Arrowsmith Equestrian

08/24/2025

Gotta love a calm, willing, sponge of a brain on youngsters. We got this 2 year old two weeks ago. You couldn’t catch him, he was scared of people, and never had his feet done but, you could tell he wanted to trust you but didn’t know how.
Two weeks later, he is the sweetest, relaxing, people loving horse. He got his feet trimmed up this past week and was a champ, he gets baths and handled daily. On his second session ever in the round pen he answered every question I asked. He even got his first little ride under his belt. Patients, softness and consistency always reward you in the end.

08/08/2025

Congratulations to the new owner of Dori. Wishing her all the best moving cows back in Alberta.

08/04/2025

Horse industry needs to understand this. It’s not all about winning, take each lose or mistake as a lesson and be ready for the next day. The winners have learned from many mistakes and many losses to be at the top. But they still lose and still make mistakes but don’t dwell on it. Move on, learn from the past and look forward to the future, because next time you could be at the top.

07/29/2025

"New Home Syndrome"🤓

I am coining this term to bring recognition, respect, and understanding to what happens to horses when they move homes. This situation involves removing them from an environment and set of routines they have become familiar with, and placing them somewhere completely different with new people and different ways of doing things.

Why call it a syndrome?

Well, really it is! A syndrome is a term used to describe a set of symptoms that consistently occur together and can be tied to certain factors such as infections, genetic predispositions, conditions, or environmental influences. It is also used when the exact cause of the symptoms is not fully understood or when it is not connected with a well-defined disease. In this case, "New Home Syndrome" is connected to a horse being placed in a new home where its entire world changes, leading to psychological and physiological impacts. While it might be transient, the ramifications can be significant for both the horse and anyone handling or riding it.

Let me explain...

Think about how good it feels to get home after a busy day. How comfortable your favourite clothes are, how well you sleep in your own bed compared to a strange bed, and how you can really relax at home. This is because home is safe and familiar. At home, the part of you that keeps an eye out for potential danger turns down to a low setting. It does this because home is your safe place (and if it is not, this blog will also explain why a lack of a safe place is detrimental).

Therefore, the first symptom of horses experiencing "New Home Syndrome" is being unsettled, prone to anxiety, or difficult behaviour. If you have owned them before you moved them, you struggle to recognise your horse, feeling as if your horse has been replaced by a frustrating version. If the horse is new to you, you might wonder if you were conned, if the horse was drugged when you rode it, or if you were lied to about the horse's true nature.

A horse with "New Home Syndrome" will be a stressed version of itself, on high alert, with a drastically reduced ability to cope. Horses don't handle change like humans do. If you appreciate the comfort of your own home and how you can relax there, you should be able to understand what the horse is experiencing.

Respecting that horses interpret and process their environments differently from us helps in understanding why your horse is being frustrating and recognising that there is a good chance you were not lied to or that the horse was not drugged.

Horses have survived through evolution by being highly aware of their environments. Change is a significant challenge for them because they notice the slightest differences, not just visually but also through sound, smell, feel, and other senses. Humans generalise and categorise, making it easy for us to navigate familiar environments like shopping centres. Horses do not generalise in the same way; everything new is different to them, and they need proof of safety before they can habituate and feel secure. When their entire world changes, it is deeply stressful.

They struggle to sleep until they feel safe, leading to sleep deprivation and increased difficulty.

But there is more...

Not only do you find comfort in your home environment and your nervous system downregulates, but you also find comfort in routines. Routines are habits, and habits are easy. When a routine changes or something has to be navigated differently, things get difficult. For example, my local supermarket is undergoing renovations. After four years of shopping there, it is extremely frustrating to have to work out where everything is now. Every day it gets moved due to the store being refitted section by section. This annoyance is shared by other shoppers and even the staff.

So, consider the horse. Not only are they confronted with the challenge of figuring out whether they are safe in all aspects of their new home while being sleep deprived, but every single routine and encounter is different. Then, their owner or new owner starts getting critical and concerned because the horse suddenly seems untrained or difficult. The horse they thought they owned or bought is not meeting their expectations, leading to conflict, resistance, explosiveness, hypersensitivity, and frustration.

