The Mini Pony Show

23/12/2025

Who would like Christmas colouring pages of Rolo and Sprout? Print them off and colour in! We'd love to see your finished ones!

05/11/2025

There's so many different ways to train a horse, but it's super important to always, ALWAYS, question the methods used!

One of my students asked why we don't use whips here, she has been to other barns who do and use them gently and fairly.

First, i'll start by saying this isn't a "whips are cruel, only bad people use them, it's abuse" speech. I believe knowledgeable people can and do use whips in a way that is gentle, fair, and provides guidance when a horse needs some clarity.

So why don't we use this tool if it can be used well?

Whips are not just a tool, they are symbol, they carry a meaning, a history, implications, and conditioned emotions. Not just for horses. Whips are a symbol of control and oppression through violence, force, and fear. Whether you're controlling a human or an animal, the whip is a tool of coercion and force.

It carries a meaning we do not want to be introduced into our relationship with our animals. When we hold a whip we hold a feeling of control, a feeling of force, a feeling of violence. We hold a means to coerce and manipulate our learner through fear.

Even when used gently a whip is a tool that is working through avoidance. The horse works to make the whip go away, either because it's irritating, uncomfortable, or painful - inherently or because it has been conditioned to be so. Even wild horses who have never seen one, even baby horses, know whips are something to worry about. If they weren't bothered by the whip, if it is desensitized, the horse would not work to make it go away. Simply put, if they didn't dislike it, it wouldn't work.

While they can be a useful tool of guidance they are unnecessary, there is nothing a horse needs to know that needs a whip. But i find if you are skilled enough to use a whip well, you are skilled enough to not need it. Anything a whip can do a target can do equally well from an opposite emotional direction.

A whip is a tool, a symbol, and a conditioned emotional response from human and horse that just doesn't need to be a part of our relationship with out animals.

*Disclaimer: i am referring to actual whips used as aversives, not a whip that has been converted into a target

19/10/2025

I mean, just look at him 😍 My little Rolo Polo Pony 🥰

04/10/2025

CHAAAAARRRRGGEEEE!!!

THIS WAY!! NOPE, THIS WAY!!!

!

25/09/2025

Bore da from Rolo and Sprout, and their even smaller field friends! These are our dwarf pygmy goats Mars and Susie - they're so small they make the ponies look huge!! It's sunny and beautiful here on top of our little Welsh mountain today 🌄

Thank you to Rick for the photos 😘

! (Big horns though, don't mess with Mars!)

22/09/2025

Honk honk! It's Sprout's all time favourite musical instrument! (And he will NEVER move swiftly on from it!!)

📷 Laura Barwell at Llanfyllin Show, thank you 😊

!

20/09/2025

Jump through three hula hoops perfectly ✅
Step up onto pedestal without slipping ❌
Whoopsie Rolo!

Video by Rosie Deverson taken at Belmont House and Gardens Woodfest last weekend - thank you 😊

!

19/09/2025

Having been selling our book and postcards at shows all summer, I've finally got around to opening an Etsy shop so you can buy online too!

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheMiniPonyShowShop

17/09/2025

Rolo that is not yours! LET GO!!

Yes, he's an absolute menace a lot of the time!

Photos taken by Stefanie Holmes at Belmont House and Gardens Woodfest last weekend.

!

13/09/2025

It's sunny and lovely at Belmont House and Gardens Woodfest, and it's our last show of the season! We're on at 11am and 2pm today and tomorrow, come and say hello!

!

27/08/2025

He shoots. He scores! It's a goooaaaallllll!!!

📷 Taken at Belmont House and Gardens Woodfest and Country Fair last year by the fantastic Cameron Edwards. We'll be back at Woodfest again in a couple of weeks!

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