The NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast

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One day, we will be the outdated ones.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:

1. Why join up is pressure and release in learning-theory terms — and why naming that honors Monty more than sainthood ever could
2. The question Alexandra Kurland made possible: how do I create a learning environment where the horse becomes an active participant
3. What the clicker teaches the human — poor timing, criteria that jump too fast, a missed try; the horse reports every one
4. Why food on its own creates neither agency nor consent, and what positive reinforcement still demands of the person holding it
5. Becky Moody at the top of dressage: trained with Carl Hester, embracing clicker work — evolution over allegiance
6. The pedestal inversion: how reverence flips to contempt when the flaws appear, and why both extremes abandon the horse
7. 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

1. Horse Brain Science: The Neuroscience of Ethical Horsemanship
2. Horse Brain Science: A Foundation for Equine Neuroscience
3. The Book of Neuropoetry
4. Evidence Based Horsemanship
5. 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 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!

Have you ever moved through a community — any community — feeling like you were watching from just outside the circle? Like everyone else had found their tribe and you were still looking? That feeling of not belonging might not be something to fix. It might be exactly what makes you exceptional. In this first solo episode of the Noelle Floyd Podcast, Noëlle Floyd makes the case that not belonging is one of the most underrated strengths a person can have — and shares the personal story, the science, and the poetry to back it up.

You'll hear why Noëlle started this platform in the first place: not to broadcast to the horse world, but to be in genuine conversation with it. Fifteen years of writing, a magazine, a media platform, and now a podcast and Substack — all of it built on the belief that clarity and connection matter more than belonging to the right group.

You'll learn about Noëlle's late ADHD diagnosis and how it reframed everything she'd believed about herself. For years, she told herself her questions were too many, too deep, too irritating. Neurodivergence, she now understands, was never a handicap — it's the engine behind everything she does. If you've ever been told you think too differently, ask too many questions, or just don't quite fit, this conversation is for you.

You'll also hear Noëlle's introduction to the concept of outroversion — a framework proposed by psychologist Ramin Kaminski in The Gift of Not Belonging — and why she believes the horse world, and the world at large, would be better if outsiders were celebrated as much as insiders. The diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, disciplines, and ways of being that people bring is not a problem to solve. It's the whole point.

Noëlle also shares why clarity is a form of care — not just for yourself, but for your horse. Because horses don't have a voice. Your unresolved questions, borrowed beliefs, and secondhand certainties become their lived experience. Seeking clarity isn't self-indulgence. It's responsibility.

This episode closes with an original poem Noëlle wrote — Who Do You Think You Are? — a meditation on identity, individuality, and what it means to be exactly, irreducibly yourself.

This is the Noelle Floyd Podcast — an equestrian podcast for curious minds, outsiders, and anyone who has ever felt like the horse world, or any world, was asking them to be a little less than they are.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Why not belonging is a documented psychological strength — and how psychologist Ramin Kaminski's concept of outroversion reframes the outsider experience as a competitive advantage rather than a social failure
• How Noëlle's late ADHD diagnosis transformed the story she'd been telling herself about being too curious, too questioning, and too much — and why neurodivergence can be one of the most powerful traits a thinker and storyteller can carry
• Why your personal clarity directly affects your horse's welfare — because horses cannot articulate confusion, your unresolved questions and secondhand certainties become part of their daily experience
• What the difference is between communicating for a community versus to it, and how that single distinction shapes the kind of platform, podcast, and conversation Noëlle is building
• How to participate in Noëlle's upcoming Q&A series through Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, the Noelle Floyd+ platform, and Substack — where she will personally read every question submitted
• Why staying outside any single tribe or discipline gives you the objectivity to see patterns, ask harder questions, and contribute something no insider can
• What finally got Noëlle in front of the camera after months of hesitation — and the mindset shift that transformed a personal roadblock into the foundation of this episode

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 & TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] Welcome to the Noelle Floyd Podcast: Why the Name Changed

[00:30] Fifteen Years of Writing For the Horse World, Not To It

[01:16] What These Solo Episodes Will Be: Real Conversation, Real Community

[02:00] Clarity and Connection: The Two Pillars Behind Everything Noëlle Does

[04:41] The Question Behind Every Question: How "Feel" Became a Central Theme

[05:22] Why Information Is Power — and Withholding It Is a Welfare Issue

[07:22] Noëlle's Origin Story: Barn Brat, Working Student, and a Lot of Jobs Before 21

[09:17] The Late ADHD Diagnosis That Reframed Her Entire Story

[11:25] Tribal Belonging in the Horse World — and Why You Don't Have to Join One

[12:52] The Gift of Not Belonging: Outroversion, Outsiders, and Why They Thrive

[18:52] Who Do You Think You Are? — An Original Poem by Noëlle Floyd

[21:00] How to Join the Conversation: Q&As, Substack, and What Comes Next

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.

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:

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 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