The horse acts as if it knows little because it is stressed and because the routines and habits it has learned have disappeared. If you are a new human for the horse, you feel, move, and communicate differently from what it is used to. The way you hold the reins, your body movements in the saddle, the position of your leg – every single routine of communication between horse and person is now different. I explain to people that when you get a new horse, you have to imprint yourself and your way of communicating onto the horse. You have to introduce yourself and take the time to spell out your cues so that they get to know you.

Therefore, when you move a horse to a new home or get a new horse, your horse will go through a phase called "New Home Syndrome," and it will be significant for them. Appreciating this helps them get through it because they are incredible and can succeed. The more you understand and help the horse learn it is safe in its new environment and navigate the new routines and habits you introduce, the faster "New Home Syndrome" will pass.
"New Home Syndrome" will be prevalent in a horse’s life until they have learned to trust the safety of the environment (and all that entails) and the humans they meet and interact with. With strategic and understanding approaches, this may take weeks, and their nervous systems will start downgrading their high alert status. However, for some horses, it can take a couple of years to fully feel at ease in their new home.

So, next time you move your horse or acquire a new horse and it starts behaving erratically or being difficult, it is not being "stupid", you might not have been lied to or the horse "drugged" - your horse is just experiencing an episode of understandable "New Home Syndrome." And you can help this.❤

I would be grateful if you could please share, this reality for horses needs to be better appreciated ❤
‼️When I say SHARE that does not mean plagiarise my work…it is seriously not cool to copy and paste these words and make out you have written it yourself‼️

07/25/2025

**SOLD**

2014 grade QH buckskin mare.
15.2 big bodied, big motor, independent mare.
A "jack of all trades, master of none" type mare.
Rope off her, trail ride her or work young horses off her, even driven in a team before us.
Although she tolerates arena and performance work, her true calling is ranch work as she has the stamina enough for 2.
She has been a staple in working young and green horses for us.
Not a beginner horse, as she is strong and her throttle is always on, but in no way in a unsafe manner.
Great for vet, farrier, clipping you name it. Hauls great.
No soundness issues, PPE welcome.
High four figures.

07/19/2025

We are very happy with Orlando at his second show with us and moving up to 1.20m, it’s nice to see him building his confidence, we look forward to what lies ahead.

07/18/2025

This!! 🙌 100% this!!

Training Is Not a Democracy: Your Horse Doesn’t Get a Vote

One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in the horse world over the years is how much people have softened in the wrong direction. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m all for kindness, for patience, and for empathy. But those things mean very little if they aren’t wrapped in clear leadership. Somewhere along the line, too many people started confusing kindness with permissiveness and leadership with cruelty. That’s where the wheels fall off. Because here’s the truth:

Training is not a democracy. Your horse doesn’t get a vote.

We are the leaders. And we have to act like it.

Confusing Emotion with Permission
A horse isn’t a dog, and even dogs need structure. But horses? Horses are flight animals. Horses are herd animals. They’re hardwired to look for leadership. And if they don’t find it in you, they’ll either fill that role themselves — which never ends well — or they’ll become anxious, reactive, or even dangerous. Either way, they’re not thriving, they’re surviving.

Somewhere out there, people got this idea that a horse “expressing itself” was the same thing as “being empowered.” But when that expression looks like pushing into your space, refusing to move forward, slamming on the brakes at the gate, or throwing a fit about being caught, that’s not empowerment — that’s insecurity and disrespect. That’s a lack of clear expectations. That’s a horse operating in chaos.

And a chaotic horse is a dangerous horse.

The Illusion of Fairness
I know some people mean well. They want to be “fair.” They want their horse to feel “heard.” But horses aren’t people. They don’t negotiate. They don’t take turns. They live in a world of black and white — safe or unsafe, leader or follower, respect or no respect.

If you try to run your training like a democracy — where every cue is a polite request and every command is up for discussion — you’re setting that horse up for failure. Because out in the pasture, that’s not how it works. The lead mare doesn’t ask twice. The alpha doesn’t negotiate. Leadership in the horse world is clear, consistent, and sometimes firm — but it’s always fair.

Being fair doesn’t mean weak. It doesn’t mean permissive. It means you set a boundary and you keep it.

