Sian Chapman Horsemanship

21/10/2026

⚠️Groundwork isn’t just for young or “difficult” horses⚠️

It’s something I think far more people could benefit from incorporating into their everyday training.

Whether you’ve got a two-year-old learning the basics, a happy hacker or a competition horse jumping 1.40m… the foundations are still relevant.

Can your horse understand and respond to light pressure? Can they move different parts of their body independently? Can they maintain their own balance without constantly relying on you? Can they stay focused and understand what you’re asking, even when the environment changes?

These are all things we can develop on the ground and they have a direct influence on the work we do under saddle.

Groundwork doesn’t have to mean spending hours doing circles lunging or repeating the same exercises.

Sometimes ten minutes of purposeful groundwork can highlight something you’ve been struggling with for weeks in the saddle which then allows you to start working on it.

It’s not about replacing ridden training. It’s about making the ridden work better.

And that’s something I think is relevant to every discipline!

06/10/2026

We are still looking if anyone has anything available ☺️

KIDS PONY WANTED ON LOAN

I’m helping find the right pony on loan for a lovely 8 year old girl who lives just over the road from me

We’re looking for something safe, genuine and fun that she can continue learning on and enjoy.

Ideally:
• Happy to trot around nicely and do the odd little canter
• Pop a small cross pole/few little jumps once she’s up to it.
• Sensible and forgiving, but not something that needs kicking along every stride.
• Good on the ground for a child to handle, groom and fuss over
• Nothing sharp, spooky or overly complicated but don’t mind normal little problems that need a little bit of time putting into them
• Not too fussed on height but over 13hh ideally so she has room to grow into them.

It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or a competition pony… just a genuine little pony that enjoys their job, will look after her but still has enough energy to be good fun for her.

The pony would be kept on full livery with me at Sleetbeck Barn, so all of their day-to-day care will be looked after, and they’ll have regular lessons with me to make sure both pony and rider are happy, safe and progressing together.

A really lovely, knowledgeable and well-supported loan home waiting for the right pony ❤️ I can completely vouch for how good of a home this pony will have.

Please message me if you have anything that might suit!

25/09/2026

🌱I’m not an equine nutritionist, and I’ll never pretend to be one.

But nutrition is something I’ve taken it upon myself to learn a LOT about.

Not because I want to formulate complicated diets, but because I work with behaviour and I don’t think you can look properly at behaviour without considering what is going into the horse.

The gut and the brain aren’t two completely separate things.

If a horse has an unhappy digestive system, is experiencing gastric discomfort, is going for long periods without forage or is being fed a diet that doesn’t suit them then we can’t expect that to have absolutely no effect on how they feel.

And how they feel can absolutely affect how they behave.

A horse who is uncomfortable might be more reactive. They might struggle to settle. They might become girthy, defensive around being tacked up, reluctant to go forward, sensitive around their body or simply feel completely different to the horse their owner knows.

That doesn’t mean every behavioural problem is caused by the gut — it absolutely isn’t.

But equally, I don’t think it’s fair to label something as a training problem without at least considering whether the horse feels physically well enough to learn.

And this is where I’ve become really interested in feed. I spend a LOT more time looking at the back of feed bags than the front of them now.

The front tells you what the feed is marketed to do. The back tells you what you’re actually putting into your horse.

Because more isn’t always better. For a lot of horses, I actually prefer boring.

A simple grass chaff, a good balancer to fill the nutritional gaps, plenty of suitable forage and then additions made because that individual horse needs them, rather than because we feel like their bucket should contain ten different things or because that’s what we feed our other horses.

And it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Sometimes we’re spending a huge amount every month adding scoop after scoop when the first thing we should be looking at is the foundation of the diet.

And I think we have to be careful not to get too caught up in what’s currently on trend either.

There will always be a feed, supplement or brand that everyone seems to be using at the time. That doesn’t automatically make it the right choice for the horse standing in front of you.

The same goes for advice. Feed-company reps and nutrition helplines can be incredibly knowledgeable and useful, but ultimately they are there representing their own company and the products within their range. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — it’s just something I think we should be aware of.

I’d much rather learn to turn the bag over, understand what I’m actually feeding and question WHY my horse needs it than choose something purely because it’s popular, heavily marketed or recommended because it happens to be within one particular brand’s range.

Not:

“This bag says weight gain, so feed this.”

Or:

“This one says calming, so feed that.”

But:

What does THIS horse need?

The same applies when a horse comes in sharp, reactive or seemingly unable to concentrate.

I’m not going to tell an owner their feed is causing the behaviour. But I am going to look at it.

Because if I’m spending weeks trying to teach a horse to regulate, relax and think through situations, I want to know we’re supporting their body to do that too.

