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A podcast by Abbey’s Run Equestrian
An Equine Conversation
Welcome to An Equine Conversation, a podcast brought to you by Abbey’s Run Equestrian.
This podcast aims to help you, the horse owner, improve your knowledge by giving you access to top quality information that will help you be the best horse owner you can be so that you can give your horses the best life possible.
Through An Equine Conversation, I’ll share my expertise with you along with helping you connect to and hear from some amazing experts in their own fields – because while I have a lot of knowledge, I am by no means the expert in all of the things. We’ll also be talking with horse owners about their journey with their animals.
We’ll explore ways our horses can be physically and mentally healthier through topics around training, horse-health, enrichment, emergency preparedness, history, our own mental wellbeing and physical health and more. We’ll be giving you practical actions you can implement with your horses and information to explore, consider and further investigate.
These podcast episodes are absolutely designed to be thought-provoking and they may bring you some ideas, approaches or information that you haven’t come across previously.
Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm
S4 E5: Horse Play with Nicky Ross
This episode of our Special Edition Season on ‘What Else Is There?’ we are connecting with the far west coast of Scotland to speak with today’s guest Nicky Ross, owner of the business Horse Play.
I first discovered Nicky some years back through a training group we were both in on Facebook and I saw some of the lovely videos she was sharing of her work, teaching one of her ponies to go in harness, purely training using positive reinforcement. Nicky was based in England at that point, and then I watched from afar as Nicky and family moved to Scotland – much jealously from us, except for the midges – to the far west coast. Since then, Nicky has evolved her activities with her ponies and her human learners to work with the amazing environment there.
I really enjoy seeing what Nicky and crew are getting up to – things that I can only dream about where I am. Once again, the beauty of having a podcast means I could reach out & was so pleased to have the opportunity to speak with Nicky and hear more about her background, approach, the diversity activities that go on, and what makes Nicky’s heart smile & feel true in how she connects and helps her human learners connect with equines. I really resonate with a lot of Nicky’s approach and I’m delighted to share some more inspiration with you, our listeners this episode.
S4 E4: An Owner’s Story - with Chris & Michael Fallon
This episode of our Special Edition Season on ‘What Else Is There?’ takes a little bit of a different view. Today, instead of us meeting with those who engage in this space in a more professional capacity, it is my pleasure to introduce you to a couple who are horse-owners and to share their, very personal but very inspiring journey.
I connected with Chris and Michael Fallon, based in the United States, as a result of the post I put up and shared into the Non Ridden Equine Facebook group, asking what fun, non-ridden activities were people getting up to with their equine friends. Chris posted a comment that included the most delightful video montage of a bunch of tricks their horse Pirate was doing, many with her husband Michael. The video, especially Michael’s joy as he played with Pirate & Pirates engagement, made me chuckle, filled me with joy and I made a point of showing it to Benn, for him to see another male having fun in this way. We were both tickled.
So I reached out to Chris and invited her and Michael to join me for a conversation, to share their experiences with you as other owners who are not professionals in the ethical horse world. To my delight, they were happy to chat with me so that their story could inspire others. I think a really key part of Chris and Michael’s story is that their horse Pirate CAN be ridden at this point, unlike Vicki’s Kez that we spoke about last week. Pirate can be ridden and still they are having a fabulous time with him from the ground.
I am incredibly grateful to Chris and Michael for meeting with me and so openly sharing this personal story with me and now you. I hope it leaves you feeling inspired about what’s possible with your equine friends.
S4 E3: ‘The Non Ridden Equine’ Facebook group - with Vicki Jayne Yates
In this episode of our Special Edition Season on ‘What Else Is There?’, I’m delighted to introduce you to Vicki Jayne Yates and the Facebook group she established with her husband Steve, ‘The Non Ridden Equine’.
This free group that continues to grow weekly with a current membership of over 32,000 people from around the world. I’ve been a member for a number of years now and love being part of such an inclusive, welcoming group and a place where I can draw inspiration on ideas of what activities I can be doing with my horses besides riding.
