, when you knew that it was as good as it would ever get? Is it even possible to narrow down a lifetime with horses, to just those precious few snapshots stored in our memory? Yes. I believe this, with all my heart.

In the first memory, I am sixteen years old. It is a Saturday in June and I am on Eclipse. We have been two years in weekly dressage lessons, in the hands of the most brilliant teacher. Every spring, Eclipse leaves the boarding barn and comes home to stay on the farm with me. During the cold months, he is boarded out, thanks to my unstoppable mother who somehow works two jobs to pay for it all.

Yes, I am incredibly fortunate, because loving this horse is the best thing that could happen to me. On Eclipse, I become a centauress. Without him, I am an awkward misfit at school.

Eclipse, like most Thoroughbreds, has an unbelievable canter. I am young, summer holidays loom, my saddle and boots fit perfectly. Everything is just so comfortable. My horse and I are both just so sure.

I swing on easily, sigh and settle. We cross the railway tracks that run nearby our home. In so doing, we are faced with about five miles of open, sandy road allowance, leading all the way to Gladys Ridge. This stretch is seldom used and then, only for farmers moving their equipment to and from the fields. On this brilliant blue day, it belongs solely to us.

Eclipse is, by now, a medium-level dressage horse. He is light and beautifully balanced. With one hand in my vest pocket and the other on his double reins, we canter this entire stretch of dirt road. He blows happily through his nostrils with every stride and his bit and bradoon clink softly.

I somehow know, while sitting to that effortless movement, so awash in the joy emanating from my beautiful friend, that this will be one of the best moments of my life. All these lessons, all these tears, all my bloodied knees, have paled in the perfection of this one glorious morning.

I know that I will never ride this horse’s like again. It’s a profound realization for a sixteen-year-old and you know, as it turns out, I was right.

The second perfect memory to lodge in my heart, I am driving the chestnut Welsh mare, Kinistino. She is that rarity among harness horses and ponies: extremely sensitive and energetic, but honest as the day is long. Everything about our movement is borne from deep knowing and mutual trust. We are heading southwest, away from the babies, housework, money woes and all the jangles that make up early married life.

Kinistino is eating up the miles alongside the waving barley fields, her feet beating a rhythmic tattoo with her spectacular trot. The tug buckles jingle, her ears are up and our reins bounce with every step. From the fence line comes the beautiful song of the meadowlarks. I know, with certainly, that this, right here, is heaven on earth.

All the times I have wondered what the promised land might be like — and there it was, found within an ordinary day. From that time on, I’ve had only to close my eyes and I remember.

***

An excerpt from THINK. FEEL. RIDE. Coming soon, the pre-order is open now!

www.redbarnbooks.ca

07/12/2026

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Is the horse really spooky and unfocused… or are we lacking the ability to guide?

This is a hard pill to swallow, but an important one. Stay with me before you get upset, because this isn’t personal—and it isn’t just you. It’s part of being human.

We are very quick to label the horse.

He’s bird-brained. She’s spooky. He’s unfocused. She’s ADHD.

Whatever words we choose, the conclusion is the same: the horse is the problem.

But if horses were truly designed to be that scattered and incapable of focus, nature would have eliminated them long ago. They wouldn’t have survived.

The truth is this:

The horse isn’t unfocused.

The horse is simply not focused with us.

There is a profound difference.

Focus is not something we demand—it is something we cultivate. We create it by offering clear, calming parameters. By asking for awareness, consistency, and—most importantly—by bringing those qualities ourselves.

When we fail to provide that guidance, the horse doesn’t become “bad.” He becomes responsible for his own safety. He grows more vigilant, more reactive, and more likely to seek security everywhere except with us.

Some horses are incredibly sensitive and need us to be mentally present every single second. Others are more forgiving and can tolerate moments where our attention drifts.

But no horse can truly stay connected to a person who isn’t mentally there.

They can go through the motions. They can perform the exercises. They can appear obedient enough that we believe they’re with us.

Sometimes that says less about the horse… and more about how little connection we’ve learned to recognize.

When I teach, I spend just as much energy keeping the rider focused as I do the horse.

I work to quiet the constant chatter. To keep the “But what about…” monster from taking over. To stop the mind from jumping five steps ahead instead of staying with the one we’re actually on.

Teaching a person to remain fully present—to follow each moment without their thoughts scattering in every direction—is incredibly difficult.

I’m not saying that from a place of judgment.

My teachers had to do the same thing with me.

Presence is a skill.

And here’s what changed my own horsemanship:

The horses I had spent years describing as spooky suddenly became remarkably calm… when I became more focused.

That realization was both humbling and freeing.

It forced me to accept an uncomfortable truth:

We often don’t know the horse nearly as well as we think we do.

What we’re seeing isn’t always their personality. Often it’s their response to us.

We project our own lack of clarity onto the horse, then label that response as who they are.

And that is deeply unfair to the horse.

