The Mindful Dressage Rider

03/04/2026

If you haven’t thanked your farrier recently, here’s your friendly reminder to do so.

Yesterday, I finally picked up a rasp that had been sitting there staring at me for quite some time. I’ve picked it up a few times before… Each time I’d hold it for a moment, think about what I was about to do, and then chicken out and put it back.

Over the past few years, I’ve invested more into learning more about the hoof — proper balance, how it affects the horse’s posture and proprioception, and how it either supports or hinders the horse’s ability to integrate into their body. That knowledge has allowed me to better advocate for horses, both within my program and outside of it, and recognize when something in the hoof might be contributing to larger physical challenges at a broad, basic level. Basically, I usually know when to call the professionals in!😆

In some cases, simply bringing awareness to that piece of the puzzle has made a meaningful difference for the horse. For that, I’m incredibly grateful for the people who have shared their knowledge and helped me deepen my understanding of the whole horse.

But with that knowledge also comes a deeper respect for the responsibility.

When you’ve seen firsthand how something as small as three simple passes with a rasp can change how a horse stands or moves, it’s hard not to feel the weight of that when the tool is in your hand.

I felt that responsibility yesterday.

Thankfully, I’m lucky to have an incredibly supportive farrier, Kendra Skorstad (Skorstad Farrier Service) , who encouraged me to explore this — and who is here often enough to fix anything if I really messed it up. Knowing that gave me the confidence to finally give it a try. 🙏

And let me tell you… I have a whole new level of respect for Kendra, and farriers in general.

The knowledge, the feel, the responsibility you carry every single day is no small thing. You truly are a blessing.

I’m grateful to be learning — and also being reminded that sometimes growth requires being willing to be new at something again. To respect the responsibility that comes with it, while still having the courage to try. Because understanding something intellectually is one thing… applying it is a whole different experience.

🖤 Picture is a moment in time in a cooperative care session with Ringo 🖤

03/03/2026

Love this post so much! It feels very validating to the work that I get to do with horses 🙏

“Horses regularly trained with ground work are more relaxed when ridden”

A recent study of dressage horses in Germany that looked at rein length and tension revealed a surprising finding: horses who were regularly trained in ground work/in-hand work had lower heart rates during ridden work than all of the other participating horses. This wasn’t what the researchers were investigating, but it was clear in the results. From this, the researchers concluded that, “Perhaps horses trained in ground work had more trust in their rider.”

So why would it be true that horses who regularly learn via ground work/in-hand work are more relaxed? There are a few possibilities.

1) Horses trained regularly with ground work are more relaxed because their trainers are more relaxed. It’s possible that humans who take the time to teach their horses from the ground are less goal oriented and more concerned with the process. They may be more relaxed in general and foster this same relaxation in their horses. As you are, so is your horse.

2) Horses trained regularly with ground work have trainers who are more educated about a horse’s balance.

Their horses learn to move in correct balance which allows them to be healthy and sound in their bodies and, therefore, more relaxed. Physical balance is emotional balance.

3) Horses trained regularly with ground work understand the trainer’s criteria better. They have mastered the response to an aid before the rider mounts and know the “right answer” already once under saddle. They don’t experience any conflict when the rider asks for a behavior because the neural pathway has already been installed. They are more relaxed about being ridden because it rarely has caused confusion for them.

For us highly visual humans I think that ground work is often a better way to begin exercises because we are much better at seeing our horse doing the right thing than feeling it from the saddle. Often, my feel in the saddle is enhanced by the fact that I have watched my horse perform an exercise over and over in our in-hand work. It feels how it looks. In-hand work is also a good way to teach our horses because our own bodies are often more in balance when we are walking beside our horses. With the ground under our feet we are able to be more relaxed if something goes wrong and less likely to be so busy wrapped up in our own balance that we give our horses conflicting or confusing aids. It’s a good place to figure things out. I am a huge fan of in-hand work.

I’m glad to learn research revealed ground work is good for horses. Horses with a low heart rate are relaxed and relaxed horses perform better and live longer. In this day and age of people starting horses under saddle in under an hour and increasing monetary rewards for the “young horse dressage program“, everything seems to be done in a hurry. The entire horse culture seems to privilege “getting up there and riding your horse”. But as one of my favorite writers and accomplished horsewoman, Teresa Tsimmu Martino writes, “In today’s horse culture there are clinics that brag about starting a c**t in a day, as if the quickness of it was the miracle. But old horse people know it takes years to create art. Horses as great masterpieces are not created in a day. An artist does not need to rush.” We need more scientific studies like this one to encourage us to slow down and take our time with our horses.

So why were the horses in the study more relaxed? Likely it was a combination of all three factors – a relaxed trainer, better overall balance and clear understanding of criteria.

