Balance Equestrian

Peek-a-boo! 👀

When the new haylage is this good, you just have to get right in amongst it! 😂🌾

Safe to say, Dee approves. 💚

Lewis loved his spring clip with AB Equestrian
✂️🐴 He’s already so much more comfortable doing his physio, and we’ve even had 24 whole hours of no paddock mischief… dare I say it! 😱😂

It was incredible to see just how many little scrapes and marks were hiding underneath his shaggy coat from all that itching.

We’re so thankful for his Horseware Ireland rugs, with their washable, removable liners. They’re perfect for helping him regulate his temperature in this erratic spring weather, while also catering to his sensitive skin. 💙

Here’s hoping the new haircut means more physio….a little less itching… and a little less mischief! 🤞

Lewis is diligently doing his physio for his knee, which is improving every day!

As he gets fitter, he’s also getting very sweaty and itchy…and with moulting season upon us, apparently every hazardous object he can find is fair game for a scratch! 😱

Clipping him will not only help him dry quickly after exercise, but hopefully save a few trees, fences and stable walls from becoming his personal scratching posts too. 🙈

Tonight he enjoyed a lovely warm bath, all ready for his clip with AB Equestrian in the morning.

Thanks Charlee - he loved it! 🥰

Maybe we need to stop waiting until we have something to show for the work.

We’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much of life is presented in before and afters.

We build, shape, learn and grow quietly until there’s something polished enough to share.

We’ve always been a little hesitant to do “before and after” photos here, whether that’s horses gaining condition or improvements around the property.

Perhaps because we don’t want the “before” to imply that something was wrong.

Because it wasn’t.

It was simply a different moment in time. One part of a much longer journey.

And what about everything in between?

The non-linear steps towards a goal. Forwards. Backwards. The side quests. The plans that change. The things we learn along the way that we never expected to learn at all.

So here’s a somewhat blurry picture of our “messy middle”.

Take three at fixing the front of our pad and sorting the drainage.

Not a before photo.
Not an after photo.

Just somewhere in between.

In the trenches of life, learning as we go. 🌿

Thank you AC Land Development for helping us in this part of our journey ❤️

10 DAYS TO GO… 🤎✨

In just 10 days, Balance Equestrian turns 10! 🥳

A decade of supporting horses and people, learning, growing, muddy boots, big dreams and so many memories.

We’ve been thinking about how we should celebrate this pretty big milestone…

So we’re asking you.

What would you love to see us do for our 10th anniversary?

A big celebration? Something horsey? A giveaway? A special event? Or something completely unexpected?

Tell us your ideas below. 👇

Why do animal-assisted therapies work for so many people?
A comprehensive 2024 systematic review suggests that the answer lies not simply in the presence of an animal—but in the unique therapeutic relationship that develops.

Researchers found that animal-assisted therapy shows promise across a wide range of populations and clinical settings by:

✔ Promoting wellbeing
✔ Strengthening the therapeutic alliance
✔ Supporting emotional engagement
✔ Showing positive effects in psychiatric, neurological and cognitive conditions

The human-animal bond creates opportunities for trust, safety and authentic connection—powerful foundations for therapeutic change.

At the Equine & Animal Psychotherapy Institute, we teach practitioners how to integrate these relationships ethically, safely and within an evidence-informed framework.

📖 Research
Pandey, R., et al. (2024). Role of Animal-Assisted Therapy in Enhancing Patients' Well-Being.
https://doi.org/10.2196/51787

For Research nerds: Consider visiting our website SHOP and purchasing our Equine Assisted Services and Animal Assisted Services Research Pack
The 2013 – 2025 EAAPI Collection https://www.equinepsychotherapy.net.au/product/research-and-evidence-base/

Saturdays at the stables ❤️

Perhaps the legacy of Monty Roberts and Supernanny isn’t the methods they taught, but the conversations they started.

There has been recent debate surrounding a post by Equitation Science International “de-bunking” the Join-Up methods promoted by the late Monty Roberts.

Regardless of where you sit on the research behind his methods, it’s important to celebrate the impact he had on horse training around the world.

Although the principles Monty Roberts promoted weren’t necessarily new or novel, he brought them to the world stage in a way few others had managed to do.

He encouraged people to ask:

Does it really have to be this way? Could there be a gentler way?

For many people, that was a significant shift from the harsher methods they had known before. Practices such as tying a horse’s leg up to “break them in” were once commonly accepted within parts of the horse world.

Monty Robert’s “Join-Up” method involves driving a horse in a round pen until it comes in and follows the handler (this is a very simplified explanation). In behavioural terms it involves pressure and release - negative reinforcement.

Negative reinforcement isn’t inherently “bad”. The important questions are what the pressure is, how intense and prolonged it is, how clearly the horse can obtain release, and how that individual horse experiences it.

Equitation Science has since given us a much greater understanding of what is happening during pressure-and-release training. The intensity, timing, duration and individual horse’s experience all matter. Round-pen training (like Join-Up) can be coercive, and for some horses it may contribute to significant stress (McGreevy et al., 2018).

For me, attending Monty Roberts’ Equus University was an important part of my own training journey.

Did I adopt everything exactly as taught? No.

But it taught me to question pressure, release, timing and communication.

The recent “join-up” debate in the equestrian world had me reflecting on the evolution of parenting methods and the sensation of “Super Nanny”, in the 2000s.

Jo Frost brought time-outs, naughty steps, reward charts and strict routines into thousands of homes. Some of those approaches have since been criticised or refined as our understanding of child development, attachment and emotional regulation has evolved.

It wasn’t long ago that corporal punishment was widely accepted as a constructive (and necessary) parenting strategy.

Super Nanny didn’t necessarily have all the answers. But like Monty Roberts she encouraged people to ask:

“Maybe there is another way.”

So, what are our thoughts on Join-Up?

Chasing a horse in a round pen until it gives up and comes in? No.

But we do work at liberty. We discuss boundaries, we drive horses away and draw them in. Sometimes that can look like Join-Up.

Misty showed me what that looked like outside of a round pen, in wide open spaces to truly choose to walk beside me without coercion and I thank her for that everyday. A reminder that learning extends beyond the classroom.

At Balance, it isn’t about what the horse does at the end.

It’s about what the journey looked like getting there.

We deliberately didn’t build a round pen because we don’t want a horse to have nowhere to hide. We wanted a horse to be able to move away and have the opportunity to say “no” during our interactions.

It isn’t about letting horses do whatever they want. In our view, it’s about noticing their behaviour, reflecting on its function, and adapting our response.

Every horse is different. Every person is different. And what works today may need to change tomorrow as that individual, our circumstances, and our understanding change.

Perhaps we don’t need to decide which generation had it “right”.

We can acknowledge that people before us were doing the best they could with the knowledge and resources available to them, while also recognising that we know more now than we did then.

We don’t have all the answers … perhaps none of us do. Maybe the real measure of growth isn’t in how certain we are, but in how willing we are to keep learning.❤️