Equestrian Voices by NOELLE FLOYD

05.07.2024

Sexual Abuse in the Horse Industry: A Conversation with Annette Paterakis on Isolation, Hope, and Healing

TW: Descriptions of grooming, sexual abuse as a minor. Listen with care. Growing up in the Netherlands, Annette Paterakis rode ponies competitively and had Olympic aspirations. However, transitioning to riding horses was difficult, and teenage Annette found herself going...

03.26.2024

Why Play Is Key for Building “Try” in Your Horse, and How to Do It with Tik Maynard

When you picture adding “play” into your horse’s training, what comes to mind? Do you imagine your horse chasing around a large ball or nosing carrots out of a container? Or maybe you see your horse trotting joyfully behind you...

03.12.2024

It Doesn't Have to Feel This Stressful: What Your Nervous System Has to Do with Performance, with Natalie Hummel

Why do competitions make our hearts hammer, mouths go dry, and hands tremble? We may never get nervous riding at home, but as soon as we step into that show ring (or clinic, or in front of peers, or riding...

02.27.2024

Toplines: Spotting Pain, Dysfunction, and Myths that Need to Be Busted with Ansley Bevan

Muscle tension and underdevelopment are a precursor to injury, making topline development crucial to keeping horses healthy and sound. Elasticity through the back allows horses to move freely, support riders, and meet our performance expectations. So why do so many...

02.13.2024

Tempo, Pace, and Rhythm: It’s Not Just Semantics. With Hunter/Eq Judge Rob Van Jacobs

“More impulsion!” Most of us have heard our coaches cry – usually accompanied by a hearty clap or imitation of riding forward. But what does ‘impulsion’ actually mean to you, your trainer, or the judge scoring you? By listener...

01.30.2024

It’s 4:30 AM and Your Goals are Calling, with Paralympian Amelia White

Amelia White was just 18 years old when she was the victim of a traumatic car accident that changed her entire life. A university student and active eventer, Amelia suddenly found herself out of school, out of the saddle, and...

01.16.2024

How to Change a Spooky Horse into a Thinking Horse, with Josh Nichol

There’s no taking the spook out of a horse. As prey animals, horses will always want to run away first. Combine this fact with modern breeding programs that produce lighter, more responsive horses and many of us may find ourselves...

01.09.2024

Evolve Your Student/Trainer Relationship, with Annette Paterakis

Thinking about all the ways our sport needs to evolve can be overwhelming. When there are so many organizations, individuals, and stakeholders we want to inspire change in. However, evolving the sport doesn’t need to start at the top. It...

12.26.2023

Rewind the Year With Us! 5 Favorite Moments of EV from 2023

It was a record-breaking year for Equestrian Voices, as we won two more awards (W3 Awards) and topped the Goodpods chart. We couldn’t have done it without you, our listeners! From the entire EV team - THANK YOU. To celebrate...

12.12.2023

Why Michael Pollard Quit the Sport at the Height of His Career

Michael Pollard had what most of us could only dream of - a meteoric rise in the discipline of Eventing (including winning a Pan Am Games team Gold Medal in 2011), a string of talented horses, a strong non-horse business...

11.29.2023

Why a Hot Bran Mash Doesn’t Keep Your Horse Warm, and other Blanketing Myths Busted with Dr. DeBoer

As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, the time comes once more for the biggest decision of the winter: Do you blanket your horse, or not? And, which one? (Heavy, medium, medium-light, neck or no neck?!) Some...

11.14.2023

Can We Help Horses Heal from Trauma and Grief? Using Physical Touch to Heal Emotional Wounds with Good Shepherd Gabriel

Horses are well known for their power to heal. The positive feelings we have after spending time with our horses are, after all, one of the main reasons why we ride, and equine therapy is used to treat a wide...

10.31.2023

Changing Your Goals, Finding a New Horse, and “My-horse-itis” with Chelsea Canedy

You’ve just left the barn after another frustrating lesson, and you don’t know what to do. You know that your horse is more than capable of achieving the goals you’ve set for your riding, but in your heart, you also...

10.10.2023

Is the Forward Seat Still Relevant? Peter Wylde on Rider Style, Feel, and Evolution of Position

Americans are known for their smooth, forward positions on the horse, so much so that it became known as the ‘American Forward Seat’. But how has it evolved over the years as our light, sensitive Thoroughbreds have blended with the...

09.26.2023

What It’s Really Like to Run a Horse Rescue (All Seated in a Barn & Storeybrook Farm)

We’ve all seen the pictures: the emaciated horse who looks ancient, but in actuality is in their prime, their coat dirty and their eyes dull. We’ve all also had the desire to just hook up our trailer (or commandeer one)...

