MK Equine PTY LTD in Ellerston, New South Wales | Horse riding school

MK Equine PTY LTD

Locality: Ellerston, New South Wales

Phone: +61 437 977 225

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• Sport & recreation
• Sports & fitness instruction
• Horse trainer
• Horse riding school

22.01.2022 Keep an eye on the page for updates - very excited about this one and I can't wait to share mine and my OTT's journey to Cowgirls Gathering at Kilkivan QLD! What a super initiative promoting the versatility of the Off the Track Thoroughbred. I'm thrilled to be involved. Head over to the Cowgirls Gathering page and check out this awesome event. HAPPY EASTER everyone!

18.01.2022 There are still places available in this clinic. Please get in touch if you're interested. It's a wonderful opportunity.

07.01.2022 Just recently I was at a clinic and there was one particular 17 yr old horse that was quite shut down. He wouldn’t interact with people wouldn’t sniff, his ea...rs were still and if a new person got on or off him he had an angry look but didn’t do anything. The owner had been told various things. When she bought him, she was told he was beginner savvy but that she had to make him do what she asked. In a horsemanship clinic she was told when she lunges him, to push harder when she sends him out because he would come quite close; and then push his hip out to move his hindquarter around. Over the 2 day clinic with me, I helped her understand why her horse wasn’t motivated and how to help him. Her horse wasn’t letting her in this the owner was aware of. The tension he carried and lack of confidence that he had that was due to people is not an easy thing to hear. Sadly, I see so many horses like this. It really troubles me a lot that people are still told to train horses in a way that causes so much mental strain. Like people, horses naturally move to where they are thinking. If I placed a fresh coffee on the table beside you, you would look towards it before going to get it. Any training that involves the horse either constantly thinking on the pressure or the trainer can be damaging. The reason is because this training removes the right of the horse to think away and removes their right to search. There is more awareness now about horses in states of learned helplessness (shutting down is a form of this). This is great. But I still see too much training that is not helping these horses come out of this state to be interactive with people in their own training environment. This is what I try to do. Helping these horses can be difficult depending on the depth and length of time they have been shut down. Searching and thinking through situations/ pressure is quite a natural thing for a horse to do and they are quite capable of doing it. A happy (not shut down) horse regulates its own anxiety levels because they are more connected to us and interactive with their environment. This makes it much easier for us to also help them regulate their anxiety as their leader. Shut down horses on the other hand don’t regulate their anxiety very well if they get a shot of worry in their cup, they hold it in they don’t tip it out. A lot of them carry nearly a full cup of worry around with them all the time. All it takes is something to happen to fill the cup and then the horse comes out of its shut down state in a panic. It is much harder for them to let go and think a new thought; and much harder for us to connect with them to help them. I have heard people say that pressure and flooding shuts down horses; and you see this commonly in bad desensitizing. I also know that if people are aware that they have a shut down horse, taking the pressure away and not putting them under pressure is a way to help open their horses up. But there is more to it than pressure. Pressure can help; too much pressure is damaging. However I don’t see horses that have been shut down by pressure - but more from the application of pressure taking their right to think and express away from them. Their desire, that expression of thought, allows them to not shut down. What people miss is that a transition is not just a change of direction or speed; it is a change of thought. We can shut a horse down through flooding (eg desensitizing, or using our reins and our legs incorrectly) and by using our energy in ground work incorrectly. We can shut down horses through liberty; and we can shut them down through pulling carts and by riding them. No matter what we do if we continuously stop a horse from being allowed to make decisions to search we risk it disappearing into the shell of the shut down silence. The mechanical, non-expressive shut-down horse hides from us and our training. They operate, and may be very obedient and easy to ride or train but none of them are soft. They may feel light to cue’s but they carry a level of brace and stiffness in their movements. Long term, they are more prone to injury. I see and feel their tension its not that one exercise or task makes them tense they carry tension around people all the time. The horses that arrive at my clinics with extreme behaviour on the end of a lead rope, on tip toes etc are much easier to help because they are open and telling us what they are feeling. I get more people at clinics seeking help from a horse that seems crazy: their owners feel unsafe, so they source help. But we need to recognize how our horses feel not necessarily just consider what we feel - and maybe seek help for them. The horse at the clinic was completely unable to search. He would not think forward. It was almost impossible for me to get him to carry a soft forward thought. His mind was either stuck on the pressure or in the future (a destination where he thought he would feel better). He didn’t ever feel good where he was. If I put legs on him, he would move away from the legs; if I applied rein, he would move off the rein the whole time he was ridden he felt that he was just moving away from pressure. The only time that he thought forward was when the gate to the arena was open and he saw other horses leaving and his thoughts went forwards towards the gate. As the horses left, his separation anxiety grew (pressure) and he searched for a way to get with them. This is an example of where pressure opened him up. The pressure from separation anxiety helped him open up and search. If we can allow them to search then add certain boundaries so that they can direct their own thoughts into something that may start to come back in line with our ideas, then we will have an interactive horse and education does not come a trap. As trainers or horse owners, we are working from 2 ends of a spectrum. One end is that we have to listen to our horses: how we approach them, watch for their tiny signals; and respect these (eg only approaching when they allow us in). Listening needs to become second nature to any horse person / any horse interaction. Listening to our horses is a responsibility. On the other end of the spectrum is how we train. This is how we set up pressures and releases; where we put boundaries and how clear they are; and how we offer safety and connection through our strength and leadership. We need to have both to help them in our human environment: listening allows the horse to communicate with us without shutting it down; training will help them to understand: how to search, responsibility, think through pressure and our guidance. Whilst we are training, we have to observe clear thought changes and our horses making decisions not just rely on our horses being held up by pressure. It is our responsibility to listen AND to change the way we are around them to help them feel better. (Note on photos: these were all shut down horses. The ear position in the bay horse is quite common with shut down horses; the paint carried a lot of tension and was very anxious - sniffing me was a big deal for him.)

05.01.2022 Zitat aus "His way of Life": " Fredy Knie verstand eine Menge von der Psyche des Pferdes und war mit jeder Faser seines Körpers ganz bei dem Pferd, mit dem er g...erade arbeitete. Er verständigte sich mental mit seinen Tieren, und nichts konnte ihn bei dieser Einswerdung ablenken. Seine ganze positive Energie schenkte er dem Pferd.(...) Ich führte das Tier in die Halle, zog den Gurt an und wollte aufsteigen. In diesem Moment brüllte Fredy Knie mich an: "Nüssli!" Erschrocken drehte ich mich um: "Ja, was ist?" "Bist du wahnsinnig? Was ist dir denn über die Leber gelaufen?" "Nichts." Ich wusste wirklich nicht, warum er so aufgebracht war. "Mit dem, was du da gerade ausstrahlst, geht man nicht ans Pferd! Wenn du mit Pferden zu tun hast, musst du eine positive Ausstrahlung haben, eine sehr positive, sonst geht nix. Und dann musst du wissen, dass die Pferde dich genau beobachten, sie spüren nicht nur deine Aura, sondern sie können einen Fünftel Millimeter Gesichtsveränderung bei dir feststellen. Glaube mir!" Ich habe das damals nicht geglaubt, aber seine Worte sind mir immer in Erinnerung geblieben und später, zwanzig oder dreißig Jahre später, hat die Universität in Ohio genau das festgestellt: dass Pferde unwahrscheinlich gute Beobachter sind, kleinste Veränderungen unserer Körperhaltung und unserer Mimik wahrnehmen, lesen und für sich deuten." See more