The NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast

Your horse grabs the fence board. Arches the neck. Pulls back, and you hear that low gulp of air.

What is that horse telling you?

For years we called horse cribbing a stable vice. Something to stop. Something to strap a collar around.

Dr. Carissa Wickens has spent her career listening to it instead. She is an associate professor of animal sciences at the University of Florida, and horse cribbing has held her curiosity since she walked into a field of ten cribbing horses as a PhD student at Auburn.

What she has found is tender, and a little unsettling.

Cribbing looks like coping. When these horses are allowed to crib, their heart rate and stress hormones tend to drop. Take it away, and many start weaving, pacing the fence line, calling for their friends.

The need stays. Only the outlet moves.

And once the behavior settles in, it seems to live on its own. The ulcer heals. The diet improves. The horse joins a herd. The cribbing remains, because the brain has learned something.

We talk about the study that found cribbers carry their own pattern of dopamine receptors. Why Thoroughbreds, Warmbloods and Quarter Horses turn up so often in the research. Why weaning is when so many young horses begin. How a high-grain, low-forage diet multiplies the risk. And the chicken-and-egg question every owner asks: do ulcers cause cribbing, or does cribbing cause ulcers? Carissa gives the honest answer, which is that the science is still out.

I bring my own lens to this one too. As someone who is neurodivergent, I see a coping behavior the instant I see a horse crib. Carissa brings the research to meet it.

Three words keep coming back. Forage. Friends. Freedom.

Everything else rests on that foundation.

If you have ever stood at the fence frustrated with a cribbing horse, this conversation may let you see that horse with new eyes. As Carissa puts it, when behavior changes, look past the horse. "It's something that's not going right in the horse's world."

Dr. Carissa Wickens is an associate professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Florida, where she leads equine extension and research in horse behavior and welfare. She earned her PhD at Michigan State University, studying cribbing alongside Dr. Cindy McCall at Auburn University.

In this episode you'll learn

Why a cribbing horse's heart rate drops while it cribs.

The dopamine receptor study that found cribbers' brains wired their own way.

What happens the day a crib collar goes on: weaving, pacing, calling for friends.

Why weaning, around five months, is when roughly one young horse in ten begins.

The diet change after weaning that multiplied cribbing risk fourfold.

Why the behavior outlives the ulcer that may have started it.

The questions Carissa asks first in every behavior consult, from diet to sleep to saddle fit.

Chapters

0:00 Cold open: "I can't crib right now, but I need to do something"

0:29 Meet Dr. Carissa Wickens

2:06 How a field of cribbing horses started a career

6:26 What a stereotypy is, and why wild horses don't crib

11:36 Coping, not a vice: dopamine and the cribbing horse's brain

17:58 Born sensitive: genetics, Thoroughbreds and what a crib collar triggers

25:10 Weaning, diet and when horse cribbing begins

31:13 Why cribbing outlives its cause: OCD, crib collars and ulcers

39:59 The gut-brain connection

44:38 Forage first: what horse owners can do

48:33 Rapid fire

Episode Sponsor: Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Last year my horse G slid down the side of a mountain in the Tetons.

He came out of it okay. I carried it for a lot longer.

Gillian Larson has spent her twenties and now her thirties trail riding the backcountry from Mexico to Canada, more than once, on the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide, the Arizona Trail and the Colorado Trail. She calls herself a thru-rider. She recently raced across Patagonia in the inaugural Pass of Tears and finished second.

I traveled to Gillian's backyard in California to talk about trail riding at that scale. The mountain horse who reads the trail fifty feet ahead. The horse who pours gasoline on the fire. Two five-year-old Criollos nicknamed the Ferrari and the tractor.

And then I asked her the question I had been carrying since the Tetons.

How do you live with a decision that put your horse at risk?

Her answer is one of the most honest things I have heard about horses.

Gillian says the guilt belongs. It comes with being a good horse owner. You sit with it, you ask what you would do next time, and then you let yourself go back out. Horses forgive our flubs with a generosity that is, in her words, "immense and wild."

We talk about her first ride from Mexico to Canada at 22, when good horses carried a rider who was still learning. Why she went back and rode it again. Why the horse world shows the clean version of every trip and hides the scrambles. And why second place in Patagonia feels like a win to her, because she rode a race she can stand behind.

If you have ever lain awake replaying a call you made with your horse, this one is for you.

The question that stays with me is the one Gillian lives by.

Was I a good teammate to my horse today?

Gillian Larson is a thru-rider who travels long-distance backcountry routes on horseback. She first rode from Mexico to Canada at 22 and has since completed the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Arizona Trail, the Colorado Trail and the John Muir Trail, along with her own route from the Grand Canyon through Utah to the Wyoming border.

In this episode you'll learn

• How a seasoned mountain horse reads the trail thirty to fifty feet ahead, and how a rookie fixates on the next step.
• The horse who pours gasoline on the fire, and the one who freezes and looks to you.
• Racing the Pass of Tears on two five-year-old Criollos, the Ferrari and the tractor.
• The weigh-in, the waypoints, and the riders who dropped gear and called it kindness to the horse.
• G's slide in the Tetons, and the guilt that followed Noëlle into the Wind Rivers.
• Why Gillian rode Mexico to Canada a second time, and how it felt to finally carry her share.
• The most undervalued skill a rider can have, according to someone who has ridden thousands of backcountry miles.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome: the Wind Rivers and why the backcountry grounds us 5:18 What a thru-rider is, and how it differs from long riding 12:05 The Pass of Tears: racing across Patagonia 16:15 The Ferrari and the tractor: two five-year-old Criollos 20:56 What makes a good mountain horse 26:00 Criollos, estancias and making weight 35:06 Money, ethics and defining success 39:43 Guilt, mistakes and the horse you put at risk 50:19 Hyper-fixation: watching a horse after an injury 53:04 Why the horse world hides its mistakes 59:34 Being the partner your horses deserve 1:07:27 Rapid fire

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

What does it cost to go and find out who you are?

For me, it cost a house.

I sold mine to travel 25,000 miles across North America with my horses, Lady and G, and I filmed all of it. That road became Unbridled, a six-part horse documentary series. Episodes 1 and 2 are on YouTube now.

This time the microphone turned around.

Jen Landon, actor, Yellowstone cast member, horsewoman, and the person who owns Shorty, took the host's chair and asked me the questions I usually ask everyone else.

She asked why I nearly stopped filming. So many times on that trip I looked at the footage and heard the same three sentences. I'm not good enough. This isn't good enough. No one's gonna care.

I kept the cameras rolling anyway. I'm so glad I did.

Jen tells the story of how Unbridled reached her. My husband, Ben, looked at me and made me promise to send it to her. I thought that was gauche. I sent it. She planned to watch two episodes as a favor to a new friend, and she watched the whole season.

She compared it to Chef's Table. Jen calls herself a bad cook, and she still walked away from every episode of that show with something for her own life and her craft as an actor. She says Unbridled did the same for her. The horses are the backdrop for a bigger lesson.

That is my hope for this horse documentary. That someone who has lived their whole life away from horses watches it and sees who I became because of the way Lady and G live as horses, every single day.

We talk about process-based horsemanship and outcome-based horsemanship, and how far that idea reaches past the arena.

"If you focus on the process, then the outcome is more expansive than you could possibly imagine. But if you focus on the outcome, then you're limited to the outcome you can imagine as the person you are in the moment."

Then we go to Texas.

Florida humbled me. I left it feeling small. And then I cut cows with Lyndi Birch and Barbra Schulte, on Jen's own horse, Shorty, who carried me like the all-star he is. Barbra is nurture. Lyndi is nature. Two sides of one coin, and between them I learned what I now call cowgirl confidence. Thinking confident is one thing. Being confident lives in the body.

Jen adds the piece I keep coming back to. Cowgirl confidence has fun in it.

When you sell the house, where do you find home?

