Miriam Orschel: Grounded Equitation

Miriam Orschel: Grounded Equitation Ethical guidance towards holistic horsemanship to improve communication for you and your equine partner.

Grounded in classical principles specializing in sensitive horses, movement, general development, retraining, & rehabilitation from the ground up.

We need to be careful that we don’t start looking for problems that are actually symptoms.It is often easier to find som...
09/02/2026

We need to be careful that we don’t start looking for problems that are actually symptoms.

It is often easier to find something we can point to and explain than it is to change our understanding of what caused it in the first place. This is where cognitive dissonance can creep in. Finding an explanation can feel validating, but it can also blind us and send us down a never-ending abyss of diagnoses, treating one thing after another without ever addressing why those things developed in the first place.

Take a “mystery” lameness, for example. A lame horse may absolutely have a structure that hurts, inflammation somewhere, or an area of significant weakness or restriction. Those things are real. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the beginning of the story.

Sometimes the horse has simply spent so much of its life moving out of balance and compensating for that imbalance that eventually something can no longer keep up.

And sometimes you don’t see much of anything until you ask for more. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for more.

In fact, sometimes asking for more is exactly how we begin to understand what is actually going on.

The majority of horses I see and work with are incredibly weak in the hind end because they have never truly learned to carry their own balance forward. When you first begin freeing the body up and asking them to actually use what they have not been using, it can be very difficult for them. Areas that seemed fine before may suddenly look tight, weak, or uncomfortable.

This is where I think we have to be careful not to immediately retreat from the work.

I am not talking about forcing a horse through pain. I am talking about recognizing that difficulty is information, and that appropriate work can be both diagnostic and part of the treatment.

If a horse has spent years avoiding a part of its body, that part of the body is probably going to be weak. Using it may be hard. The horse may resist. It may fatigue quickly. It may search for the compensation that has always made the work easier. If every time that difficulty appears we back away from it completely, we may actually reinforce the very pattern that created the problem.

Sometimes the horse needs to be challenged.

Not overwhelmed. Not drilled. Not forced through something it physically cannot do. But challenged enough that the body has an opportunity to change.

The work itself tells us something. What happens when we help the horse organize differently? Does the movement improve as the horse finds its balance? Does something become easier after a few thoughtful repetitions? Does the horse fatigue because we are finally asking an underused part of the body to participate? Or does discomfort persist or increase in a way that tells us we need to stop and investigate further?

Those distinctions matter.

Because rehabilitation cannot always mean removing demand. At some point, tissue has to load. Muscles have to strengthen. Coordination has to change. The nervous system has to learn a different answer. And the horse has to experience enough appropriate difficulty to become more capable than it was before.

The tightness wasn’t necessarily the problem.

The weakness wasn’t necessarily the problem.

They may have been symptoms of a much larger pattern: the horse has not been using its body in a way that supports balance, stability, and eventually the demands we place on it.

So yes, treat what needs treating. Investigate pain. Bring in the veterinarian, farrier, bodyworker, saddle fitter, or other professional when they are needed.

But don’t stop asking the bigger question:

Why did this horse need to compensate there in the first place, and what are we doing to change that?

Because finding where the horse hurts or struggles is not always the same thing as finding the problem.

And sometimes the answer isn’t less work.

Sometimes it is better work.

08/31/2026

There's something so powerful about having a "hard conversation" with a horse. About bringing up something for them that challenges a belief they've held for their whole life, or something that scares them. Having a container in which hard conversations can happen freely, without the horse or human having to fear for their lives, is what sets this type of training apart from others.

Safety is not the same thing as avoiding discomfort, activation, or conflict forever. A relationship that can only function while everyone is calm is not actually prepared for real life, nor is it giving either party enough credit.

I do not believe in keeping horses under threshold always. I don't think this is beneficial for them, nor do I think it's responsible or sets them up for success. Because, as we all know, they are horses. They will spook at something, they will scare themselves when they believe a horse-eating troll is hiding behind that tree. And they will, undoubtedly, go over threshold.

And when they do, if you have not trained your own nervous system on how to handle yourself around a horse over threshold, you will also go over threshold.

And when you go over threshold, you will speak to your horse in a way that makes no sense to them. You will be in your sympathetic nervous system; you will be operating in fight or flight, and you will make big corrections and do big things with your body without control of your emotions.

And when you do this, your horse will have absolutely zero idea how to react. They might be terrified of you suddenly, because you got bigger than you've ever gotten with them and reacted from a place of fear or anger. They may resent you, because they assume that you are angry at them for something they did not believe they had control over. They may fight back, simply because they think you are attacking them.

