Applied Horsemanship - CHA Instructor/Trainer, Christina Nash

10/14/2026

❤️❤️❤️

❤️ There's a version of me that the world rarely sees...
where my heart feels lighter and my mind finds peace...
where the weight on my shoulders begins to fall away...
and the worries I've carried don't feel quite so heavy that day.

I'm quieter there, with the horses and hay...
where the noise of the world slowly fades away...
I don't need answers, I don't need to explain...
why some days are sunshine and others are rain.

I find comfort in horse breathe, in warm, gentle eyes...
in the smell of the leather and wide open skies...
in the soft, steady presence of a horse standing near...
who asks for no reasons and doesn't judge tears.

Out there, I can breathe... I can finally let go...
of the things I've been carrying that nobody knows...
I can laugh a little louder or cry if I must... with my boots in the dirt and hay in my hair.

The world says be strong every day...
that I keep it together, whatever comes my way...
but the barn never asks me to be more than I am...
and there's something so healing in knowing I can.

For a little while, I'm not everything to everyone else...
I'm simply a woman finding my way back to myself...
not fixing, not rushing, not trying to be strong...
just standing in the place where I've belonged all along.

And when it's time to leave, and I walk through that door...
I carry a little less weight than before...
my troubles are waiting, and the world hasn't changed...
but somehow my heart feels better arranged.

There's a version of me that only exists at the barn...
where the world can't quite reach me or do quite as much harm...
and I swear that my horses, in their own quiet way...
know exactly which pieces of me need saving that day. ❤️

❤️ Michelle K | Born In The Barn

09/29/2026

🙌😇🙏💗🫶🏻

09/12/2026

YOUR HORSE CAN SMELL WHAT YOU’RE FEELING
Chazot Thoughts — The Smell of Humans

Humans have a rather touching belief that they can hide things from us.

Fear.
Anger.
Frustration.
Nervousness.

You straighten your shoulders.
You control your breathing.
You put a smile on your face.
And you think:
There. The horse won't know.

We know.

You forget that the world you experience is not the world we experience.

Humans depend enormously upon vision. You look at a person and read the face, the posture, the expression.

We horses possess a very different sensory world.

Our sense of smell is extraordinarily important to us. Our long noses move large volumes of air with every breath. Our olfactory system gathers chemical information from the environment, and we possess a prominent vomeronasal organ—an accessory olfactory structure that is greatly reduced in humans.

Considering the relative size of your noses and ours, this does not surprise me.

Frankly, we sometimes wonder how you breathe through those tiny things in the middle of your faces.

I once watched him sitting beside Bretelle, our Boxer.
Both were breathing rather loudly.

Looking at their respective noses, I naturally assumed the noise was coming from the human.

I was wrong.
It was Bretelle.
But humans have something else that gives us information.

You sweat.

And you do it even when you don't think you are sweating.
Emotional states produce physiological changes. Anger, frustration and fear are not simply thoughts hidden somewhere inside your head.

Your body participates.

And your horse is standing beside that body.

This is why he often told riders:
“If you are angry or frustrated with your horse, or if you are afraid of him, he will feel it. You can eventually lie to yourself, but not to your horse.”

Perhaps he should have said:
We can smell it.

One student was frightened before riding.

She tried breathing exercises to control her fear—to make it disappear before approaching the horse.

He stopped her.

Fear, he explained, is not something to be ashamed of.
Horses are large and powerful. Caution around them is entirely reasonable.

The important question isn't:
How do I hide my fear?

It is:
What am I actually afraid will happen?

The horse might bolt.
The horse might buck.
The horse might spook.

Sometimes those things have happened.

But often the fear comes from something else—from everything the rider has been taught might happen if control is lost.

You must be the leader.
The horse must obey.
The horse must submit.
You must remain in control.

And suddenly the horse beside you is no longer a partner.

He has become a potential disaster that must be controlled before he does something dangerous.