Inside ourselves. In our horses. In the people who show up for us.

If you have a big, scary dream, you are more capable than you think. And you will be amazed by the allies, the people and the animals, who arrive to support you on your hero's journey.

Episodes 1 and 2 of Unbridled are on my YouTube channel. Episodes 3 through 6 live on NF+, and you can buy Season 1 on its own, separate from membership. Episode 4 is Texas: Shorty, the cows, Lyndiy and Barbra.

Watch Unbridled Episodes 1: https://youtu.be/XI6lxdaSM7Y

and Episode 2: https://youtu.be/X0xOcksn7TQ

Buy Unbridled all 6 Episodes of Season 1 on NF+: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/IpBkLxUk8AA

About Jen Jen Landon is an actor and horsewoman known to Yellowstone audiences. She worked cattle on her horse, Shorty, between takes on the Yellowstone set, and Shorty appears in Unbridled Episode 4 in Texas with Lyndy Burch and Barbra Schulte. She is a recent NF+ member who watches lessons before heading to the barn.

Episodee Sponsored by: YETI

Made for early mornings in the barn and long days in the saddle. Whether you're hauling feed, chasing daylight on the trail, or loading up for a weekend on the road, YETI coolers and drinkware are built to handle it.

No shortcuts. No compromise.

Just gear that works as hard as you do.

Explore more at https://www.yeti.com/ | @YETI | https://www.facebook.com/Yeti/

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

I wrote my mare a letter the day she came to me. Out in the field with her, with G grazing nearby, I read it to her out loud for the first time. It is the most honest thing I have said about horsemanship in fourteen years.

Fourteen years I spent interviewing the horse world's best — the trainers and riders everyone turns to for answers. Then Lady arrived, more wild than tame, and I stepped in front of the camera to say the one thing the interviewer's chair never let me say: I don't know.

That admission is where Unbridled begins.

This is the solo letter underneath the whole series — the private writing that became the reason I made it. Lady came to me more questioning than compliant, unwilling to perform a smaller version of herself for anyone's comfort. Loving her made it impossible to stay safely behind the microphone. She asked me harder questions than any guest ever had. Not "can you make me do this," but "how can you meet me if you will not meet yourself?"

Somewhere in there my horsemanship began to change, and so did I. I call it rewilding — taking the bridle off my horse and the invisible one off myself at once. Fit in. Obey. Be manageable. Do not become too much. Lady answers every one of those instructions by simply being who she is.

When the bridle comes off, the truth comes out. Without the equipment and the familiar measures of success, what remains? Two bodies. Two nervous systems. Two living beings trying to understand each other across the line between species.

This letter is about worthiness — and how Lady taught me it was never a thing I earn by knowing enough. It lives in the willingness to listen, to repair, to begin again.

If you have ever loved a horse who would not let you hide, this one is for you.

Unbridled is a six-part series following me and my horses across North America, asking whether partnership can go somewhere freer than control. Lady is the reason it exists.

▶️ Watch Unbridled — Catch the SEASON PREMIERE on Youtube MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 AT 4PM ET

and binge the whole season! at NF+ https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

In This Episode:

• Why she almost didn't make Unbridled — the fear that fourteen years of interviews still left her unworthy of her own horse.
• The gap between a horse obeying you and a horse choosing you, and why only one survives the bridle coming off.
• What Lady asks that no technique can answer: how can you meet me if you will not meet yourself?
• Rewilding horsemanship — taking the restraints off the horse and off yourself in the same motion.
• Why "I don't know" became the beginning of her authority instead of the end of it.
• The promises she wrote to a horse she had dreamed about before they ever met.

Chapters :

• 0:00 — Out in the field with Lady (and G)
• 1:00 — Why she writes letters to her horses
• 2:31 — "Dear Lady" — the letter begins
• 3:52 — The mare unlike any she'd met
• 5:10 — When the bridle comes off, the truth comes out
• 8:00 — Rewilding her horsemanship, rewilding herself
• 9:00 — The Fool, the threshold, the heroine's journey
• 11:37 — What Unbridled actually became
• 13:02 — "You did not come here to heal me"
• 14:50 — Worthiness, and the horsewoman she's becoming

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

The same patience it takes to earn a horse's trust is the patience Evan the Groom brings to teaching the rest of us. He came to horses the way most people never do — from the outside, with no background, terrified of the biggest one in the barn — and turned that beginner's-eye view into an education. Today he does the horse grooming and horse care in his wife's dressage business, and the horse world knows him as the viral comedian who makes the barn make sense to people who have never touched a horse.

This is a No Stupid Questions episode, and it is one of my favorites we have done. Evan explains horses the way he once needed them explained to him — no jargon, no ego, just plain answers to the things beginners are too embarrassed to ask out loud.

He was an engineer turning algae into protein. Then marketing. Then the pandemic took his job, his wife Ashley needed help at the barn, and he picked up a camera. The videos were meant to make his own family laugh — people who knew nothing about horses. Instead they built a following, and somewhere in there Evan became something he never trained to be: an educator.

We get into the skill he rates above all others and hears discussed least — observation, watching for the thing that is off today — and how six years of it on the ground is only now showing up in the saddle. His advice for every "horse husband" and non-horse partner out there: just support that. Why he would rather make a video so ridiculous you remember it than one only horse people understand, and how a loogie teaches you the word "hock." The groom's real job when no one is watching: being the horse's constant. And the mare who taught him the most — a year to earn her trust, and then, he says, she gives you everything.

There is also a talking pony named Piper, a children's book about a lost little bird, and — as of last week — his first ride off the lunge line.

If someone in your life doesn't understand the horse thing — or if you're the one at the rail — send them this.

Evan is a groom, content creator, and horse-care specialist in Southern California, where he works alongside his wife, dressage trainer Ashley Donant. He built his following making horses funny and reachable for people who have never touched one.

Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

A horse has two choices. Learn to accept the bit, or fight it for the rest of its life.

That's Steffen Peters, and this is the half where his hands are on the reins. If you heard Part 1, you met the man — six Olympics, the dark place, the way back. This one is the horse training — the groundwork up through Grand Prix. Forty years of it, distilled into the way he starts a five-year-old and the way he brought a brand-new stallion into the ring after two weeks together.

Here's the thing that runs through all of it: he doesn't push a horse into the bridle. Ever. He thinks ninety-five percent of horses are ridden with too much contact, and he'll tell you why "more hind legs, more into the hand" was never the answer for him. What he wants is suppleness, self-carriage, lightness — a soft rein you can see, and a horse that carries itself instead of leaning on your hand.

We get into where that starts, and it is earlier than you would think. The groundwork — on a lead rope, in a halter — the horse that stops when you stop without a pull on the rope. He calls it cooperation, not submission, and he means the difference exactly. From there it's the walk work most riders rush past, the half halt that becomes a reflex, the spur as a reminder and never a crutch, and the three aids he says are the only tools you really have.

There's the new stallion — fourteen, extremely smart, the horse that trained his rider to say "don't quit." There's Totilas, and what it takes to watch someone beat you and mean it when you call it good. And there's the compliment two vets paid him without knowing he could hear: at Steffen's barn, they can't make any money — because of the walk breaks, and what they save.

If Part 1 was how he learned to manage himself, this is how he manages the conversation with the horse. Same man. Now the method.

Steffen Peters is a German-born American dressage rider, a six-time Olympian and multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the most decorated dressage athletes in United States history. He returned to competition this year, opening his season aboard a new stallion with wins across the Prix St. Georges, the Intermediaire I, and the Grand Prix.