There are countless combinations of what might occur, if suddenly on a Tuesday, you and your horse go over threshold together in a parking lot when neither of you have any practice in speaking to each other in a heightened state.

This is why it's crucial that we work with our horses in all kinds of situations, nervous system states, environments, etc. This is why it's imperative that, when they begin to go over threshold, we sit in that space with them and help them find their way through it, instead of immediately backing out and dropping them back down below threshold.

Your nervous system will not be able to learn how to stay regulated in the face of a panicking 1200-pound animal until you practice. And, as we all know, you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you help others. If you cannot regulate yourself, your horse will not be able to trust your guidance or your training, and you will both be stuck in a cycle of avoiding hard conversations and staying below threshold because it's too scary for both of you when s**t hits the fan.

So, how do you do it?

You create scenarios in which you know your horse will up-regulate, and you do so in a space where you can feel safe, supported, and held. I am not saying to terrorize your horse and send them into a full-fledged panic state. You need manageable activation. Choose a mid-level trigger. The horse still gets to communicate, and you still listen. The difference is that communication does not automatically mean you make the hard thing disappear. A set of eyes observing and helping to coach you through it is wildly helpful. You hold your ground, you set your boundaries, and you help teach your horse what it feels like when:

1. Your nervous system gets up-regulated, too.
2. Your intention changes from "please can you do this" to "I need this from you right now."
3. Your boundaries, voice, and body language gets louder, not from a place of anger/fear, but from a place of "What you are doing does not work for me, and I need you to hear me."

Spoiler alert: You will not be perfect at this when you first start. Take it from someone who has gone into full fight/flight mode in front of a horse and acted from a place of frustration, fear, etc. You will be triggered and likely will go over threshold yourself, which is why it's crucial to do this in a setting where you can bail yourself out if needed and tag in a friend while you breathe and re-regulate.

I remember as a child the feeling I would get in my body when my mom would use her "mom voice" and tell me to stop moving when we were out for a walk in the neighborhood. In that moment, I did not fear that my mother was going to kill me, but I sure as hell stopped in my tracks and looked at her for guidance because I knew something was not right.

THIS is what your horse can learn to do in moments of up-regulation, panic, fear, etc. They can learn that your intention getting bigger, your voice getting louder, and maybe even your physical cues getting stronger does not mean they need to fear for their lives, but instead means they need to stop and look at you for guidance.

They will never learn this if you don't practice it. They will never learn that you can indeed save them from themselves when they hit the panic button if you avoid the hard conversations. YOU will never learn that you can save them from themselves if you avoid it, either. They cannot learn how to communicate with you through activation if the two of you never practice communicating through activation.

The goal is not to teach the horse to tolerate being terrified. The goal is to teach both nervous systems that activation does not have to mean the loss of communication, relationship, or safety. Nor does it mean that there is something wrong or that they are being bad. It's simply a part of life.

Escalation is not the enemy. Being incapable of controlling your own emotions, regulating your own nervous system, and trusting yourself and your abilities is, though. And choosing to avoid the hard stuff and never teaching your horse how to handle a big change in intention, a louder aid or a reasonable demand is robbing you both of a relationship in which you can navigate the human world together.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. 🫶🏻

I gave a client an exercise today: look at these two photos of her horse, Levi, and identify what has changed.I think a ...
08/26/2026

I gave a client an exercise today: look at these two photos of her horse, Levi, and identify what has changed.

I think a lot of people would immediately choose the top photo as the “better” one. He looks relaxed. His head and neck are lower. His posture appears soft and comfortable.

But before deciding which picture is ideal, we first have to ask ourselves what we are actually looking at.

These are two photos of the same horse in two different postures.

The top photo is Levi last week, in a rest state.

The bottom photo is Levi today, up and activated through his thoracic sling.

And “ideal” depends entirely on what we are asking the horse to do.

It is incredibly important that a horse can go into a rest state easily. I want my horses to be able to let down, relax their musculature and simply stand without feeling like they constantly need to hold themselves in a working posture.

But rest state is not the physical balance I want a horse to maintain when I put weight on his back and ask him to move.

This is where I think the word relaxed can become misleading.

In the first photo, Levi’s back is relaxed. But if I put a rider on that relaxed back and ask him to move without first changing his balance, what is going to carry that additional weight?

Something has to.

And when the structures designed to organize and support the trunk aren’t sufficiently active, the horse has to find another way to manage the load. This is where compensation patterns begin to emerge.

Look more closely at the top photo.

His hind feet are pointing outward, something I attribute to weakness in the hind quarters and tightness in the SI region. He is also more locked through the poll than he initially appears. His head may be lower, but his chest is heavier.

