Alternative Horsemanship™ with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach Articles and Advice Blog

Do you have horse behavior questions? Do you want to improve horse horse skills? Alternative Horsemanship™ with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach shares her horse training philosophy and coaches horseback riders of all experience levels. Offering horsemanship clinics worldwide along with distance horse coaching, instruction, and consults. Visit her horse video learning catalog offering webinars, courses, classes and more. Find her on all social media platforms #alternativehorsemanship

Spring Preparations for Upcoming Horse Riding Season

Preparing for the Spring Riding Season

Looking ahead to the upcoming riding season, whether you ride for pleasure or are a competitor, you can strive to offer a supportive partnership towards your horse. I will touch on two concepts that you can start considering, without even having to battle the outdoor winter conditions!

We may giggle...
But in all seriousness, how did this become the norm?
We've probably experienced our horse spooking at at least one or more of the things (and on more than one occasion) in this horse meme.

Haltering the Horse Assessment and Tips

In this horse learning video in the Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series, Alternative Horsemanship shares insight into how the quality of the catching and haltering of the horse affects the quality of the session. The Remote Horse Coach highlights recognizing the subtle horse behavior that offers feedback to understand the equine's mental, spatial, and physical defensive triggers that lead to anticipative, tension-filled, fleeing responses. She also highlights how changing the horse's expectation of patterns during human interaction can bring to light if he is offering a mindless conditioned response versus having the ability to think, adapt, search, and try for what the human is asking. https://youtu.be/jBPCFZ1ZVfw

Tips for Improving Horse Skills

Tips for Resetting Your Breathing and Releasing Tension at the Halt
(Mounted or Unmounted)

Only when realizing it, many riders hold their breath quite frequently when interacting with or riding the horse.
This Unintentional simple act creates continuous containment of the horse due to the rigidity the human then carries in their body causing constant chaos, and miscommunication with the horse.

Pressure and Horses

Pressure & Horses

I’ve never had an “English” language conversation with a horse, but over the years I feel that I’ve found some degree of a “common language” with which I use to communicate with them. I explain to students there is no “one” way to do things, and I always tell people “take what you like, leave what you don’t” from any learning situation. I finished reading a horse blog the other day and realized that in this day and age, I don’t think you can participate in any aspect of the horse world without hearing the word “pressure” about communicating with the horse.
I was thinking about what “pressure” might mean to others; ideas and questions started to pop into my head.

"Letting Go" to Feel of the Horse

Learning the commonly taught mechanics to work with a horse from the ground or how to ride can be a challenge. It is also what most folks limit their horse education and goals to, with no understanding of the horse or his behaviors.

"Letting go" of one's emotional chaos, hopefulness, unreasonable expectations, and mental distractions before being in proximity to the horse, allows acknowledgment of what the horse is experiencing during the interaction. This then gives the human guidance on what needs to be addressed to help the horse better.

"Letting go" of self-imposed or society's traditionally taught hurried, repetitious, patterns, have-tos or "horse training rules", allows for unexpected Opportunities that can often become trust-building experiences between the human and the horse.
The more we learn to "let go," the more present in the moment and available we are to observe, experiment, and adapt which is then mirrored in the horse's willingness toward our requests.

Horse Behavior: Imposing at the gate

In this horse learning video, Alternative Horsemanship The Remote Horse Coach shares a young horse who is imposing upon the human as they approach the gate. This Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series episode highlights the importance of recognizing the dangers involved with a horse that is constantly spatially imposing on the human, especially for future scenarios if the equine is emotionally triggered, and how this can evolve into increasingly dangerous behaviors.

Watch now: https://youtu.be/gCOzmjk_hd8?si=kBO1WCVSFR4pGZ-I

Unwanted Horse Behavior Problems Symptom vs Issue- Unasked for Backing

Ask the Trainer... Q & A Unwanted Behaviors- Backing

"Hi, I just bought another quarter horse. When I went to check her out, 2 different people, a man and a lady got on her to ride, she too a step or two back. I got her home, tried to mount her, and she just keep backing up. I tried for about an hour to go get on her and she keeps backing up. I tried to do this in my field. She let me put the saddle on her easy and the bridle. I tried on 2 different days. I don't have a round pen, should I try to do it in the stall next just to get on and off of her a few times? Thanks for your help."
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