Chapters:

0:00 Riding Becomes Training 01:39 Flow State With New Stallion 02:19 Suppleness Over Hind Legs 04:37 Stop the Nagging Leg 05:52 Feel Over Looks 08:16 How Much Contact 11:57 Western Lightness Lessons 13:45 Warmup Is Training 17:30 Mindful Aids and Tools 20:38 Reliable Tests and Nerves 22:32 Refining Pressure Release 25:05 Walk Work and Discipline 27:12 Quiet Coaching Shift 27:54 Trainer Judge Clinics 29:06 From Thinking To Reflex 31:02 Flow State In Competition 34:09 Building Presence On Ground 37:46 Mindfulness In Daily Life 41:04 Rapid Fire Questions 47:59 New Stallion Partnership 50:26 Walk Breaks And Longevity

Want to go deeper into the training behind a clean, confident flying change?

In his new NOËLLE FLOYD Masterclass, six-time Olympian Steffen Peters breaks down the entire process—from developing the right canter, balance and response to the aids to introducing the change and troubleshooting tension, anticipation, crookedness and changes that are late behind.

Learn more and watch Training the Flying Change with Steffen Peters: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/flying-changes-with-steffen-peters

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

You get the thing you chased for five years.

And the ride is the worst one you've ever put down.

Kasey Perry-Glass reached the Olympic Games on the horse she bought to take her there — Doublé — and came home into a depression that blindsided her. This is the conversation under the medal photo. What it costs to want something that badly, and what she found on the far side of it.

She married a cowboy. Dana Glass starts colts and takes in the horses other people gave up on — the rearers, the buckers, the bolters, carrying baggage nobody unpacked. Two worlds under one roof: her classical dressage, his groundwork. What one taught the other is most of this hour.

We get into the perfectionism that dressage rewards and then punishes — a score out of 100 that stays out of reach, a sport where the best mark is a C or a D on a good day. Why she stopped posting to social media. The line Martin Black uses, let them cook, and why ending a ride a little early beats grinding it into the ground. Pain versus behavior, and the checklist she taught Dana: clear the ulcers, the hindgut, the teeth, before anyone calls it attitude.

Then the mental game she learned the hard way. Finding her number with Annette Paterakis — the exact pitch of nerves and calm that lets her ride her best. The work with Dr. Jenny Susser. Blacking out in the saddle, ten minutes gone, grinding the same movement. Boundaries. Getting told she was "too nice" for this sport, and what she kept anyway.

Behind the vertical, point of balance, throughness without a single draw rein — she explains the dressage the way she explained it to Dana, the sport he first met through her.

This one is for anyone who has wanted something so badly it made them small, and found their way back to the size they actually are.

Kasey Perry-Glass is a US Olympic dressage rider — team bronze at Rio 2016 (America's first Olympic dressage medal since 2004) and team silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games — who competes as Kasey Perry. Her longtime partner was the Grand Prix gelding Doublé (Goerklintgaards Dublet), now retired; she currently campaigns Heartbeat W.P. She and her husband, cowboy and colt-starter Dana Glass, run Two Worlds Equestrian, joining Western horsemanship and Grand Prix dressage under one program.

To Learn more about Kasey Perry-Glass: website | instagram | facebook

In This Episode You'll Learn

• What it costs to reach an Olympic Games and ride your worst test there, and the depression Kasey came home to
• The perfectionism dressage rewards and then punishes, chasing a score out of 100 in a sport where a great mark is a C
• Let them cook: why ending a ride a little early beats grinding a movement into the ground
• The pain-versus-behavior checklist Kasey taught Dana — ulcers, hindgut, teeth, before anyone calls it attitude
• Finding your number with sports psychologist Annette Paterakis — the exact pitch of nerves and calm that lets you ride your best
• Blacking out in the saddle, ten minutes gone on the same movement, and the mental work that pulled her out
• Behind the vertical made plain: the poll as the highest point, and why a horse's own point of balance can't be copied and pasted
• Throughness without a single draw rein, and how groundwork gave an Olympic rider tools her dressage babies never had

Chapters:

0:00 How Kasey met a cowboy 4:51 What Dana does: colt starting & unpacking a horse's trauma 8:41 Groundwork, the rope halter & being a beginner again 14:34 [ad: Total Feeds] 15:14 The perfectionism dressage rewards and punishes 19:51 Let them cook: ending on a good note 23:17 Pain vs. behavior: what we blame on the horse 29:05 Bringing two worlds together 30:36 Welfare, eliminations & the "blood" rule 33:44 [ad: Noëlle's Substack] 36:07 Judging transparency & educating the viewer 39:21 Behind the vertical, explained 41:44 Point of balance & throughness without draw reins 44:47 Training aids as tools; groundwork informs the saddle 49:34 The Olympics — and the depression after 53:44 Patience in a same-day world 57:22 The mental game: finding your number 1:02:29 Boundaries, thick skin & remaking herself 1:07:19 Tough vs. strong; raising horses and kids 1:12:50 Rapid-fire questions

Episode Sponsor: Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc. The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability insurance. Visit https://www.connaway.net/ | @connawayassociates | facebook.com/connawayassociatesequine

Episode Sponsor: YETI

Made for early mornings in the barn and long days in the saddle. Whether you're hauling feed, chasing daylight on the trail, or loading up for a weekend on the road, YETI coolers and drinkware are built to handle it.

No shortcuts. No compromise.

Just gear that works as hard as you do.

Explore more at https://www.yeti.com/ | @YETI | https://www.facebook.com/Yeti/

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

You think the cow is the hard part.

She isn't. You are.

You get ahead of her to turn her, and she beats you to the herd every time. You spur, you pull, the horse's head comes up, and now nobody is watching the cow at all.

Martin Black has read millions of head of cattle, and the horse training lesson underneath all of it is the one almost everybody gets backwards. To cut one cow out, you leave her alone and stir the herd around her. To turn her, you turn away — not toward. The horse rates the cow the way a foal learns to rate its mother in the first thirty minutes of life. It's already in there. Our job is to stay out of the road so the horse can use it.

This is Part 2 of my week with Martin on his ranch in the Great Basin. Part 1 is the ranch, the horses, and reading the moment — start there.

We work the balance point and the flight zone, and why a cow reads your horse's head like a horn and your horse's hip like something softer. Why getting in front of a cow to block her only sends her faster. What Tom Dorrance told Martin decades ago about turning tail, and how that one idea makes a green horse handier by the day. Gene Lewis, his mother's cousin, and jumpers that rate a fence with nobody telling them where to put their feet.

Then the part that reshaped how I keep my own horses. Turnout over stalls. Bare feet when the ground allows. A crick to cross and rocks to pick through, because a horse who has to sort out the terrain grows savvy, and a horse who never has to stays a passenger.

Martin runs horses as a business, not a companion animal, and says his vet bills will stand against anyone's. Colic almost unheard of. Feet the ground keeps honest. It made me ask what I was really protecting when I bubble-wrapped mine.

The horse training here is subtraction, not addition. Cows think more like horses than you'd guess, and empathy runs under all of it.

Martin Black is a lifelong Great Basin horseman and stockman from a multi-generation ranching family, working in the vaquero tradition and the lineage of Tom Dorrance. He spent ten years starting young horses at Calumet Farm in Lexington and now teaches horsemanship and stockmanship through clinics and a ranch school.

If you want to go further with your own horse, NF+ has 70+ masterclasses at noellefloydplus.com or through the app link in the show notes.