I’ve outlined the shoulder, chest and underside of the neck to make that heaviness on the forehand easier to see.

I also drew a line from the point of the buttock toward approximately C5 in both photos.

Which horse is actually more uphill?

Now look at the second photo.

His head and neck are somewhat higher, but the important change isn’t simply that his head came up.

His trunk came up.

The thoracic sling is more active. The rib cage is better supported between the shoulders. The chest is less dropped. The relationship between the front and hind end has changed.

This is much closer to the balance we need to develop if we expect a horse to carry our weight.

And this is only one degree of that balance.

As the work progresses, different elevations and organizations of the head and neck will correspond with different demands on the rest of the body, eventually allowing us to develop greater self-carriage and, ultimately, collection.

That doesn’t make the first posture bad.

Neither posture is bad.

That’s really the point.

Instead of looking at a horse and asking whether a posture is “good” or “bad,” I want people to learn to ask whether the horse is structurally organized for the thing we’re about to ask him to do.

Can he rest comfortably in posture A? Wonderful.

Can he organize himself into posture B when we ask him to carry us and move? Equally important.

Because relaxation by itself is not balance.

And softness is not the absence of muscular activity.

For a riding horse, there has to be a pathway from relaxation into organization, support and self-carriage.

In very simple terms, I often think about the difference this way:

Ride a horse while he is organized like posture A, and he has to find ways to compensate for the load.

Teach him to organize himself like posture B before adding greater demands, and you begin to give him the physical balance from which confidence, security and eventually collection can develop.

The goal isn’t to choose between relaxation and activation.

The goal is a horse who can do both.

An Ode to a Young HorsemanThere is a particular kind of courage in choosing this path young.Not because horses are diffi...
08/18/2026

An Ode to a Young Horseman

There is a particular kind of courage in choosing this path young.

Not because horses are difficult.
But because becoming a horseman asks you to give up so many of the things youth tells you to hold onto.

Certainty.
Ego.
The need to be right.
The need to be seen as good at something before you have had enough time to become good at it.

The horse has little interest in any of these things.

He does not care how talented you are, who you have studied with, what you know, or what you can make him do.

He only knows what it feels like to stand beside you.

And so, if you stay with this long enough, the horse begins to take things from you.

First, perhaps, your certainty.

You discover that what worked yesterday may not work today. That two horses can ask entirely different questions of the same idea. That sometimes the thing you were so sure the horse needed was exactly the thing preventing you from hearing what he was trying to tell you.

Then the horse takes your hurry.

Because feel cannot be rushed. Timing cannot be memorized. And the things most worth finding in a horse are rarely found by someone determined to get somewhere.

Eventually, he takes your pride too.

There will be horses you cannot help yet.
Horses who expose every hole in your understanding.
Horses who make you question whether you know anything at all.

These may become the most important horses you ever meet.

Because a young horseman is not made by the horses who make him look talented.

He is made by the horses who require him to become more.

To look closer.
To soften without becoming passive.
To become clearer without becoming harder.
To recognize the difference between obedience and understanding, between stillness and peace, between a horse who has surrendered and one who has truly found his balance.

And perhaps hardest of all, to accept that there is no point at which he arrives.

There is only a deepening.

Years from now, you may look back at the horseman you are today and realize how little you knew.

I hope you do.

I hope ten years after that, it happens again.

Because that is the strange gift of this work: the better you become, the larger the horizon gets.

So to the young horseman standing at the beginning of this road:

Protect your curiosity.

Choose your teachers carefully, but never give any teacher the authority to replace your own observation.

Learn the old things. Study the new things. Listen to people whose ideas challenge yours. And then return to the horse.

Always return to the horse.

Let him tell you what is true.

Do not be in such a hurry to develop a style that you stop developing yourself.

Do not confuse softness with the absence of boundaries, or strength with force.

Do not measure your progress by what you can make a horse do.

Measure it, perhaps, by how much more you are able to notice.

By how little you need.

By how quickly you can change when the horse tells you that you are wrong.

And when you meet the horse who humbles you—and you will—do not resent him for it.

Thank him.

He may be the one who turns you from someone who works with horses into a horseman.

There are easier paths.

But there are few that will ask you, again and again, to become this honest.

Stay a student.

Stay curious.

And no matter how far down this road you travel, leave enough of yourself unfinished for the next horse to teach you something.

08/16/2026

a section from my book "Stumbling With Grace," which I will have for sale if you're coming to the clinic next Thursday with Steve Peters and I!

What is the true nature of a horse?

I find myself often attempting to explain how a horse feels, uncorrupted by human attitudes and hands. It’s a feel most people can’t relate to , those first electric touches, the wind blowing your scarf around the back of your neck, the young horse like a baby deer, reaching out to make contact with your hand, before he zips away.