These are things that matter to your horse, and yes, will allow him to trust you when you ride. Take some time to slow down and work from the ground, learn a bit more about equine balance and teach new things in-hand before asking for them under saddle. You can take your riding to a whole new level and help your horse become more healthy and relaxed in the process.” - by Jen of Spellbound Horses

03/02/2026

02/24/2026

These moments are the most precious. 🥹

I say this all the time: the majority of your relationship with your horse — and the foundation of their health — happens outside of the arena.

We pour so much time, energy, and resources into what happens in the arena… but the basics that make everything possible are built in the in-between.

In the care program.
In the living environment.
In the energy and community of the barn.
In the nervous system — for both horse and human.

It’s all the little factors that create a space where a being can feel safe, seen, and heard. Where needs don’t go unnoticed.

Sometimes we’re so focused on solving, analyzing, correcting, improving — that when something does soften, even slightly, we forget to stop and experience it.

My sweet Ringo baby — soaking up these soft moments together. He’s given so much over the years. It’s long overdue to create space for him to live in a gentler, more regulated place… and to hold that for him. 🤍

02/23/2026

After last week enjoying 60* in Wisconsin, riding horses in the outdoor — to this week, dropping back to frigid temps.

I can’t wait for the warm sunny days, and to get outside of the indoor!

Spring, please come soon!! 🙏

themindfuldressagerider beandressage madisonWI

12/12/2025

Our team is growing & this means there are rare training openings starting January 1st!

At Bean Dressage, our mission is to bridge the gap between competitive dressage and mindful, ethical horsemanship. Whether you’re aiming for FEI or simply want to build a strong foundation, we offer individualized, horse-first training that honors biomechanics, longevity, and connection with and for your horse.

Our training program is ideal for:
✨ Horses struggling with tension, mysterious lameness, or injury
✨ Dressage athletes ready to move up the levels with mindfulness & integrity
✨ Young horses, looking for a thoughtful start
✨ Owners willing to give their horse the time & space they need to develop
✨ Clients who want to be a part of the paradigm shift in the dressage industry - partnering together to show this industry that it can be done in an ethical way that honors the horse

📍 Verona, WI | FEI Trainer | Whole-horse approach

Text Caitlyn at 608-512-7468 to inquire.
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Indigo Trails Farm

11/30/2025

Listening to Chiara Poscente on a soap box about this at a clinic this past October had me interested in this concept, and now I am fascinated with how it all connects.
Always learning ❤️

Intro to Blind Spots and Changing Eyes

It is fairly rare for me to meet a horse who isn’t troubled in their blind spots and I feel that this is perfectly reasonable. In my experience, every horse is… until we show them how not to be. It’s a hefty responsibility as I’ve not seen horses provide this gift amongst themselves, to one another. From what I’ve observed, it’s in the best interest of the band for all its members to be hyper vigilant to a degree in their blind spots. And for a horse who lives in isolation, a necessity for survival.

A horse’s blind spots are located directly in front, directly behind, under their chin/feet and directly behind their neck (you know, where we sit!). While a horse’s left brain and right brain do communicate beyond that of basic nervous system function, they perceive the world so differently than we do, and left brain/left horse and right brain/right horse aren’t able to share all the information that each side is gathering and processing. For example, have you ever been riding in an arena, tracking left, and you pass the corner where the scary horse-soul eating monster lives and the muck bucket is in a slightly different position and your horse spooks and shies to the left/inside? So you school a bit and the horse settles so you ride on maybe across the diagonal or whatever but you end up back down at the scary corner tracking right this time and your horse spooks again? And you think, “silly horse, we already saw this and got over it!”. Well… right horse had seen the bucket, had realized it wasn’t a threat and was now fine with it. Left horse on the other hand, straight up wasn’t able to see it coming and had their own experience with it. This is appropriate behaviour for a horse.

As with all beings, I have observed horses to have strong sympathetic nervous system responses of fight, flight and freeze. I’ve noticed that a horse, when confronted with a suspicious or threatening stimuli from a distance, will turn and move away in Flight mode, increasing the distance between them and the suspected threat. They will look back over their shoulder, leaning in to the direction of travel while flexing away from the direction of travel. When they switch sides to look over their other shoulder (changing eyes behind), they also slightly alter course + flexion and lean. Once enough distance has been reached, the horse will turn sidelong to the threat (usually but not always their left side) and turn their head back and forth, left and right, (changing eyes in front). Left Eye and Right Eye each get a good look. Once the stimuli is no longer an obvious threat, the horse might turn and face up to it, continuing to look side to side, left eye right eye. If they deem that all is well with everything and they are safe, they may poke out their nose and show some curiosity.