In This Episode You'll Learn

• The move almost everyone gets backwards: to hold a single cow, you leave her alone and stir the herd around her
• Why getting in front of a cow to block her only sends her faster back to the herd — and what to do the instant she turns
• How a cow reads your horse's head like a horn and your horse's hip like something softer, so a leg-yield moves her where a headbutt would spook her
• What Tom Dorrance told Martin about turning tail to a cow, and how it makes a green horse rounder and handier by the day
• Gene Lewis and colts that rate a fence themselves, with nobody telling them where to put their feet
• Why a collected walk finally had a purpose the day Noelle worked cattle on Lady
• What ten years starting babies at Calumet and a lifetime in the Great Basin say about turnout, bare feet, and letting a horse sort out rough ground
• The barbed-wire story, and what a horse who navigates real terrain has that a bubble-wrapped one lacks

Chapters

0:00 Part 2: cutting a cow by leaving her alone 1:40 Holding cattle without a fence — what it takes 3:40 Sorting without stalking: keeping a cow parasympathetic 5:40 Cows think like horses — Dr. Peters & Temple Grandin 8:30 The old way wasn't the cruel way 10:40 After WWII: how the mechanized age lost the horsemanship 11:20 What a chuck wagon really was (Great Basin history) 14:34 [ad: Total Feeds] 17:49 The balance point & flight zone, explained 21:00 Rating: the foal, the herd, and the safe place 26:40 Headbutt vs. tail-butt: why a leg-yield moves a cow softer 30:40 The move most people get backwards: never turn into the cow 33:43 [ad: Noelle's Substack] 34:47 Predator habits that get in the way 37:30 Tom Dorrance on turning tail 40:50 Gene Lewis: horses that rate the jump themselves 47:00 Managing horses naturally: turnout over stalls 49:00 Barefoot when the ground allows 52:00 Rough terrain makes a savvy horse — the barbed-wire story 55:00 Horses as a business, not a companion animal 59:40 Advice for urban riders: get out of the arena

Episode Sponsor: Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

We pat our horses to tell them they did well.

Martin Black says the horse would rather we kept our hands to ourselves.

He has spent a life inside western horse training — starting close to five hundred colts a year on the same Great Basin country his family has ranched since the 1860s, seventy miles from his nearest neighbor, the road over the mountain closed all winter. And what he showed me this week is that the pat is for us. The reward the horse is after is chemical: the flood of serotonin and dopamine that arrives when pressure lifts and the body comes home to rest. Martin calls it the cocktail. Rouse the horse, bring him down, and he licks his lips — he got his drink, and he will go to that edge with you again because he knows you will take him to the bar after.

This is western horse training as one of its living masters practices it, and almost none of it looks like technique.

Martin reads a colt the way the rest of us read a single sentence — ten things at once. He calls it peripheral thinking. The predator in us locks onto the prey: the outcome, the lead change, the plan for the day. Martin holds the objective and lets the plan bend to whatever the horse hands him. The seed that wants to grow today gets watered today. The one that is not ready waits.

We talk about the hours. I could shadow him in Idaho for years and still not own his timing, because feel does not transfer. You earn it one horse at a time, and no clinic sells it.

We talk about why he trains his cattle the way his family has since the 1860s — the rodear, the old vaquero work that crossed from Spain and reached Texas two centuries late — and why a dressage horse belongs on a cow as much as any ranch gelding does.

And we go into the cowboy neuroscience of it: sympathetic arousal, homeostasis, pressure and its relief as one thing rather than two. Dr. Steve Peters pulled Martin out of a lineup for this. Martin calls himself a bartender. He once waited forty-five minutes on a traumatized cutting mare, feeling her heartbeat through the saddle horn, until she finally licked her lips and found her way home.

Part one of two. In part two, Martin takes it to the ground — reading cattle by the million, and moving one cow out of a herd by leaving her alone.

Martin Black is a Great Basin horseman and colt starter who has started close to five hundred colts a year, working the same remote Idaho country his family has ranched since the 1860s. He carries the lineage of Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt into a plainer, harder question: what does the horse in front of you need?

In This Episode You'll Learn

• Why the pat you give after a good round is for you, and what the horse is asking for instead.
• The cocktail — how serotonin and dopamine turn pressure and its release into the reward the horse remembers.
• Peripheral thinking: reading ten things at once, and why the predator in us locks onto only one.
• Why Martin holds the objective and lets the horse choose which seed grows today.
• The forty-five-minute wait on a traumatized cutting mare, and the heartbeat he felt through the saddle horn.
• The hours nobody can hand you — why feel is earned one horse at a time.

Find out more about Martin Black: website | facebook | youtube

Chapters

• 0:00 — The pat is for you, not the horse (cold open)
• 0:30 — Seventy miles from the nearest neighbor
• 5:00 — No formula fits all: hold the objective, bend the plan
• 14:38 — Peripheral thinking and the predator's focus
• 19:33 — Moving the feet: sympathetic arousal and self-preservation
• 28:45 — Why loving on your horse is for you
• 31:01 — The invitation: the cocktail, the margarita, the lick of the lips
• 39:29 — Cowboy neuroscience: pressure, relief, homeostasis
• 50:40 — The colt-starting science project
• 51:53 — Can a jumper work a cow? Stockmanship and the rodear
• 57:29 — Holding the herd without a fence — and what empathy means

Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

When I was eleven, my mom handed me The Man Who Listens to Horses.

Last week, the man who wrote it died.

Within days, the horse world also lost Alexandra Kurland — the woman who spent decades convincing us that a clicker and a handful of food belonged in serious horse training.

This is a solo episode. An essay, read aloud, on two pioneers who stood in opposite corners of horse training and still moved the same conversation forward. On join up, and what it asks of a flight animal sent around a round pen. On positive reinforcement, and why handing a horse food never automatically creates consent. On the disputed parts of Monty's story, and why we can hold gratitude and discernment at the same time.

And underneath it all, the question I keep circling: why do we need our teachers to be heroes?

We put trainers on pedestals. The flaws appear — they always do — and reverence flips to contempt overnight. Either way, the person is never allowed to be human. And pedestals are useless to horses. A pedestal has never once made a horse feel safer, calmer, or less confused about what we are asking.

I believe we are living through the biggest shift in the human-horse relationship since machines took horses out of our fields and our wars. The question used to be: can the horse do it? The question becoming ours is: what does it cost the horse to do it? Did the horse understand, or did it simply stop resisting? Does the absence of conflict mean the horse feels safe?

One day, we will be the outdated ones. The next generation will see pressure we could not recognize and pain we rationalized. I hope so. If they never outgrow us, we failed to help them see farther.

Monty Roberts and Alexandra Kurland do not need us to decide which one was right. They need us to carry the torch. And the torch is not join up. The torch is not the clicker. The torch is the responsibility to keep listening.

Thank you, Monty. Thank you, Alexandra. This one is for the lineage — and for my mom, who put that book in my hands.

In This Episode:

• Why join up is pressure and release in learning-theory terms — and why naming that honors Monty more than sainthood ever could
• The question Alexandra Kurland made possible: how do I create a learning environment where the horse becomes an active participant
• What the clicker teaches the human — poor timing, criteria that jump too fast, a missed try; the horse reports every one
• Why food on its own creates neither agency nor consent, and what positive reinforcement still demands of the person holding it
• Becky Moody at the top of dressage: trained with Carl Hester, embracing clicker work — evolution over allegiance
• The pedestal inversion: how reverence flips to contempt when the flaws appear, and why both extremes abandon the horse
• The three sentences responsible learning gets to say: this is what you made possible, this is where I believe you were wrong, this is what I will carry forward

Learn more about Monty Roberts: website | facebook | youtube

Learn more about Alexandra Kurland: website | facebook

Chapters

• 0:00 — The book that started it
• 2:30 — What positive reinforcement changed first
• 6:00 — Two truths about Monty Roberts
• 8:40 — The biggest shift since mechanization
• 13:00 — Pedestals are useless to horses
• 15:20 — The torch and the next generation

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

You measure with your hand while he stands there.

Then he takes a step, and the horse you measured is gone.

Saddle fit is horse care. I rode my whole life before anyone said that to me plainly.

I met Letitia Glenn, founder of Contour Saddlery™, at Road to the Horse. She had seen footage of me riding, and the first thing she thought—which she then said to my face, out loud—was that I did not know what I did not know about saddles. She was right. I brought her to Florida on the hottest day of that summer, rode in one of her saddles, and felt my mare Lady's scapula move with a freedom it never had on the whole road trip.

Letitia came to horses at 47, with a two-year-old Paso Fino stallion named Echo, and has spent the last quarter century asking one question: Why do so many saddles fit a standing horse, yet interfere with the horse once it begins to move?