It’s like most people have never spent time in unspoiled nature, free of traffic noise, lights, trash left behind, trail markers. Who has felt unspoiled nature in all it’s terrible glory, and felt themselves give way to how small and inconsequential the human is? Who has felt complete surrender to a greater power, manifested in rocks and trees and dirt in the crevices of your face, and known, accepted happily, that you are nothing, and this is everything?

When a baby is born, we already have a name picked out, and clothes that say “daddy’s little slugger” or “daddy’s princess.” We have ideas of who they’ll be and how they’ll fit into the family and the world. How many a parent has sat in silent awe of the brilliance that is a brand new baby, completely shaken by the meaning of holding such raw power in their hands? Who is this little person, sent through your body? They are yours but they are their own completley.

Every day after that first day of birth, parents go to work molding their child, and labeling personality and behavior. But who is that child?
What is nature?

What is a horse?

Describing what a horse is to most people can feel like explaining why Central Park isn’t nature. You might enjoy being in it because it’s more nature than the high rise jungle that surrounds it. But it is still tarnished by human light, sound, their footprint is everywhere until it is twisted far away from its original form. You see a tree and can call it a tree, but it is no longer a tree, it is a slave to a human.

But what is a horse? Most folks have never met a horse. They’ve touched many, maybe even thousands, but they make quick work of weaving a safe blanket of description, strapping it on in the safety of a stall, behind fences and arenas and confined in tight spaces, in the safety of routine, so they don’t have to see a horse-

The true nature of the horse is like a desert canyon, windy, dry and brambled, and if you step back and really look, it takes the breath right out of your lungs with its power. You can’t name it, you can’t even hardly describe it. The act of simply giving it a name cheapens it. You can’t control it, you can learn it’s ways, learn to survive in the canyon by succumbing completely to its power, and then, in small mysterious ways, you shape it, like it shapes you.

The concepts of softness and lightness are often misunderstood.Softness in the bridle comes from softness and suppleness...
08/16/2026

The concepts of softness and lightness are often misunderstood.

Softness in the bridle comes from softness and suppleness in the body, both in the horse and in the rider. Lightness comes from balance and collection. True lightness cannot exist without softness.

But the absence of contact is often mistaken for lightness.

A horse can feel like there is nothing in the hand while still being rigid through the body. Sometimes the horse has learned to avoid contact because of rigid hands. Sometimes the rider gives away too much of the rein, even when the horse is seeking connection. Either way, the absence of contact does not necessarily mean softness is present. In fact, without contact we lose one of the ways we can feel into the horse in order to find that softness.

Heaviness in the bridle is often misunderstood for the same reason.

A horse that is heavy in the hand is not necessarily disregarding or disrespecting the bit, and a stronger bit will not solve the problem. False lightness and heaviness can actually come from the same place: rigidity in the body and a lack of education to the hand and bit.

When we look more closely at a horse that is heavy or avoiding the hand, we often find contraction somewhere else in the body. Very commonly it is through the upper back, thoracic sling, trapezius and girth. When the thoracic sling cannot function properly, the rib cage cannot elevate between the shoulders and the horse cannot organize the front end. The hind end cannot truly carry if the front end cannot lift, and the front end cannot truly lift without the hind engaging.

What we feel in the hand is often simply telling us what is happening elsewhere in the horse.

This is also why I question the idea of bridleless riding as the ultimate expression of lightness.

It is often presented that way, but lightness is impossible without softness. Taking the bridle off does not tell us whether softness exists. A horse can be extremely responsive to the seat, leg, a neck rope or learned cues while still carrying rigidity in the body. Just as an empty rein can create the illusion of lightness, so can the absence of a bridle.

More importantly, when we remove the contact completely, we also remove our ability to feel into the horse through the hand.

The hand was never meant to simply control the horse’s head. It is a place of communication. An educated hand can feel what is happening throughout the horse’s body. It can feel changes in the jaw and poll, but also changes in the neck, shoulders, rib cage and back. It can feel when the horse begins to brace, when balance shifts, when the body becomes available and when softness begins to come through.

The horse speaks back through the rein.

That is why the answer to a heavy horse is not more force, but neither is the answer necessarily less contact. The answer is for the rider to educate themselves and the horse to the hand and bit, and to understand how the hand affects and speaks to different parts of the body.

To me, the goal is not to see how little contact we can have with the horse.

The goal is to develop enough softness, balance and understanding that the contact itself can become light.

Lightness is not simply the absence of contact.

It is what becomes possible when there is softness within the connection.

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