Confidence Comes from Clarity
One of the things I say often is this: a horse is never more confident than when it knows who’s in charge and what the rules are. Period.

A horse that’s allowed to “opt out” of work when it doesn’t feel like it isn’t a happy horse. It’s a confused horse. A horse that’s allowed to drag its handler, rush the gate, balk at obstacles, or call the shots under saddle isn’t empowered — it’s insecure. It’s operating without a plan, without leadership, and without trust in its rider.

And let me tell you something — trust isn’t earned through wishy-washy “maybe-if-you-want-to” training. It’s earned through consistency, repetition, and follow-through. That’s what gives a horse confidence. That’s what earns respect. That’s what makes a horse feel safe — and therefore willing.

Manners Are Not Optional
When people send their horses to me for training, one of the first things I work on is manners. I don’t care how broke that horse is, how many blue ribbons it has, or how fancy the bloodlines are. If the horse walks through me, pulls away, crowds my space, or refuses to stand quietly, we’re not moving on until that’s fixed.

Because manners aren’t cosmetic. They’re the foundation of everything.

If your horse doesn’t respect your space on the ground, what makes you think it’ll respect your leg cues under saddle? If your horse doesn’t wait for a cue to walk off at the mounting block, what makes you think it’ll wait for your cue to lope off on the correct lead?

We don’t give horses the option to decide whether or not to be respectful. That’s not up for debate. That’s the bare minimum of the contract.

Leadership Isn’t Force — It’s Direction
Now before somebody takes this and twists it into something it’s not, let me be clear. I’m not talking about bullying. I’m not talking about fear-based training. I don’t train with anger, and I don’t train with cruelty.

But I also don’t ask twice.

When I give a cue, I expect a response. If I don’t get it, I don’t stand there and beg — I escalate until I get the response I asked for. And then I drop right back down to lightness. That’s how you teach a horse to respond to softness. Not by starting soft and staying soft no matter what. You teach softness through clarity, consistency, and fair correction when needed.

That’s leadership.

Horses Crave It — So Give It
Some of the best horses I’ve ever trained came in hot, pushy, or insecure. And some of those same horses left my place calm, willing, and confident — not because I over-handled them, but because I gave them structure. I told them where the boundaries were, and I held those boundaries every single time. I wasn’t their friend. I wasn’t their therapist. I was their leader.

And in the end, that’s what they wanted all along.

They didn’t want to vote. They wanted to be led.

Final Thought
If your horse is calling the shots — whether that’s dragging you out to the pasture, refusing to go in the trailer, tossing its head, or dictating when and how you ride — then your barn doesn’t have a training problem. It has a leadership problem.

Stop running your horse life like a town hall meeting. Training isn’t a democracy. Your horse doesn’t get a say in whether or not it respects you. That part’s not optional. Your job — your responsibility — is to show up, be consistent, and take the lead. Every time.

Because if you don’t? That horse will. And I promise you, that’s not the direction you want to go.

06/23/2025

Our 2025 foal arrived just after 1am. He is very strong, feisty and drinking up a storm. Momma keeps on doing an amazing job with her foals!

2025 Bay C**t “Corbin”
Sire: Cosmeo (Contender x Caletto I) Dam: Fantasia (Futurist X Alcatraz)

06/05/2025

Always nice to hear back from a client that they are happy with how their horse is doing. 🍻

06/02/2025

It's been a pleasure to put the first 60 days on this 3 year old WB mare “Lola”. We wish her all the best in her future.

04/23/2025

No Way AE - "Herman"

2023 Oldenburg gelding available.
This sweet, friendly guy is currently 16hh, has a strong athletic structure and very good balance for his age.
He has a very willing attitude and has all age appropriate training.

Sire: Nesquick TN (Eldorado Van de Zeshoek/ Quantum)
Dam: Fantasia (Futurist/Alcatraz)

04/17/2025

How we roll, we move slower than majority of trainers but it’s well worth it in the long run, especially when starting the young ones.

The value of time... one thing that I found to be really important is to "take time to do what's right for the horse". It takes time to ride them consistently and time to train them for long term success. It also takes focus. It takes quiet time to think about how they learn and interpret training, and it takes time to let that soak in. How you spend your TIME MATTERS, and usually speaks volumes of a program.