I wanted to showcase this community to you because I think we can sometimes feel isolated and perhaps lonely if we’re not riding. So much is focused on the ridden world and there can be peer-pressure to ride, I know I’ve faced it. I want you to know that if you are not riding your equines or even if you are, that there is this amazing, international community out there that you can be part of if you’re not already. There are SO many people around the world who have equines that they don’t ride & enjoy in other ways. The Non Ridden Equine Facebook group is somewhere that you can find connection and possibly some inspiration too (listen next week for more on this).
I also find Vicki and Steve’s story with Kez, which inspired the establishment of the group very powerful and wanted to share that with you too.
Enjoy & see you in The Non Ridden Equine Facebook group soon.
S4 E2: Equine Agility - with Ellen Cochrane
I’m so excited to introduce today, our first guest of our Special Edition Season on ‘What Else Is There?’ (besides riding).
I’ll be straight with you and say that one of the joys of podcasting is having a reason to speak to some awesome humans in our industry, because uh, I want to connect with them myself, and today is no exception.
Ellen Cochrane came on my radar a couple of years ago, when someone shared the footage of Ellen’s mule Inara, pushing a soccer ball around an S-bend of poles. It was posted on Ellen’s page that follow’s Inara’s journey, ‘It’s a Mule’s Life’ and it was amazing. This was clearly someone who was a very clever trainer and able to achieve awesome things, and so I started following Ellen’s work.
In parallel with this and probably even before I knew of Ellen, I had heard about Equine Agility and was captivated by the idea. There is so much I love about this as an activity we can be doing with our horses for fun, that hones our training skills broadly with lots of real-world positive impacts, and it also facilitates those who have a competitive drive to compete, while still keeping their horse comfortable as possible as the entries are submitted from home. It’s something that can be done un-mounted on lead and off-lead and also done mounted. There are so many options and the creators have made this opportunity inclusive for so many equines and their humans. I can’t wait to explore it with my equine team.
But, let me stop there as Ellen will explain so much more in the conversation you’re about to hear.
I will just say that I’ll be speaking with Ellen again soon in a future Season of An Equine Conversation as there are so many more things we want to share with you.
S4 E1: Why this special edition season - ‘What Else Is There?’
I have spent many hours thinking about bringing this Special Edition Season of An Equine Conversation to you, and then of course planning & sourcing guests & editing episodes.
The more I thought about it, the more and more important and the clearer the WHY for this episode became to me. And it seemed more than what was sensible to fit into the already long Season Trailer, so here we are at Episode 1, talking about the why. Why we are producing a Special Edition of An Equine Conversation on ‘What else is there?’.
Season 4 Trailer
Hello lovely listener! I am so excited to be back & bringing you this, our first Special Edition Season of An Equine Conversation.
Just like previous Seasons of the podcast, Season 4 includes 8 episodes, the first of which will drop next Wednesday.
Check out this trailer to hear just what the topic of this Special Edition Season is.
S3 E8: An Irish start & another EMS pony - with Dr Dorothy Heffernan
Here we are at our final episode for Season 3 of An Equine Conversation. The months & months of recording & editing have all finally finished & you now have the whole season to listen to & what an epic season it has been too.
Stay tuned at the end of the conversation for some announcements.
I’m delighted to bring you this final episode with the 4th inspirational women in the horse world I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with this season.
This is yet another conversation I’ve been so looking forward to having and to sharing with you. Dr Dorothy Heffernan is based in Scotland, my favourite place in the world besides where I am in Victoria, Australia, but grew up in Ireland. I mention in the conversation, an Irish documentary that was on TV when I was a child about horses in Ireland and so I always wondered what it would have been like growing up horsie in Ireland. You’ll never believe it, but someone’s put that 53 minute and a bit documentary, which must have been made in the 1980’s or even 70’s onto YouTube. I almost fell off my chair when I thought to look and found it.
I digress…
Dorothy first came on my radar a number of years ago with her insightful responses to questions on some of the equine behaviour & positive reinforcement Facebook groups & it seemed Dorothy liked mine too & we connected over a like-minded approach.
Since then I’ve been following Dorothy’s journey with both her training work with humans & horses in Scotland, and with her own little herd of horses. I knew Dorothy grew up in Ireland and I wanted to hear what that was like & I love Scotland so am always happy to speak with anyone there.