Your body changes.
Your muscles change.
Your breathing changes.
Your chemistry changes.

And then your horse perceives you changing.
He becomes concerned.

You perceive his concern as confirmation that something is wrong.
Your fear increases.

His concern increases.

And two intelligent beings can become frightened by a danger that neither one originally created.

So he did something quite different with this student.

He introduced her to Manchester.

Manchester was approximately 18.2 hands and 1,800 pounds—the largest and most powerful horse in the barn.

Not exactly the horse most conventional thinking would select for someone dealing with fear.

That was precisely the point.

She worked with him from the ground.

There was no illusion that she could physically dominate him.

If Manchester decided to return to his stall, there was very little she could do about it.

But he didn't leave.
He stayed.
He listened.
He responded.
She made mistakes.
Manchester noticed them.
And still he stayed with her.

Because partnership does not require one body to be stronger than the other.

It requires two minds willing to communicate.

As they walked toward the arena, I looked at Manchester.
Be easy with her.

Manchester was unimpressed with my advice.
He wasn't interested in babysitting her.

He wanted her to discover something much more important:
who we really are.

We feel extraordinarily subtle changes in the human beside us.

We do not need domination to understand you.

We need clarity.

We need consistency.

We need you to listen when we answer.

And perhaps most importantly, we need you to stop pretending.
When the student returned from working with Manchester, she was breathing hard.

She was sweating.

But she was quiet.

Something had changed.

Caesar lifted his head, moved his nostrils toward her and announced it before I had even properly investigated:
“She lost her fear.”

The woman looked at Manchester differently now.
Not as 1,800 pounds of horse she needed to control.

As Manchester.

She asked if she could shower him.

He told her they would work together again the following day and that when she felt ready to ride him, she could say so.

She looked at Manchester.

Then she asked:
“Can I ride him tomorrow?”

Perhaps humans spend too much time trying to convince horses that they are brave.

You don't have to convince us.

You don't even have to be fearless.

You simply have to be honest enough to begin the conversation.
Chazot
Science of Motion

08/12/2026

06/16/2026

🙌🙌🙌

05/28/2026

There is a big difference between giving a horse a release and teaching a horse to find the release.

In the very beginning, when a horse is first started and we are teaching that horse to soften its face, the lesson is usually very simple. I pick up one rein. The horse feels that pressure. The instant the horse softens in that direction, I release the rein. That release is what tells the horse, “Yes, that was the answer.” At that stage, the release has to be quick because the horse does not yet understand what I am asking. I am not trying to hold the horse there. I am not trying to shape the whole body yet. I am simply teaching the horse that when it feels that rein, it should soften and give.

That is an important lesson, but it is only the beginning.

Too many riders stop right there. They teach the horse to give its face, then they spend the next several years picking up, getting a little softness, and immediately throwing the rein away. Then they wonder why the horse never learns to carry itself. They wonder why the horse never develops true collection. They wonder why the horse feels soft for one second and then falls apart the moment the rider quits holding the rein.

The problem is not that the release was wrong. The problem is that the horse was never advanced past the first stage of the lesson.

A young horse or green horse needs to learn that the pull of the rein is coming. At first, the horse may wait until the rein actually makes contact before it gives. Then, as the horse begins to understand, it starts to bring its head with the rein. The contact gets softer. The horse starts to follow the rider’s hand instead of waiting to be pulled. That is a major change in understanding. That is the point where the horse is no longer just reacting to pressure. The horse is beginning to look for the answer.

That is what I mean by teaching the horse to find the release.

When a horse has learned to find the release, the rider’s job starts to change. Instead of simply picking up the rein, getting softness, and immediately letting go, the rider can start putting their hand where they want the horse to be. Then they hold that position and allow the horse to find it. The horse learns that the answer is not just to move its face away from pressure. The answer is to place its body where the rider is asking and stay there until the rider releases.

That is a very different level of training.