Training can’t fix gastric discomfort.

Training can’t replace adequate forage.

And training shouldn’t be used to continually suppress behaviour that could be the horse telling us something isn’t right.

Sometimes the answer will be training.

Sometimes it’ll be veterinary.

Sometimes it’ll be management.

Sometimes nutrition will be one piece of it.

And quite often it’s a combination.

The more horses I work with, the more I come back to the same principle:

Keep the foundation simple. Feed plenty of appropriate forage. Balance what needs balancing. Add calories or specific nutrients/herbs/supplements when they’re actually needed. And know WHY you’re putting everything else in the bucket.

Good nutrition doesn’t have to mean an overflowing feed room or an enormous monthly bill.

Sometimes simple really is better!

21/09/2026

The bits you don’t always see 🤍

Your horses really are treated like our own while they’re here. Plenty of cuddles, scratches, attention and just spending time with them outside of their training sessions 🥰

They’re never short of love and attention while they’re with us.

We get so attached to every single one of them. ❤️

13/09/2026

“He’s just being naughty.”
“She’s taking the piss.”
“They know exactly what they’re doing.”

Before I decide what I’m going to do about a behaviour, I want to know why it’s happening.

Because behaviour is information.

A horse that barges through you might genuinely have never learnt to understand pressure or respect your space.

A horse that plants might be confused, worried or uncomfortable… or they might simply have learnt that if they stop for long enough, eventually the person asking will give up.

A horse that explodes when the girth is tightened might be experiencing pain, anticipating something that’s hurt before, carrying a previous bad experience or simply never have been properly prepared for that feeling.

A horse that rushes might not be trying to get one over on you at all. They might have learnt that going faster is the quickest way to escape pressure when they don’t understand how to find the release.

And sometimes a behaviour is learned.

If rearing has made people get off every time, they’ve learnt that rearing works.

If barging through someone gets them back to their friends, they’ve learnt that barging works.

If pulling away makes the pressure disappear, they’ll probably try pulling away again.

That doesn’t make them bad, disrespectful or calculating. It means horses repeat things that have worked for them.

And that’s an important distinction, because how I approach a horse that doesn’t understand is very different to how I approach one that understands the question but has learnt another response is easier.

Bucking, rearing, biting, bolting, striking, shutting down, refusing to move, barging, planting, rushing through pressure… I don’t automatically put all of those behaviours into one box labelled “naughty”.

But equally, I don’t put everything into the “they’re scared, so we can’t ask anything of them” box either.

Understanding why a behaviour is happening doesn’t mean allowing it to continue.

• Sometimes they need more confidence.
• Sometimes they need clearer communication.
• Sometimes they need better boundaries.
• Sometimes we’ve asked too much, too quickly and need to break the question down.
• Sometimes they’ve discovered an answer that works for them and we need to teach them a better one.
• And sometimes something doesn’t add up and I want a physical issue investigated before I’m comfortable asking for more.

Quite often, it’s a mixture of several of those things that have built up over months or even years.

That’s why when a horse comes to me with a behavioural problem, I’m not particularly interested in just making the behaviour disappear.

I want to know what happens before it. Where does the tension start? What are the smaller signs we’ve missed? Do they actually understand the pressure being applied? Can they regulate themselves when they’re worried? Are they physically comfortable doing what’s being asked? Has someone unintentionally taught them that this response works?

Because the big reaction we notice is often the end of the conversation, not the beginning.

You can suppress a behaviour. You can make a horse stop bucking, stop rearing, stop planting or stop saying no. And for a while, it might look like you’ve fixed the problem. But if you haven’t dealt with the reason the behaviour was there in the first place, eventually it’s going to find its way back out. Maybe as the same behaviour. Maybe as something completely different.

That’s why I’m far more interested in finding and changing the why than simply stopping what you can see on the surface.

Because when you change the reason behind the behaviour, that’s when you have a chance of changing the behaviour for good!!

12/09/2026

🌾 WANTED – LARGE WRAPPED HAY BALES 🌾

Looking for a reliable supplier for around 120-140 large bales of wrapped hay for our yard near Longtown, Carlisle.

Ideally looking for someone who can deliver around 10-20 bales at a time over the next couple of months, rather than all at once. Have room for all to be stacked on site.

Must be suitable for horses:
• Low sugar
• Ryegrass-free or minimal ryegrass
• Not wet/silage-type – looking for a drier wrapped hay
• Clean and consistent with no mould or dust
• Ideally later-cut / more mature forage rather than very rich grass
• Analysis available would be a massive bonus

Happy to commit to the full amount bales with the right supplier and arrange regular deliveries.

We have had our own cut this year but haven’t got enough to last all winter.

📍 Near Carlisle / Longtown – CA6