I know some of you lovely listeners had really resonated with & appreciated hearing Julia Inglis story with her EMS horse and you wanted more information around EMS – a growing challenge for many horse owners. Dorothy has an EMS pony Rio – whose story I wanted to share with you as well, so we delve into the trials and tribulations of managing an EMS pony in Scotland.
It was such a fun conversation with Dorothy who is a great story-teller. Even listening back to edit the episode, I laughed and I almost shed tears at different points. I hope you enjoy listening as much as Dorothy & I enjoyed recording this for you.
S3 E7: The Wine Cellar
Let me invite you today, to come for a little journey into the wine cellar with me, which is kind of ironic, given I don’t drink alcohol, but hey, I can still appreciate the amazingness that is a wine cellar… so come on this little journey with me.
Why are we going to the wine cellar? Well, for very, very good reason:
Because, we have a tendency to start training our horses on the ground floor or somewhere above it, so, in the middle instead of at the beginning, instead of starting down in the gloriousness that is the wine cellar.
I think we do this for a variety of very legitimate reasons, but it often leads us into a pickle in lots of ways with training our horses where we get ourselves stuck or facing problems.
I hear some of you cry here, ‘but but but, I am not a horse trainer, I am an owner and I work with a trainer so this episode can’t be for me’… and I’m here to tell you that anyone who works with or cares for any animal, anywhere is a trainer – regardless of whether we’re conscious of it or not. So yep, if you care for a horse or any other animal, you are a trainer & this episode, this visit to the wine cellar is for you. As if you don’t want to go to the wine cellar anyway!?
In today’s episode I’m going to speak to the training that comes before the training. Because that piece is inextricably connected to just how successful any training, which I say in inverted commas, is.
So let’s head down the stairs into the cool of the wine cellar together and get started.
S3 E6: How learning with horses can teach young people key life skills - with Bex Tasker
From the age of about 10-11 years old, it was my dream to have my own children’s riding school. I started instructing at 16 and taught a lot of young people. Initially at riding schools & then at Pony Club where I often taught the youngest members, the more junior groups.
In my mid-to-late 20’s, I’d had enough of teaching young people, of dealing with their parents and so I chose to focus on working with adults.
I didn’t realise at that time, that part of the reason I’d had enough was because of the more conventional way I was having to teach people & that this just didn’t sit right with me. At that time, I didn’t know of or see another way. I wasn’t aware of alternative options.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and my initial dream started to re-kindle in a fashion, with sparks, ignited by the work of people like the lovely Bex Tasker from Positively Together in NZ. I started to see a handful of people around the work, having learning adventures with young people that looked absolutely amazing.
This, their approach, different from that conventional way, really got me & I started to have hope that my initial dream, could, in some way, happen in future. For now, this is something that’s still in my future, something I have bubbling along in the back of my mind, but now I have hope. I have hope for amazing alternatives for ways of working with young people and horses, and moreover, I’m so excited by what I’m seeing is possible to support young people learning about working with horses and other species in very cool ways that I wish were around when I was young.
I couldn’t go past inviting Bex to come and have a chat with me here on An Equine Conversation, to share about her own learning journey and how she evolved her career to working with young people & animals, totally busting the myth that it’s something that we shouldn’t do. Bex does amazing work with young people as the learn about training animals and in turn, that’s giving them a bunch of personal development, teaching them invaluable life-skills on how they engage with their peers, families & humans around them. This includes learning about compassion, boundaries, choice & consent. Hugely important life-skills for us all.
I find this work of Bex’s incredibly inspiring, as do others & Bex has more recently started to support other positive reinforcement focused coaches who work with and want to work with young people through her Shaping the Future membership.
This is an episode for anyone who’s involved with young people, not just those in the animal training space. I hope you enjoy and find inspiration in this conversation.
S3 E5: Farts & Unicorns
Today’s episode is a really short & snappy one, dare I say, a mini-sode.
Despite being short, it’s an important one, where I’m sharing 2 valuable training tips that I’ve been talking about with my students for more than a decade: farts & unicorns. These are two training tips you can take away immediately and incorporate into your training.