She found part of the answer backpacking. Fifty-five pounds, eight miles, the Rocky Mountains. Picture the corner of a book pressed into your spine. You will contort away from it. Horses do the same. Pressure behind the scapula changes posture, alters movement through the entire body, and creates compensation patterns that no amount of riding can truly fix.

So we explore what she looks for: the upward head nod at the walk on a loose rein, the Four Bs, the belly tickle test, and the hollow behind the scapula that reveals chronic restriction. We also discuss why the interface (the space between the saddle and the moving back) matters just as much as the saddle itself, and how the Contour Saddlery™ Saddle System and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System were developed to help accommodate the horse's changing shape in motion by restoring shoulder freedom and improving pressure distribution.

We also get into the part of horse care that never appears on a bill of sale. Saddle fitters are often paid by the brand they recommend. Trainers sometimes receive commissions on the tack their students buy. An expensive saddle isn't proof of a better fit—it may simply reflect a larger marketing budget.

Lady gave me a scar on my stomach the first year I had her, reaching back for me while I tightened the cinch. I used to call that her temperament.

Now I wonder if she was trying to tell me something.

I wanted the horse world to hear this conversation because Lady had been telling me the same story for years—I just wasn't ready to listen.

Learn more about Letitia Glenn, Contour Saddlery™, and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System, and request a free saddle fit evaluation: website | instagram | youtube

At Contour Saddlery™, we believe saddle fit should be based on the horse in motion—not standing still.

Our complete Contour Saddlery™ Saddle System and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System work together to create a dynamic fitting solution that supports shoulder freedom, accommodates your horse's changing shape, and helps improve comfort, movement, and performance. Whether you're looking to optimize your current saddle or invest in a complete saddle system, our goal is simple: Every Horse. Every Saddle. Every Ride.™

Learn how to improve the fit and function of your saddle:

Experience the difference a truly horse-first saddle can make. Visit Naturalhorsemansaddles.com to learn more.

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Chapters:

0:00 "Saddles are torture devices"

2:13 She doesn't know what she doesn't know

6:41 Lady's shoulder, and what freedom felt like

10:07 The fourth component nobody talks about

12:23 The upward head nod at the walk

16:08 The four Bs: bone, bulge, behind the bulge

17:17 The belly tickle test

22:20 The hollow behind the scapula

26:09 A steward at the end of the arena

32:00 Lady's scar and the cinch

33:41 The Black Stallion, age 47, and Echo

39:04 Dr. Stephen Peters: 27 saddlings a day

43:31 The Therm-a-Rest pad and the living interface

46:15 Where the shim goes, English and Western

50:41 A birdhouse roof on a beach ball

56:47 The free saddle fit evaluation

1:02:40 A body that changes

1:08:20 Rapid fire

We say we want a willing horse.

Then we climb on, and we start cramming.

And when the horse gets tight, or slow, or stuck, we do the one thing that guarantees it gets worse — we add pressure.

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Stephen Peters, and this time he brought a horse's brain. Cut in half, in his hands, on the table between us. He points to the cingulate. He points to the little kidney-bean pituitary. And he shows me, physically, the difference between a horse who can talk itself back down and a horse who has no way back.

That difference has a name. It's a chemical called GABA.

An empowered horse can produce it — can send the "stand down" signal before the cortisol ever floods the system. A horse in learned helplessness can't reach it. Same event, two completely different animals, and most of what separates them is what we wired in, and the state we wired it in.

We get into the cocktail — dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, oxytocin, serotonin — and why drilling the same exercise seven times flattens every one of them. Why release is not the same thing as relief, and only the horse gets to tell you which one it was. Why recovery, the part everyone skips, is where the learning actually locks in. And why an hour on the clock is a human invention your horse never agreed to.

Then it opens out — touch, exercise, diet, the five domains, allo-grooming, the prairie voles who fall apart in isolation and settle the second the herd rushes back in.

And we close on Charles Darwin. Not the line everyone quotes. The one almost nobody does — the one where he says it's the cooperative communities, the ones that bond and help each other, that represent the highest level of evolution.

Horses have the chemistry for that built in. Dr. Peters' whole argument is simple: let's use it.

Start with Part 1 if you haven't — this picks up right where we left off.

Dr. Stephen Peters is a neuroscientist who directed a clinic for brain health and memory, and co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship (with Martin Black). His most recent books are Horse Brain Science and A Horse's Life (with Mark Rashid and Chrissy McDonald), which pairs 19 real case studies with the neurological detective work behind each one.

You can find all the books by Dr. Stephen Peters here: https://www.horsebrainscience.info/books

• Horse Brain Science: The Neuroscience of Ethical Horsemanship
• Horse Brain Science: A Foundation for Equine Neuroscience
• The Book of Neuropoetry
• Evidence Based Horsemanship
• A Horse's Life: The Neuroscience of Equine Welfare

You can find out more about Dr. Stephen Peters on his website - Horse Brain Science

And on Substack

Episode Sponsored by: Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

0:00 Why we get in the way of our own horses 2:00 A horse brain, cut in half: corpus callosum & the cingulate 5:00 The stress circuit — HPA axis, cortisol, and GABA 8:00 Empowered vs. helpless: who can reach the brake 9:06 Wiring confidence vs. wiring fear 11:15 Lady's three stations: rebuilding a horse's love of learning 13:40 The neurochemical cocktail — and why drilling drains it 16:00 Sending the horse away: oxytocin, prediction, and the payoff 18:00 Release is not relief 19:25 A word from Total Feeds 23:00 Recovery, hippocampal replay & why silence matters 27:38 Short sessions, switching horses & the neurodivergent brain 28:57 Spaced vs. massed learning; every nervous system is a snowflake 32:11 The petals on the flower: touch, exercise, diet & the five domains 40:45 Allo-grooming, oxytocin & the prairie voles 44:13 Darwin's Descent of Man: cooperation as the highest evolution 46:43 Dr. Peters' books, Substack & wrap

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Every rider has said it. He's being stubborn. She's testing me. He knows better.

Here's the harder, truer thing underneath: the horse isn't being anything. The horse is a nervous system, doing the one job every nervous system has — trying to stay safe.

Dr. Stephen Peters spends this conversation taking me under the behavior, into the brain that produced it. He's a neuropsychologist, co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship, and the person I call when I want to actually understand my horses instead of just managing them. This time we sat down as two diagnosed neurodivergent people talking about horse behavior from the inside — which is its own kind of honesty.

He explains why the horse that shoves past you off the trailer isn't defiant. It's running a pathway you built, three good grazes at a time. He calls it myelination, and once you hear how it works, you stop blaming the horse and start watching what you're teaching when you think you're not teaching anything.

We go into the thing so many of us get exactly backwards. You hit a wall, so you add pressure. More leg, more spur, more insistence. And Peters says it plainly: almost always the answer was to let the nervous system reset, not to push harder. Push harder and you don't get through the noise — you become the noise.

Then we get to the part I asked him to slow down on. Learned helplessness. The old experiment neither of us can listen to without flinching, and what it tells us about the quiet, compliant, "well-behaved" horse who has simply learned that nothing he does matters. That's not a trained horse. That's a horse who stopped voting.

And near the end, something bigger opens up. Peters describes the freeze — the shutdown that isn't a choice, the body flooding itself with its own opioids so it can survive what it can't escape. He says the thing I most needed someone with his credentials to say out loud: that response is the nervous system deciding, not the animal, and not the person it happens to. If you've ever been asked why you didn't fight back, this part is for you as much as your horse.

What you'll hear, underneath all of it, is a kinder and more accurate way to be with a horse. Not softer for its own sake — more correct. Work with the nervous system and you get performance and behavior far past anything pressure buys you. The willing partner everyone wants isn't obedient. He's involved.