I have noticed as well that a horse, when confronted with a threatening stimuli in close proximity, may turn and flee or may freeze. They might. They are just as likely to push into the pressure, to go into Fight mode and drop their shoulder, strike, bite or otherwise go on the offensive. This is why I tend to be much more wary of a horse’s front end, particularly when the horse has become bothered in their blind spots and troubled about confinement and contact to a point that goes beyond their base instinct.

The freeze response is my least favorite and it’s the reason why I don’t engage in or advocate for desensitization. A horse who freezes and checks out mentally may seem “bomb proof” for a time, but are often the ones who become the most explosive. Besides, horses are my friends and I don’t really want anyone, especially my friends, to be desensitized to me.

Horses are born bothered in their blind spots and different than us in their left and right body communication*. Like us, they have a sidedness, a laterality in their way of going. Whether it be from fetal development in the womb, birth trauma, grazing stance, injury or illness, horses too have a preferred “lead” and they very much have a dominant “eye”. It’s strange to me that as humans, we communicate so much through our eye contact but when I watch people working with horses in hand or at liberty, I so rarely see the same. The human tends to focus on the shoulder, the hip, the neck, the feet, but what is the eye doing? Half the time, it’s not even looking at the human and the human wouldn’t notice if it were!

The eye is what shapes and guides the movement. When I watch an uneducated horse turn (ie feral, young, miseducated), whether it be loose (in a field, a round pen or arena, even when grazing!), on a lunge or lead line or under saddle, the horse turns by leaning in and looking out. They are aware of the direction they are turning and as it holds the least amount of real estate and since they know what’s there, they are inclined to look out, over their outside shoulder at the expanse behind and beside them. Their shoulders drop forward and in, the more aggressive end leading, the hindquarters exposed, following, angled slightly to the outside. This is fine for the horse left to their own devices, as they do not engage in movements such as circles. This is turning as they were meant to turn and they’re all exceptionally good at it. Trouble is, when they turn this way under rider weight, especially when held on a continuous arc like a circle, it creates massive compression in areas that aren’t designed to manage it. This is why horse and rider biomechanics are so important and so intricate. It is my belief that an overwhelming number of soundness issues in the ridden horse are due to compression and compensation derived from this very thing. Until the horse feels safe, particularly in their blind spots, they will not look to the inside/in the direction of travel and therefor cannot, no matter how well masked through handy riding, gadgets and/or coercion, truly travel Straight ie- in balance with all four quarters evenly weighted and turned loose at the poll.

When left to their own devices, horses also do not travel in straight lines. Take a walk in any pasture, turnout, herd management area, and you will see that all horsey game trails drift slightly side to side, left and right. Unlike animals with binocular vision (ie humans and dogs), horses do not bee line on their trajectory, even at top speed though this is more subtle. Meaning, as they’re moving forward, they’re leading with one eye and then the other. And as they change eyes in front, they change eyes behind. Leading slightly left, slightly right. This is another example of the horse managing their environment. When we ask a horse to move either directly forward or directly backward and straight from poll to tail, we are asking them to move directly into their blind spots. Given this, it’s truly remarkable what they do with and for us.

It’s all about demonstrating to the horse that they can find comfort and support in the human and then being damn ready to step up for them when they do. This is why we chose to be Un-Natural Horsemanship. It is not in the horse’s nature to be ridden nor is it in our nature to ride, physiologically and psychologically. Yet both species are here and doing it. In order to become riders, humans must reprogram our biology and in order to be ridden, horses must allow us to reprogram their biology as well.
“Make the Halo, Jake!”

When working with young, feral or otherwise healthily attached horses, helping them to find the three types of confidence (confidence in themselves, in their environment and in their human),is relatively straightforward and painless for both species and work through blindspots and changing eyes plays a very large part in this. With the horses who have suffered, either through genuine abuse or simply just casually sh*tty or uneducated handling, it can be a different story*. Once a horse has learned that trouble can come for them in their blindspots from the human, working with them through that trauma can be a massive undertaking and changing eyes plays a very large part in this.

Over the years, Zak and I have learned and developed many different techniques or methods to teach horses about safety in their blind spots and how to change eyes in a way that fosters healthy carriage of a human. Our preference is to begin working with any and every horse loose in a smallish area (round pen is ideal but any small paddock or even a full size arena will do if it’s what we’ve got). At liberty, the horse is able to leave if and when they feel that they must and we are unable to overpower them. Ideally, all work will be done at the walk with upward transitions only coming when the horse as found balance however, it is completely reasonable for a horse to scoot after a change of eyes at first. We prefer to begin working with a horse on changing eyes behind. The change of eyes behind has been shown repeatedly to harbor the greatest effect, the strongest impression. When the horse is confident changing eyes behind, it translates into absolutely everything else, or at least this has been the case in our experience 100% of the time! When changing direction with the human guiding them from behind is easy peasy, we begin changing eyes in front as well, first at liberty and then in hand on a lead rope and eventually under saddle.