A short episode, but one I hope you find really helpful.
And now I best explain just what I mean by farts & unicorns. Listen to find out.
S3 E4: Crib-biting: a game changing study - with Dr Michaela Hempen
It was a few years back now when I first heard about Dr Michaela Hempen’s Masters Research on Crib-biting, which, for those uninitiated, is a stereotypic behaviour that horses can develop. I heard about the research and then had the good fortune to see some of the timeline film of the project thanks to Alexandra Kurland.
There is not much now, after so long in the horse world that really captures my attention strongly, but wow, Michaela’s research blew my mind – it still does. I was captivated watching the footage, absolutely glued to the screen to see it all in as much detail as I could take in.
I think the findings from Michaela’s work are absolutely game-changing in terms of how we view, understand and then manage crib-biting in horses. I am so moved by Michaela and the broader teams work in this space and the implications it has for the welfare of cribbing horses. I look forward to further research happening on crib-biting & other equine stereotypies.
Since I heard about this research, anyone mentions crib-biting and I vomit excitement about Michaela’s research all over them… so I was itching to have Michaela come and speak with me to share this with you, our An Equine Conversation listeners so I could point people to this conversation instead of trying to explain the research and findings myself.
There is so much to talk about & this is a long episode… but we still ran out of time & need to talk again.
S3 E3: Young & green horses
Having young and or green horses is awesome. But also, it can be confusing and overwhelming. We hear conflicting information on young horses – that we shouldn’t start them under saddle too early because their bodies need to develop. But then we also hear that they need a job to do and we often see that in the busy, exploratory behaviour we see from them. For many people it’s a rock and a hard place and we too often end up with young horses started under saddle too soon because they need a job to do.
There are absolutely other things we can do with young horses to give their busy minds and bodies things to do that will be beneficial now and into the future.
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I have been super interested in working with young horses since I was a teenager at riding school… so we’re talking for maybe the last 30 years. In this episode I chat about why I’m so passionate about working with young and/or green horses. So passionate that our first Abbey’s Run Equestrian program, From Green to Growth is targeted for that cohort of horses and their owners.
S3 E2: The differences & similarities in training dogs and horses with Hannah Branigan
I am ridiculously excited to have Hannah Branigan as our guest on An Equine Conversation this episode.
If you don’t know Hannah’s work, you should make a point of getting to know it. Hannah’s education programs and content in the animal training space with a focus on dogs is next level excellent. Her podcast, Drinking from the Toilet that I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the past on An Equine Conversation and have recommended to many people, is one of my favourites for insightful training information, looking at all the shades of grey in the training space and the best part is that it’s presented in a really authentic way. While Drinking from the Toilet has a dog focus, so much of the conversation directly relates to training horses & other species.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to do an episode on An Equine Conversation about the differences & similarities between training dogs and horses. I know the vast majority of horse people also have dogs. And I see regularly a really fascinating thing happen where people will train their dog with positive reinforcement, yet they don’t apply the same training approach with their horses. There seems to be a long-held belief in a large part of the horse-world that we can’t train horses with positive reinforcement, we can’t train them using food. That using food would be bribing them, will make them muggy, yet we’re often comfortable to train our dogs using food. FYI This isn’t the case – we can train horses using positive reinforcement and it’s super effective & people around the world are doing it with awesome success.
I wanted to unpack the differences but also the similarities between training dogs and horses. I’m a huge fan of Hannah’s and I know that Hannah is not only amazingly awesome in her work with dogs, she also has horses. I reckoned Hannah might be the perfect person to unpack this conversation with me.
I was beyond delighted when Hannah agreed to come and chat with us & I managed to restrain myself from fan-girling at her too much. We had a super interesting conversation where Hannah shared some of her lesser known story with horses.
It won’t surprise anyone who knows Hannah’s work to know that we got into some training weeds and a more in-depth but totally awesome conversation than maybe I had planned. …. A conversation which I’m so excited to share with you. Enjoy!