Dr. Stephen Peters is a board-certified neuropsychologist and co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship with Martin Black. He studies the equine brain and nervous system and is launching a new podcast, The Skeptical Horseman, with Jillian Kreinbring, M.S., dedicated to separating good research from pseudoscience in the horse world.

This is Part 1 of our conversation. In Part 2, Steve puts a real horse brain on the table, cut in half, and shows me exactly what agency does to it.

If someone you ride with keeps calling their horse the problem — send them this one first.

You can find out more about Dr. Stephen Peters here: Horse Brain Science

Chapters:

• 0:00 — "They have good days and bad days": meeting the horse's nervous system where it is
• 0:26 — Who Dr. Stephen Peters is, and why brain-first is a different conversation
• 2:19 — Critical thinking, bias, and the "baloney sandwich" problem in horse science
• 4:50 — Two neurodivergent people on masking — and the horse equivalent
• 8:00 — The predictive brain: why "predictable = readable = safe"
• 9:42 — Myelination, oligodendrocytes, and paving the horse's highways
• 11:59 — The trailer example: habit vs. the labels we assign it (defiant, disrespectful)
• 15:24 — Clever Hans: the horse who was reading, not counting
• 17:11 — Nervous systems, sympathetic arousal, and why more pressure adds noise
• 21:03 — Down-regulation, pendulation, and training the nervous system itself
• 23:30 — [Sponsor: Total Equine by Total Feeds]
• 26:45 — Dopamine, "special forces" horses, and solution-seeking vs. robotic horses
• 32:41 — Learned helplessness: the Seligman experiment and what it does to the brain
• 37:27 — The five domains, agency, and why every creature needs its behavior to matter
• 38:55 — The freeze response, the periaqueductal gray, and the opioid flood
• 43:35 — When words fail the nervous system: compliance is not consent, or courage
• 46:53 — Dissociation, wearable tech, hyperscanning, and Peters' Substack work
• 50:37 — "We're stopping here": the cliffhanger into Part 2 and the real horse brain

This Episode is Sponsored by:

Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe wherever you listen, leave us a review — it genuinely helps more people find these conversations — and please share this episode with someone who needs to hear it ..........thank you!!!

Everybody wants the clear round. The win. The photo at the top of the podium.

Here's the part the sport keeps offstage — the doubt, the grief, the voice at the in-gate asking if you even belong here.

Joe Stockdale knows that voice well. He calls it imposter syndrome, and he feels it at the very top of show jumping, which is its own kind of honesty for a 26-year-old already riding at five-star.

In 2018 he lost his dad, Tim Stockdale, to cancer. Almost overnight Joe inherited a business, a famous name, a string of owners, and a mare his father picked out before he died. A young rider usually eases into all of that across years. Joe got a phone call and a yard to run.

This one goes straight at the thing under the results — what grief does to ambition, where riding confidence comes from, and why Joe would rather be home doing the work than chasing a spotlight.

He takes me inside the year everything turned. Less than five years after losing his dad, he's standing at the World Championships in Herning on the mare his father found, winning team bronze for Great Britain. He says it plainly: stories like that barely happen to anyone.

We talk about the people who caught him. William and Pippa Funnell, his dad's closest friends, who started watching every one of his rounds on video and calling with notes they took on their own. Joe is blunt about it — that web of mentors is the reason he's still standing here.

And we get to the line I keep turning over. Joe wants the pressure: last to go in a Nations Cup, the whole thing resting on him, the chance to be the hero. Then he goes home and rides like a horseman over a competitor, because the horse gets to have an off day, and his job is to listen.

When Joe was young, he told his dad he wished he could be as good as him. His dad's answer: you're going to be way better than me. Trust me.

He carries that. You can hear it.

If you've ever stood at the edge of something you wanted, certain everyone could see right through you — this one is for you. Riding confidence, the real kind, sounds a lot like Joe describes it here: hours of work off-camera, so you're ready the day someone finally watches.

Joe Stockdale is a British show jumper based at the family yard his parents made with their own hands. He rides for Great Britain at five-star level and trains alongside his mentors William and Pippa Funnell. His late father, Tim Stockdale, was a well-regarded British show jumper who selected the mare Joe later took to the World Championships.

If someone you love is carrying a name, a loss, or a doubt they keep to themselves — send them this one.

You can find out more about Joe Stockdale here: website | instagram | youtube

This episode is sponsored by - Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc. The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability insurance. Visit https://www.connaway.net/ | @connawayassociates | facebook.com/connawayassociatesequine

Chapters

• 2:42 — Losing a parent young: the grief he and Noelle share
• 6:55 — A famous name, two paths, and the weight of a legacy
• 22:00 — Inheriting a yard, a system, and his dad's owners
• 24:34 — William & Pippa Funnell: the mentors who answered the phone
• 30:10 — From loss to bronze: the World Championships in Herning
• 41:29 — Home vs the spotlight: wanting the pressure
• 46:54 — The Olympic medal on the bingo card
• 56:18 — Patience: letting the horse have an off day
• 57:18 — Why John Whitaker is the greatest horseman
• 1:01:52 — Mares, stallions, geldings

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

There is a question almost every one of us carries to the barn and never says out loud.

Not how do I get him to do this.

But: does he actually trust me — or is he just complying?

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Elsa Sinclair, and it's the half where I kept having to stop and close my eyes. Because Elsa reads horse behavior in a way most of us were never taught to. She breaks leadership into five kinds — dominant, persistent, assertive, passive, supportive — and then says the thing that reorganized my brain: that leadership is simply any action that results in harmony. That dominance and abuse are not the same thing.

She takes us back inside the year she spent with a wild mustang named Myrnah — three to six hours a day, five days a week. The morning she got on at three months, did it badly, and wasn't allowed back on for another three. Not because anything went wrong. Because her timing was off by a hair, and the horse simply told the truth about it.

Then comes the line I haven't stopped repeating: "I'm not going to try to be the best horse trainer in the room. I'm going to try to be the most accurate."

This is freedom based training as a craft — not a philosophy you admire from a distance, but a practice you can take to the barn tomorrow. Elsa shows how to actually see a horse's thought before you reward it — the ear that flicks, the eye that moves, the breath — and gives a homework exercise you can start in the morning. We get into why hyperfocus on the goal keeps you tripping over the next step. Why confidence, quietly, trumps every strategy. And Atlas — the horse she bought off a slaughter truck, the one who broke everything she thought she knew.

If you've ever felt like you're learning too slowly with your horse, this episode reframes that ache as the whole point.

Elsa Sinclair is a lifelong horsewoman, horse behavior researcher, and filmmaker. Her year with the mustang Myrnah became a documentary, Taming Wild, and a book by the same name. She now teaches freedom based training to students across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

If you have a horse who's been trying to tell you something — this one is for you. And if you know someone still fighting the horse they love, send it to them.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN

• Elsa's full leadership spectrum — dominant, persistent, assertive, passive, and supportive — and why she defines leadership as any action that results in harmony
• The difference between dominance and abuse, and how a single raised hand tells her which one a horse has lived through
• Why she got on Myrnah bareback and bridleless at three months — and the timing mistake that cost her the next three
• The distinction between feel and timing, and why she'd rather be the most accurate trainer in the room than the best one
• How to read a horse's thoughts through its senses instead of projecting the thought you wish were there
• Why confidence can trump every technique, and how to build it from the bottom up if you don't have it yet
• The case for the slowest training method on Earth, and how slowing down actually deepens what you learn

To find out more about Elsa Sinclair: website | instagram | facebook | patreon

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] Leadership options most training never breaks down [00:23] The leadership spectrum: dominant, persistent, and assertive [04:36] Building it bottom-up: passive and supportive leadership [07:30] Riding bridleless: the year with Myrnah, and getting on at three months [10:00] Feel versus timing, and rewarding the thought, not the action [12:47] Why she'd rather be the most accurate trainer than the best [15:33] Untraining yourself: the sensory system over mechanical habit [21:44] "Playing in Puddles": letting go of the goal of riding [36:00] The horse who decided humans always make bad decisions [40:20] Confidence wins: when it trumps every technique [45:36] The two horses who shaped her: the generous one and the mold-breaker [54:00] The beauty of slowness, and learning to enjoy the snail's pace [56:24] Rapid fire: the one book, the most undervalued skill, mares vs stallions

This Episode is Sponsored by:

Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Most of us learned to ride before we ever learned to ask.