This is also where a lot of people misunderstand what they are seeing. They think every time a rider holds contact, the rider is taking from the horse. They think the horse is being denied the release. But there is a difference between pulling on a horse that does not understand and holding a position for a horse that has been taught to search for the answer. One creates resistance. The other creates understanding.

When the horse is ready for that next stage, the rider should not always release the instant the horse gives. The rider may hold that contact for a couple of seconds before releasing. Then the release itself should become slower. The hand should not sn**ch, jerk, grab, or throw the rein away. The contact becomes smoother, and the release becomes smoother. The horse learns that the rider’s hand is not something to escape. The rider’s hand becomes something to follow.

That is where the horse starts learning self-carriage.

Self-carriage does not come from constantly giving the horse away. It also does not come from holding the horse together with force. It comes from teaching the horse to allow the rider to shape the body, hold that shape for a moment, and then gradually build the strength and understanding to stay there longer.

At first, that might only be two seconds. Then it becomes five seconds. Then ten seconds. Then the horse can hold that shape through a maneuver. Then through a circle. Then through a pattern. Eventually, the goal is for the horse to carry itself in that balance without the rider having to constantly hold every piece together.

That does not happen in one ride.

A horse has to build the muscle to carry itself that way. It has to develop strength through its back, loin, hip, stifle, and hock. It has to learn how to drive from behind while staying soft in the front. It has to learn that softness is not just bending the neck. Softness is letting the rider influence the whole body.

That is why true collection takes time.

A lot of horses are taught to give their face, but they are never taught to carry their body. That creates the illusion of softness. The horse may flex its neck. It may tuck its nose. It may feel light in the hand for a second. But if the hind end is not engaged and the horse is not learning to hold its body in balance, that is not collection. That is just a horse moving its face.

The face is the doorway, not the whole house.

In the beginning, I may reward the smallest try because the horse needs confidence. I may pick up one rein and release the instant the horse gives because that horse is learning the language. But as soon as the horse understands the basic answer, I have to start developing the lesson. I have to teach the horse that the rein does not just mean “move your head.” It means “follow my hand, soften your body, shape yourself, and stay with me.”

That is the progression many riders miss.

They are so focused on giving the release that they never teach the horse to search for the release. They release so quickly and so completely that the horse never learns to stay in the correct position. Then the horse becomes dependent on constant reminders. Every few strides, the rider has to pick the horse back up because the horse was never taught to hold itself there.

There is a time to release quickly.

There is also a time to hold long enough for the horse to understand that the correct answer is not just finding the position, but staying in the position.

That is the difference between basic softness and advanced training.

The better trained a horse becomes, the more the release becomes part of a conversation instead of just an escape from pressure. The horse learns that the rider’s hand is not punishment. The horse learns that contact is not something to fear. The horse learns to stay mentally connected to the rider and physically organized underneath itself.

That is when you start to feel a horse become truly broke.

Not because the horse hides behind the bit. Not because the rider can pull its head around. Not because the horse has been flexed a thousand times. The horse becomes broke because it understands how to find the answer, hold the answer, and carry the answer forward.

That is where self-collection begins.

05/12/2026

TRAIN YOUR EYE 👀

Most owners stand beside their horse - very few stand behind them and actually look properly.

From this angle we can start assessing:

• symmetry through the wither and thoracic sling
• scapular muscle development
• topline contour
• ribcage shape and loading patterns
• hindquarter muscle balance
• overall spinal tracking and posture

Small asymmetries don’t automatically mean something is “wrong”, but they can tell us a lot about how a horse is organising load through their body.

Posture reflects movement habits, compensation strategies, saddle influence, rider asymmetry, limb loading and overall balance.

Often, these subtle changes appear long before obvious performance issues do.

This is why I always encourage owners to:
➡ stand behind their horse
➡ compare left vs right
➡ look at muscle shape, not just size
➡ learn what ‘normal’ looks like for their horse

Because posture is information - not the diagnosis, but most definitely a clue 👀