I have watched the profound impact of working a horse through their blind spots and through their change of eyes countless times and it never ceases to amaze me. Equally amazing is that the work sticks and this paired with ridden work and the education that comes from that, completely changes how horses move within and interact with their environment. They play better, they are less prone to injury, they are more eager to work. It changes the way that they organize their bodies and move through space in such a way as to translate into the rest of their lives and it is the coolest thing! The human must come to trust the horse and the horse to trust the human. When each feels safe, both can feel curious and can explore the infinite possibilities of Becoming Centaur.

~ Chiara 💕

Stay tuned for Zak’s “Changing Eyes Manifesto” which will go into great depth on the subject. For anyone interested in working with us on this and more, we offer haul-in, travel and virtual sessions as well as clinics and intensives.

* I encourage my students while on their own two feet, to raise one of their hands and tuck in their thumb with four fingers raised and held gently together. Place your thumb over your nose so your four fingers are directly between your eyes, creating a blind spot in front. Now, go for a 5 min walk. Anywhere but seriously- try it out in a busy environment. This isn’t a direct representation but it provides a decent bit of perspective. My students have shared that they experienced a desire to lead more from one eye, especially for maneuvering around in crowded spaces. For me, it’s my left eye. Many of us have reported a preference from side to side- for example, I felt comfortable with things moving from my right eye to my left eye but several times was surprised by something moving from my left eye to my right eye. On the daily, I observe this in the horses.

* Signs the horse may be bothered in their blind spots and troubled changing eyes-

bolting
difficulty with bend and/or canter leads
rushes or sucks back during changes of direction
undiagnosed front end lameness
difficulty backing
difficulty tracking a straight line
fidgeting while tied
pull back
difficulty loading
nervous to be mounted
excessive spookiness
over jumping
bothered around their feet/difficulty with the farrier
high headedness
drops shoulder/falls-in through turns/corners
kissing spines
rushes change of eyes/constantly arranging themselves or the human to be on one side or the other

11/24/2025

Did you know that there is a direct link between gastric disease, hoof balance and posture?

Posture has been shown to be reflective of autonomic nervous state. A sympathetic posture, high head and neck carriage and camped under, you will also recognise as an abnormal compensatory posture, and a parasympathetic nervous posture, head and neck relaxed and a normal neutral posture. See the postures in the image.

In a sympathetic state the body is in flight or fight mode, increased cortisol levels and the body is focusing blood supply and nutrients to the musculoskeletal system.
In the parasympathetic state, the body is in the rest and digest mode.

Hoof balance has been shown to directly impact static posture, and can put the horse into either of these states! In fact anything that creates a stress response can move a horse into the sympathetic state. Feed, confinement, psychosocial deficit, Domestication itself!

See the ethological series of webinars for a dive into what creates each state..

https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/collections?category=courses&page=4

What's important to understand, in that light, is that in the sympathetic state, visceral function rapidly declines, leading to disease such as gastric ones, that lead to further sympathetic activation. The cycle ensues!!

This is why gastric disease is ubiquitous in the equine world, often blamed for behavioural issues. Sometimes it is the start of the cycle, sometimes its the symptomatic scapegoat for the rest of the horses world, including hoof balance.

Join myself and world-renowned Dr Ben Skyes for an upcoming webinar where we delve into these relationships!
Live Nov 26th 8am GMT. Recorded for anyone who cant make it live!!

Link below👇

https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/courses/egus

10/22/2025

I am so excited to share that Tara Davis is coming back to Indigo Trails Farm December 20-22nd!

If you are looking to build a deeper relationship with your horse, build their emotional regulation, help support their posture and biomechanics, and/or work on classical dressage principles - this is the clinic for you!

Located at Indigo Trails Farm in Verona WI
Please register (participants & auditors) : https://forms.gle/jgMNHqQQpsARzwuU7

09/11/2025

Please read these words of my First Pupil Christina Wunderlich, leader of Oliveira Stables, 100 times - it will help you in a deep way to understand RIDING !

“You have to always imagine
energy as something that
you collect in yourself,
or with you and your horse,
and this can be in a very,
very, very slow walk, or even
at the halt.

A good halt is
something very energetic,
because the energy doesn’t
go away – it’s very concentrated.

So, when you always move with
your horse in such a way that
at every moment you could pick up
a canter or do a pirouette – in every
moment you can do everything you want,
without having to prepare, then you have
a good energy, because then the energy
is always in your circle with the horse.”

Christina Wunderlich

If the pupil becomes ONE with the master like in that Foto - than the master knows the pupil is ready for passing on the vertical message for the good of the horse.

Foto Patrick Pichler