We learned the halter, the rope, the pressure, the release. We learned how to make a horse do the thing. And somewhere in there, quietly, a lot of us started to feel that something about it wasn't quite right — and didn't have the words, or the permission, to say so.

Elsa Sinclair had that feeling at twelve.

She's the creator of Freedom Based Training and the documentary Taming Wild, and this conversation is the story of where it came from — which is really the story of a question she couldn't put down.

It started with a student, who asked her: do you think horses actually like being ridden? And then, before Elsa could finish answering — do you think they ever had a choice?

She didn't have an answer. So she went looking for one.

What follows is one of the most honest origin stories I've had on this show. A lonely girl on a spirited Appaloosa named Demi. Years of clinics and books and methods that never felt like the thing she was reaching for. An offer from a near-stranger she couldn't refuse. And finally a year in a field with a wild mustang named Myrnah — no halter, no rope, no treats, no way to make her do anything — just the freedom to walk away, and the hope that she'd choose to stay.

Elsa says something in here I keep coming back to. That she never set out to be spiritual or soft about it. She wanted something "logical and practical and understandable" — a way of being with horses built on peace instead of domination, that still actually worked.

We talk about why she refuses to promise her horse a calm, composed version of herself. About trust as the willingness to suspend judgment. And about the idea that rearranged how I see every herd I've ever stood in: that in a healthy herd, awareness replaces dominance — because dominance only shows up when nobody was paying attention in the first place.

This is the beginning of Freedom Based Training, told by the woman who built it.

Elsa Sinclair is a lifelong horsewoman, behavior researcher, and filmmaker. Her year with Myrnah became the award-winning documentary Taming Wild and a book of the same name, and she now teaches Freedom Based Training to students around the world.

If you've ever wondered whether your horse would choose you — this is Part One. Stay for Part Two, where she shows us exactly how it's done.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN

• The single question from a student that made Elsa stop and ask whether horses actually choose to be ridden
• Why she trains with no halter, rope, or treats — and what the horse's freedom to walk away forces you to get right
• The reason she refuses to promise her horse a calm, composed version of herself, and what she does instead
• How she defines trust as "the willingness to suspend judgment," plus the 80/20 rule for how often you're allowed to get it wrong
• What Ari, the aloof stallion who needed no one, taught her about reaching a horse who isn't interested in you
• Why she calls it the slowest training method on Earth, and the honest reason it isn't for everyone
• The herd-dynamics reframe that replaces dominance with awareness

To find out more about Elsa Sinclair: website | instagram | facebook | patreon

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] A surreal reunion and the wish list that started the road trip [00:44] Elsa's origin story: Demi and "good buckers make good jumpers" [05:51] The birth of Freedom Based Training: peace over domination [09:02] The question that changed everything — do horses choose to be ridden? [11:34] The offer she couldn't refuse, and a documentary called Taming Wild [14:24] Training without tools: timing, curiosity, and day one with Myrnah [18:35] Companionship as currency: matching, mirroring, and sensory association [21:31] The promise she won't make: congruence over composure [28:22] Showing up on a bad day, and what trust actually is [34:32] Ari, the aloof stallion, and the 80/20 rule [40:49] Why the slowest training method on Earth isn't for everyone [47:00] Herd dynamics: replacing dominance with awareness

Episode Sponsored by Total Feeds

Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your support!

Right now, somewhere in the horse world, a horse is shedding a virus it's carried since it was a foal. Its owner doesn't know. The horse looks fine.

That's EHV-1. Equine herpesvirus. And Dr. Bruno Karam, equine internal medicine specialist, wants you to understand it before the next outbreak — not during it.

We recorded this conversation in the wake of last year's EHV-1 cluster at the National Finals Rodeo. Horses stumbling. Famous horses hospitalized. People asking whether the event should have run at all. And a lot of horse owners left with unanswered questions about a virus they'd heard about but didn't fully understand.

This episode answers those questions.

EHV-1 isn't new. The neurological form — EHM — isn't new either. What's changed is the density of horse movement. Western circuits don't park in one city for two weeks. They move. And they move on timelines shorter than the incubation period. By the time a horse shows symptoms, it's already three states away from where it got infected.

Bruno breaks down how the virus behaves in the body — biphasic fevers, white blood cell hitchhiking, the vasculitis cascade that leads to spinal cord involvement. He explains why your vaccinated horse can still shed. Why a healthy horse with no symptoms can spread it. And why giving Banamine the moment your horse feels warm is the single most counterproductive thing you can do in an outbreak.

The practical guidance in here is specific. Take temperatures twice a day. Know what's normal for your horse before you need to know what's abnormal. Don't share thermometers. And if your horse is questionable at a show — be okay with not showing.

He also talks about something that doesn't get said enough: we don't yet have data on why some horses get sick and others don't. We're still retroactively analyzing the outbreaks. The science is moving, and what we do today may not be what we do in ten years. That's not a reason to panic. It's a reason to pay attention.

Dr. Bruno Karam is an equine internal medicine specialist. He trained at Texas A&M under Dr. Michelle Coleman and has worked some of the most complex infectious disease cases in the field. He ended up on the news last year because of EHV-1. He came on this podcast to give you the version of the conversation that the news couldn't.

If your barn shares thermometers, send this to your barn manager.

Subscribe to the NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast — formerly Dear Horse World — wherever you listen.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Why nearly every horse already carries EHV-1 latently — and what triggers shedding with no visible symptoms
• The exact biological pathway from respiratory infection to spinal cord damage that causes EHM
• Why the western show circuit's travel structure created exponential exposure chains in 2025
• What the EHV vaccine actually does and doesn't do, and why it still matters for herd immunity
• How to take and interpret your horse's temperature using their individual baseline, not just 101.5°F
• Why giving Banamine at the first elevated temp can mask early outbreak warning signs
• The most overlooked transmission vector at shows: human hands moving between horses

To find out more about Dr. Bruno Karam DVM - Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital - Equine

This episode is sponsored by Pegasus Training & Rehabilitation Center

Here at Pegasus, our mission is to run a first class horse training, rehabilitation, and conditioning facility; provide horses of all disciplines with full and complete care of the highest quality; partner with our clients to ensure that we not only meet, but exceed, their individual goals and needs; and maintain our facility and equipment with the highest level of care.

To find out more about Pegasus - website | instagram | facebook

Interested in more from Noelle?

Noelle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] Introduction to Dr. Bruno Karam, Equine Internal Medicine Specialist

[00:38] What an Equine Internist Does and Why It's Unique

[02:00] Memorable Cases — From Yellow Fat Disease to Aspiration Pneumonia

[09:34] What Is EHV-1 — Horse COVID Explained

[11:10] How EHV-1 Spreads and What Recrudescence Means

[13:11] Why Some Horses Go Neurological and Others Don't

[16:00] Shedding Explained — Subclinical Carriers and Transmission

[18:06] Vaccines for EHV — What They Do and Don't Protect Against

21:00] Vaccine Risk, Hesitancy, and How to Think About Risk Assessment

[24:28] The 2025 Outbreak — What Really Happened in Texas Before NFR

37:38] What Horse Owners Can Do — Monitoring and Biosecurity at Shows

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

It is easy to get wrapped up in the competitive environment when prize money and recognition wait at the gate. Our natural human instinct causes us to objectify horses as high-speed pieces of equipment or treat them like sentimental human pets, yet both approaches cause immense confusion for the animal.

When challenges arise, a rider focuses strictly on overriding the obstacle in front of them, whereas a horseman steps back to evaluate the wider picture and protect the partnership.