09.12.2023

Why Doesn’t Riding Have An Athletic Culture? Embracing Rider Wellness with Ifa Simmonds

When you go to a horse show, you can see riders diligently warming up their horses prior to competition, making sure their partner is both mentally and physically ready for the task ahead. But you rarely (if ever) see those...

08.29.2023

Amy Skinner: “If you don’t understand pressure, you’ll be forced to overuse it.”

There are many ideas about what good training looks like with horses. We imagine a well-trained horse as one who is able to perform its job at a high level, and view subsequent competition results as a validation of correctness....

08.08.2023

Understand Your Competitive Drive So That It Doesn’t Work Against You (Or Your Horse)

For most of us, competition is a large part of why we choose to ride, and also for most of us, we allow this drive to steer our behavior without really giving it too much thought. But science shows that...

07.25.2023

4 Ideas to Make Show Jumping More Engaging (and Why That Matters)

While many riders need no excuse to tune into a livestream to watch the top show jumping athletes of our day duke it out at the FEI level, there are a lot of people who consider themselves sports enthusiasts who...

07.11.2023

“Age Is Not A Disease”: Considerations for Caring for Aging Horses with Dr. Katie Sheats

There are stereotypes for just about everything when it comes to the horse world, and aging horses are no exception. We picture a hard keeper becoming increasingly thin over time, or maybe we imagine a recently retired athlete going out...

06.27.2023

The Horses, Breeding, and Evolution of Show Jumping with Helena Stormanns

There’s no question that the show jumping horses of today are different from the horses of 30, even 20 years ago. As courses continue to get increasingly technical and fast, breeders are producing increasingly athletic horses to match…or is it...

06.13.2023

Symmetry, Strength, and Optimizing the Rider's Seat

There’s so much more to your seat and symmetry in the saddle than meets the eye. It’s not just about good equitation or looking pretty in the saddle. Your horse’s health, musculature, and soundness are profoundly impacted by your balance...

05.30.2023

Asking the Hard Questions: A Conversation with Noëlle Floyd

If you’re listening to this podcast, then you probably know the name of the company producing it: Noëlle Floyd. What you might not know, though, is that this is also the name of our CEO and Founder. Noëlle started her...

05.09.2023

Deep Dive: Understanding Kissing Spines

Your horse is cold backed and unpredictable at the mounting block. Under saddle, he goes around inverted, and can sometimes even kick out or spook suddenly. One of your friends casually says, “Maybe he has Kissing Spines,” and your heart...

04.25.2023

Bitting Roundtable: Liza Towell Boyd, Liz Halliday-Sharp, Betsy Steiner, and Stephanie Brown-Beamer

If you’re a regular to the Equestrian Voices podcast, you know that bitting is a subject we return to time and again. This is because bits have such a dramatic impact on a horse’s happiness and performance - and it’s...

04.11.2023

(Part 2) Creating Openness and Growth in the Horse/Rider Relationship

When it comes to riding, more often than not the focus is placed on the horse - what are they doing, how are they feeling, what can we improve with them, etc. But we all know that the horse is...

03.28.2023

Creating Openness and Growth in the Trainer/Student Relationship (Part 1)

If you’ve ever taken a riding lesson, you know that it goes something like this: Your trainer stands in the middle of the ring giving you instructions, and you’re on the horse trying your darndest to follow those instructions precisely. ...

03.14.2023

Do We Need More Toughness, or More Softness? With JJ Tate

Most riders desire to develop a horse who is a happy, willing participant in whatever task or discipline they’ve set out towards. But where the training narrative used to revolve around making sure the horse knows who’s the boss, newer...

02.28.2023

Archie Cox on Generational Knowledge, Tradition, and Trainer Responsibility

You hear it all the time: “Young riders today don’t know about horsemanship.” “Kids today just want to get on and ride.” “There are no more barn rats.” These complaints point to a larger potential issue of losing generational knowledge....

02.14.2023

What Makes a Good Vet (& How to Be a Good Client)

Vets are one of the unsung heroes of horse sport. Horses are unfailingly creative (and effective) at hurting themselves; from a mystery lameness to a sudden colic to every type of laceration you could dream up, a day that goes...

01.31.2023

Let’s Talk About That Helmet Study

If you ride horses and have been on the internet in the past two months, chances are good you’ve heard about “that” helmet study -- specifically, the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab’s Equestrian STAR Helmet Rating Project. On the plus side,...

01.10.2023

Riding from the Inside, Out and Understanding Confidence with John Haime

Mindset Check! Welcome to 2023. We're kicking off with a mindset conversation because even if you're riding less in the cold, dreary month of January, you can still be doing major work to improve your riding. This conversation will inspire...

