Transcript: Horsefulness Training podcast-episode 24

Welcome to another episode of the Horsefulness Training Podcast. I’m karine vandenborre, horse trainer, horsewomen coach and founder of horsefulness training.

I know, It's been a while. It’s been a whiole that I have made a new podcast episode.
The main reason is a good one. I ran the first round of my newest program, Liberty Connection & Beyond, and I worked closely with those students for several months. That kind of closeness takes time, but it was so much fun and the results were fantastic. I loved helping these students develop a true natural connecton with their horse. 

But, There was something else going on too, which caused me to pauze the podcast. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in january, and I wanted to be there for her - really there, not just checking in between other things. So a lot had to wait. The podcast was one of those things.
The good news is, She's doing well now; she is On her way to recovery. She stayed so positive through all of it, and I'm , honestly, very proud of her.

So. The podcast is back. And today's episode is one I've wanted to record for a while, because it’s about a students of mine that asked for my help with her horse.
The student herself already had quite some experience with horses, and luckely because her horse was not a beginner’s mare. Her mare bit often, sometimes she would kick out or came towards her, attacking her when she entered her field. And her owner sometimes was afraid or her. Sje didn’t know what to do.
So she tried things. Asked for advice from trainers, on forums, to friends who meant well and so on. It was very difficult for her to walk into that field not knowing which version of the mare she was going to get that day.

One session, she told me something she wasn't proud of. The mare tried biting her again, And before her mind could even catch up with what was happening, her hand had already moved. She hit her horse hard in the face.
This was not out of cruelty. It was out of a reflex. Out of the kind of fear that lives in the body already for a long time, and then there is something happening that causes you to react instead of thinking.

And the thing is, this lady was experienced enough to know that the problem wasn’t the horse, so she wasn't asking me to fix the mare.
She was asking me if something was wrong with her, why couldn’t she help her horse, why was she so bad, that she was hitting her horse?
I sat with that question for a moment before I answered. Because I know how many women carry that exact question, alone, at night, replaying something that lasted two seconds and cost them weeks of sleep. Actually, in my online liberty connection & beyond program that was running, there was a students with a similar problem, a horse that bit and kicked, somethimes, and not knowing what to do about it, so sometimes just hitting back.

Here's what nobody tells you about a horse like this. It isn't just dangerous. It's quietly, humiliating. Every bite, every kick, chips away at the version of yourself that thought you were capable. That thaught your were Calm. That you were Good with horses. And slowly, you start walking into the field already braced. Already failing, in your own head, before anything has even happened. You stop trusting your gut, because your gut kept getting it wrong. Or so it felt.
The woman that asked my help had advice. Plenty of it. None of it touched what was actually happening between them , because none of it looked at her. Only at the mare.
I want to tell you now, because I know you're wondering, that the biting stopped. The kicking stopped. Not overnight, and not because of a technique I handed her. It changed over the weeks we worked together with liberty connection work, as she learned to see what was actually happening between her and that mare, underneath all of it.

So let me say this clearly, because I think it needs to be said
If you've ever hit back, out of fear, out of frustration, out of reflex, and you then hated yourself for it after, you are not the only one. And I want you to understand something about what actually happens in such a moment, because it matters.

A reflex is not a choice. When you're out of solutions, and you feel unsafe, your body does not wait for permission. It reacts to keep you safe, to not getting hurt. That is not weakness. That is biology. It only becomes a conscious choice , a real choice, made in that fraction of a second , once you actually know, in your body, what to do instead. Until you know that, many people will react out of a reflex.
That doesn't make you a bad horsewoman. It makes you human.

I'm not going to walk you through every part of what changed for this woman today But I do want to leave you with three things - not steps, not techniques, three shifts in how you look at this, that can start changing something for you right away.

The first shift is that your reflex is not the truth about your horse. It's information about your own nervous system in that moment. When you hit back, you weren't responding to the mare — you were responding to your own fear, discharging in the fastest way your body knew how. The moment you can see that clearly, without shame, is the moment you stop trying to fix the horse and start actually looking at what's happening in you when she bites. That's not a technique. That's just honesty.

Now let’s talk about the second shift. A horse that bites, kicks, or attacks unpredictably is not a horse with a bad character. It’s often a horse who has learned, somewhere, that this is how to stays safe or how to protect it’s own boundaries. Every single time you meet that behavior with more force, even out of fear, even by accident, you confirm to the horse was right to be afraid. And every time you can meet it instead with confidence and calmness you'renot faking, so real steadiness you've actually built in yourself , you start to prove the horse wrong. This is the only way that actually leads somewhere.

The third shift is that you do not have to trust yourself completely before you start. You only have to be willing to look and understand. Most women wait until they feel confident again before they try anything new with a horse like this. But confidence doesn't come first here. Understanding comes first. Confidence is what grows once you understand what's actually happening between you and your horse, and once you know what to do, instead of just instead reacting.
That's it. Three shifts. Different way of looking at a moment that maybe made you feel like the worst version of yourself.

If you've ever stood in a field feeling like you were the problem. You weren't the problem in the way you thought you were. It was never that something is wrong with you as a person, or that you're simply not cut out for a horse like this. What was missing is understanding, Understanding that hadn't happened yet.after that it’s about knowing how to help your horse feel safe, that’s communication. That’s how you build confidence. In understaning and knowing how to communicate.
Then the reflexes stop. 

So just like her, and like so many of the women in my programs who've stood exactly where she stood, reactive, ashamed, out of options — you can do this too. Not by trying harder to control yourself in the moment. By understanding your horse, building real communication, and letting a natural connection grow between you, the way it did for her, the way it has for every single one of them.

It's not a talent some women have and others don't. It's a way of seeing that anyone can learn.
Thank you for listening. If this touched something in you, share it with a woman who might need to hear it too, or leave a comment. I always love hearing from you!

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