Daniel Bluman breaks down the psychological differences between these choices, sharing the real-world management practices that establish what he calls horse karma. He discusses why daily turnout and social connection create a healthier brain for an athletic horse, allowing them to remain sound and happy for years.

•

What is Horse Karma?: Daniel shares a childhood story from Colombia that shaped his belief that treating every horse with empathy always pays it forward.

•

Clarity is Humanity: Loving a horse means giving clear, decisive training directions instead of treats, carrots, and confusing human sentimentality.

•

Becoming Indispensable: Learning how the animal functions biologically makes a person scarce and highly valued, securing a sustainable livelihood.

•

Managing Social Validation: Daniel urges us to handle the craving for online recognition and instead celebrate the unseen daily lifestyle.

Meet Daniel

Daniel Bluman is an Olympic athlete and co-founder of Bluman Equestrian. He is an entrepreneur and a producer of horses who believes patience is a massive competitive advantage. His philosophy rests on the conviction that horses are our teachers, and our primary mission is to provide them with respect and dignity.

Explore the mission at:

https://blumanequestrian.com/

This episode is brought to you by:

Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc. The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability insurance. Visit https://www.connaway.net/ | @connawayassociates | facebook.com/connawayassociatesequine

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

Chapters and Time Stamps:

0:00 Horses are not equipment

4:00 Stop canceling riders you don't understand

5:10 Why clarity is kindness

8:32 The problem with humanizing horses

9:33 Why Daniel turns his horses out together

11:26 What stall life does to a horse's eyesight

12:54 When science catches up to horsemanship

14:00 Why the same ring every day limits your horse

17:00 The disappearing horseman

21:40 Horsemen always earn more than riders

25:35 Show jumping's social license problem

28:00 Managing the social media validation trap

35:50 Rapid fire questions

What if everything you've been calling a behavior problem is actually your horse asking for help? On this episode of Dear Horse World, Noëlle sits down with Jim Masterson — founder of the Masterson Method and a leading voice in equine bodywork for horse owners — to explore exactly that question. Jim has worked hands-on with an estimated 700 horses a year at peak, trained over 10,000 students worldwide, and built a method shaped entirely by what horses told him. This conversation will change how you see your horse.

Jim and Noëlle unpack how the horse nervous system moves between sympathetic arousal (guarding, bracing) and parasympathetic release (dropping the head, yawning, shifting weight). You'll understand why an agenda — even a caring one — can block that release, and how approaching your horse with quiet, clear intention changes what becomes possible. Natural horsemanship principles run through everything: you're not working on the horse. You're working with it.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Why the poll-atlas junction is the single most important tension point in your horse's body, and how releasing it can shift movement, behavior, and comfort throughout the entire horse — not just the neck.
• How to identify when your horse's "behavior problems" — head-shyness, resistance to bridling, difficulty with one canter lead, sudden bucking — are expressions of physical tension, not disobedience.
• Jim's five levels of touch (air gap, egg yolk, grape, lemon, and hard lime) and how to stay beneath your horse's bracing response so tension can actually release instead of getting blocked.
• How to start the bladder meridian technique today — free, with no equipment — by following the blinks, yawns, and lick-and-chew responses your horse is already giving you.
• How your horse's nervous system moves between sympathetic guarding and parasympathetic release, and what visible signs tell you a real tension release has happened.
• Why approaching body work without a "fix it" agenda is essential — and how your own intention and presence either opens your horse up or causes them to shut down and block out the work entirely.
• Why regular body work is one of the only things you can do with your horse that is all give and no take — and how even one bladder meridian session can begin to transform your horse's trust in you.

Jim Masterson is the creator of the Masterson Method Integrated Equine Performance Bodywork, author of Beyond Horse Massage, and former body worker for the US Endurance Team. He has certified over 650 practitioners in 20 countries and taught more than 10,000 students since 2006.

Start your equine bodywork for horse owners journey at MastersonMethod.com.

Instagram and Facebook

Watch the free bladder meridian video on YouTube, and share this equestrian podcast with every horse owner in your life who has a horse they don't fully understand yet.

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

Chapters:

00:00:00 When Behavior Is Pain: The Lens That Changes Everything

00:01:33 Jim Masterson on 10,000 Students and a Method Born From Horses

00:04:32 From Groom to Bodywork Pioneer: How It All Started

00:07:09 Discovering the Bladder Meridian and What Horses Were Showing Him

00:14:23 Congo, Baboons, and Learning to Read Animal Cues

00:20:09 The Three Key Tension Junctions Every Horse Owner Should Know

00:29:09 How Tension Travels Through the Body: Compensation and Connection

00:39:36 Why Releasing Tension Changes Your Horse's Performance and Well-Being

00:44:25 Body Work as the Fastest Path to Real Horse-Human Connection

00:51:45 Subtle Signs of Discomfort and How to Spot Them Before They Become Problems

00:56:03 Levels of Touch and What Makes the Masterson Method Different

01:07:15 How to Start Doing Body Work on Your Own Horse Without an Agenda

Liberty trainer and Braveheart Beasts founder Kaleigh Marie shares how training oxen, mammoth donkeys, and mules before ever seriously working with horses shaped everything she knows about connection, trust, and the nervous system.

Kaleigh Marie is a liberty trainer and performer based in the Northeast who has spent the last decade developing a nervous system-informed approach to horsemanship rooted in connection, positive reinforcement, and the foundational lessons she learned working with cattle, donkeys, and mules long before horses became her focus.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why Kaleigh's foundation in training oxen and mammoth donkeys gave her a unique edge with horses
• What "conversational quality" means and how it shows up in your relationship with your horse
• Why donkeys ask "why should I?" — and why that's actually a gift to any trainer
• How the nervous system underlies everything from leg aids to liberty work
• The honest story of how clicker training almost derailed her liberty performances — and what she rebuilt from the ground up
• The difference between expectation and intention when you're struggling in a session
• What to do when you're not showing up as the trainer you want to be
• Why dull horses are often the most sensitive ones — and how they got that way
• The "backpack" concept and how co-regulation with your horse actually works
• Why self-regulation — for both horse and human — matters more than connection

To find out more about Kaleigh Marie: website | instagram | facebook

This episode is sponsored by Triple Crown Feeds The secret to raising a healthy horse begins with nutrition that goes beyond. The team at Triple Crown is dedicated to helping our customers succeed by understanding your horse's unique needs and working to develop the right feeding program for the horse you love. https://www.triplecrownfeed.com | https://www.instagram.com/triplecrownfeed/ | https://www.facebook.com/TripleCrownFeed/ | youtube.com/@triplecrownfeeds

If you love honest conversations about horsemanship, trust, and the ongoing practice of becoming a better horse person, subscribe for more.

Chapters:

00:00 Meet Kaylee Marie

01:10 Road to the Horse Memories

03:38 First Meeting with Tik

08:12 Braveheart Beasts Origins

08:31 Farm Kid to Oxen Trainer

13:07 Riding Cows and Controversy

18:39 Back to Horses and Draft Life

20:16 Mammoth Donkeys in the City

24:01 Connection and Motivation Lessons

8:05 Conversational Quality Explained

32:22 Nervous System Awakening

38:31 Rescue Rehab and Roman Story

45:18 First Q&A Reset as a Trainer

47:30 Gut Brain Connection

48:27 One Percent Better

48:55 Expectation Versus Intention

51:44 Stop And Regulate

53:28 Co Regulation Release

56:41 Leg Aid Without Fight

58:40 Sensitivity Versus Expression

01:00:46 Rehab Dull Horses

01:04:17 Clicker Training Ethics

01:09:42 Rock Bottom Without Food

01:15:47 Pressure And Resilience

01:18:53 Clicker For Quality

01:22:10 Keep Learning Through Pain

01:24:03 Rapid Fire Favorites

01:28:23 Final Thanks And Wrap

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!