12.27.2022

5 Listener-Chosen Moments - Rewinding the Year of Equestrian Voices

That’s a wrap on 2022! In this episode, two Equestrian Voices listeners join Caroline to count down 5 of their favorite clips and moments from the pod this year. We can’t wait to learn, question, discuss, and celebrate more with...

12.13.2022

(Part 2) Is Saddle Fit a Bigger Deal Than We Think?

As promised, we’re back with Part 2 of Caroline’s conversation with Amanda Anderson of Saddlefitting.us. We know many of you have been eagerly awaiting the rest of this chat, so let’s dive right into the good stuff. In this episode,...

11.29.2022

Is Saddle Fit a Bigger Deal Than We Think? (Part 1)

Are we collectively aware of how profoundly saddle fit can affect our horses? As today’s Equestrian Voices episode guest would argue, probably not. Saddle fit can cause real (and, as far as we know, potentially irreversible) damage to your horse’s...

11.08.2022

A Chat About Travel Stress in Horses, with Dr. Kevin Keane

Before you hit the road with your horse again, give this ep a listen. Your horse will thank you. Travel can be stressful on your horse and, in some cases, even harmful for his health. For the humans, traveling with...

10.25.2022

A Dressage Queen and a Cowboy: Kasey Perry-Glass and Dana Glass

Kasey Perry-Glass and Dana Glass may be married and in business together, but their backgrounds in horses couldn’t be more different. But, that’s what makes them interesting – and what makes their business work. In fact, it’s almost like their...

10.11.2022

Understanding Trauma + Therapy Through A Rider’s Experience

If you’re in the horse world long enough, you or someone you know will probably experience trauma. For almost all of us, it has been – or will be – a part of life and the horse world is no...

09.27.2022

All About the Flying Change with Shannon Dueck

Have you ever whispered a silent prayer to the flying change gods to please let this change be clean? Have you ever felt a twinge of temptation to throw your weight to get the change, or pull on the inside...

09.20.2022

Staying Focused on What Matters with Young Horses, w/ Piggy March

What do you need to focus on in those 3- and 4-year old years? How do you cope with the pressure to “not mess up” a young horse? What matters most in the early years for a horse? Top British...

08.30.2022

Horseperson vs. Businessperson: On Priorities, Chasing Dreams, and the Money Problem w/ Erin Lane and Paige Jardine

Being a successful rider in this sport is an uphill battle — and not just in terms of the skills and time necessary to make your way up the ladder. The ups and downs can be extreme and unpredictable, it’s...

08.09.2022

Buying and Selling Horses Under $40K

What if you don't have $100k to spend on buying a horse? Join the club - there's a whole lot of us! It's time to give this portion of the horse market some air time. What's the buying or selling...

07.26.2022

The Barefoot Vs. Shod Debate

We’re taking on a spicy topic this week! (But why is this such a heated debate? We’ll get to that, too!) If horses are born without shoes, why do they need them? Are we disrupting their natural gait/growth/biology by putting...

07.12.2022

Bringing a Scientist's Approach to Your Horse

Are you an expert on your horse? Do you see your peers or even your trainer “winging it” when it comes to structuring rides, or figuring out why that rail fell down, or why your horse seemed tired in today’s...

06.28.2022

What's Going on with Horse Slaughter in the U.S.?

Do you know what’s going on with horse slaughter in the States? Most of us don't - or didn't. And that includes me, your host, Caroline. The equestrian community is pretty good at turning a blind eye to this issue....

06.14.2022

A Tale of Two Pros: Very Different Routes to Careers in the Industry

There are a million ways to “make it” - depending on what “making it” means to you. While many riders might dream of winning a gold medal in a pinque coat on a shiny, impeccably braided horse, sometimes you’ll find...

05.31.2022

Bits, Behaviors, & Teeth: Misconceptions About Your Horse’s Mouth

As important as the horse’s mouth is for his health, as well as our riding, most of us don’t know much about it. For many of us it’s a long, black tunnel of mystery that we try to understand by...

05.10.2022

Make or Break? Discussing the Importance Placed on Riders' Junior Years

In our sport, you can go to the Olympics when you’re 21… or when you’re 60. Or, you can never make a team but still have a profound impact on the athletes around you and equestrian sport as a whole. ...

04.26.2022

What Goes Into Building & Running a Boarding Business

It seems like at least once a week, you'll see a social media post or an announcement about another boarding barn closing its doors. A lot of boarding barns that are up and running have long wait lists, and it...

04.12.2022

What Does 'Doing Better' Mean? Reflections on Horse Training Following the Mark Todd Video (with Anne Kursinski, Matt Brown & Jeremy Steinberg)

Several weeks back, a video from a Mark Todd clinic circulated around the internet - it was a clip taken during a clinic, and it caused a lot of conversation and controversy on social media. This podcast is not about...

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