Perhaps before asking, “Why is my horse so distracted?” we should first ask,

“How present am I?” And then, “how helpful am I to a horse?”

06/30/2026

Love this!

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We often mistake a temporary state of being for who someone is.

We like to make quick work of categorizing ourselves and everyone around us. We walk through life with labels ready to fire off, hoping they’ll explain us to others. There are the obvious ones—religion, politics, nationality. Then there are the personality labels: introvert or extrovert, empath, Gemini, Type A, highly sensitive, and on and on.

Some of these tell us something meaningful. They can offer insight into a person’s values, culture, or tendencies. But too often we leave no room for change. We forget to account for circumstance, environment, and company.

Someone may be quiet and withdrawn in one setting, then animated and endlessly talkative in another. One group of people might bring out caution; another might bring out confidence. The same person can seem entirely different depending on who they’re with, what they’ve experienced that day, or what season of life they’re in. Human beings are often far more flexible than our labels allow.

What does this have to do with horses?

Everything.

We buy a yearling or raise a foal, and before long we’ve decided exactly who that horse is. He’s lazy. She’s spooky. He’s dominant. She’s sensitive. We collect our observations, assign our labels, and stop looking.

But the horse standing in front of us today isn’t the horse that existed six months ago, or even yesterday.

If we believe we already know him, we stop listening.

Instead of responding to what’s actually happening, we’re responding to our story about him. We see everything through the lens of what we think we know.

The danger of living inside labels is that reality can be standing right in front of us and we’ll reject it because it doesn’t fit the category we’ve created.

It’s easy to learn a handful of systems and memorize the boxes. It’s comforting to believe every behavior has a predetermined explanation and every problem has a prescribed solution. Labels create the illusion of certainty. They make us feel as though we have control.

It’s much harder to meet the world with fresh eyes.

To approach each horse, each person, and even ourselves with the question: Who are you today?

That requires tolerating uncertainty. It requires admitting, “I don’t know yet.”

That uncomfortable space is where feel begins.

Feel isn’t built by collecting more labels. It’s built through observation, experimentation, curiosity, and the humility to let go of what you thought you knew when reality tells you otherwise.

The people who become exceptional communicators—whether with horses or with humans—aren’t the ones with the most categories. They’re the ones most willing to remain present, to notice what has changed, and to adapt.

Our world grows less tolerant every year of not knowing. We’re expected to have immediate opinions, immediate diagnoses, immediate answers.

But wisdom often begins with resisting that impulse.

Sometimes the most truthful thing we can say is, “I’m not sure. Let me look again.”

06/19/2026

Super again Amy Skinner!

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I was on a long flight, sandwiched between an older woman and a younger woman.
The older woman, seated by the window, was fussing with her phone and becoming visibly frustrated. I asked if she needed help.

“My headphones won’t connect,” she said. “I downloaded movies for the flight, but I can’t hear any of them.”

I took a look at her phone, checked the settings, and made sure everything appeared to be connected properly. Satisfied, I handed it back to her.

“It still isn’t working,” she said.
Now she was becoming increasingly upset. The prospect of spending the next five hours without her movies seemed to be creating genuine anxiety.

I was puzzled. Everything I had done should have worked.
The younger woman in the aisle seat perked up and offered to help.
“I work in tech support,” she said.

She took the phone, checked a few things, and then handed it back to the older woman with exactly the same result.

She took the woman’s headphones from her, handed back the phone, and said, “This should work now. But I need you to put the headphones in very slowly and carefully.”

The woman nodded and did exactly as instructed.
This time, it worked.

Within moments she was happily watching her movie.

Once she was settled, I asked the younger woman what she had done differently.

“Nothing,” she said.
“I did the exact same thing you did. But when she was anxious, she kept jamming the headphones into her ears and accidentally pressing the mute button. I just needed to slow her down.”
Then she winked and added:
“Ninety percent of tech support is keeping the client calm.”

That comment struck me harder than she probably intended.

As riding instructors, trainers, coaches, and teachers, we often assume our job is to provide solutions. We spend years accumulating knowledge, building skills, and collecting answers.
But a panicked rider can find nine hundred problems for every one solution.

Often the solution is surprisingly simple:

The horse needs a clearer rhythm.
The rider needs to breathe.
The hands need to soften.
The rider needs to look up.
The horse needs more forward.
Simple things.

But anxiety has a remarkable ability to press the mute button on good information.

When people become overwhelmed, they stop hearing. They stop feeling. They stop processing. In their effort to solve the problem, they unknowingly recreate it over and over again.
I’ve found that some of the most effective teaching doesn’t come from knowing more answers. It comes from helping someone become calm enough to receive the answer that is already there.
The solution may be simple.

It may even be free.
But no solution can land on anxious ears.
Sometimes the first step in helping someone isn’t fixing the problem.
It’s helping them stop pressing mute.

Photo by Jesse Cardew