S3 E1: Movin’ to the country - with Benn Sheffield
This episode of An Equine Conversation is quite a different one:
In late 2015, Benn & I moved to the country, from the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Yep, we did eat a lot of peaches initially (we knew people with a prolifically producing tree), and have since planted 2 peach trees of our own LOL. For me, moving to the country had been a dream since I can remember (I can’t remember a time I didn’t want my own ‘farm’) and for Benn who grew up on a hobby-farm but then moved into town for study & work, returning to a more rural lifestyle was something he always intended to do. Here we are, almost 8 years on (sometimes it feels like 5 minutes, other times, forever) & while it’s an awful lot of work, for the most part, we absolutely love it.
Inspired by our friend and Podcast Producer Matthew Bliss & his wife Bernadine & their podcast ‘From My Home To Yours’, Benn (who had volunteered to come on a podcast episode) and I thought we’d take a moment to reflect on our experience of moving from one type of lifestyle to another. Something we haven’t really stopped to do like this since we moved almost 8 years ago now. It was an awesome opportunity to reflect on some of the challenges, some of the awesomeness & some of the differences we found in moving to the country, to live on our 40 acres. We thought you might enjoy listening in and sharing on our revisiting some of the most memorable changes.
Season 3 Trailer
Hello lovely listener! We are delighted to be back with Season 3 of An Equine Conversation, a podcast brought to you by Abbey’s Run Equestrian. I’m your host, Sarah Nickels.
Just like the previous Seasons, Season 3 includes 8 episodes (plus this trailer). Episodes will drop on a Wednesday morning, Melbourne/Sydney time. We’re dropping our first episode next Wednesday, October 4th.
Check out this trailer for a glimpse of what’s coming up this Season & to find out about the free challenge we have starting next week (October 5th) and our next intake of our young and/or green horse program, From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future.
What goes into making An Equine Conversation?
Season 2 of An Equine Conversation is now, all out in the world for your listening pleasure. But what goes into bring An Equine Conversation to you?
Blood, sweat & tears I tell you… but seriously (okay seriously though, it can be blood sweat and tears)… there is a heap that goes into putting a podcast together, although there are variations depending on how people choose to do their podcasting – there’s lots of options.
If you haven’t been exposed to podcast creation, like I hadn’t a year ago, I suspect the amount of activity & resourcing that go into it will surprise you.
S2 E8: The difficulty of language - with Julia Inglis
I’m delighted to welcome our good friend, Julia Inglis back to An Equine Conversation. We first met Julia in Series 1, Episode 8 ‘Julia’s story - a tale to learn from’. If you want to hear Julia’s story, you can jump back and listen to that episode.
Julia & I talk so much about training, so we thought we’d start to share some of these conversations with you.
In this episode, we start by catching up on how Julia’s horse Maddy, who has Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) went over last Spring and Summer. Then, we get into the weeds of talking about the challenges of the English langauge, particularly the use of labels, in the horse world…. but because this is Julia and I, we quickly end up down various rabbit holes due to what we’d both been seeing in the months before we spoke, inc. clinic Julia watched…. , including talking about what you do when you remove labels & the challenge of addressing the actual problem when that impacts your plans.
S2 E7: Advocating for your horse - with Erin Moore
I first encountered Canadian-based Erin Moore when a friend pointed me to a podcast episode Erin had done last year on running a successful dog training business and I immediately resonated with Erin’s work. I loved what Erin was all about & since that time have been working with Erin on my business, Abbey’s Run Equestrian.
Cut to earlier this year & Erin was on the ‘Drinking from the Toilet’ podcast, which is a fabulous podcast about all things dog training that I highly recommend. It’s one of my favourite podcasts to listen to, with much of the content translating very directly to horses. On that episode, Erin was talking about advocating for your dog and it really struck me that this is content horsie folk needed to hear too. I know it’s something I could personally always get better at and in the past I’ve supported quite a number of my students in some of their advocacy options for their horses.
We can often think about advocacy as being confrontational, but it doesn’t have to be that. Sure, it is sometimes, but there are many other non-confrontational ways we can advocate for our loved horses and other equines too.
S2 E6: Set up for success: it takes a team
We want your training with your horse to be fun & enjoyable for your both – in short, we want you to be really successful in your training.
When we think about training with our horses & being successful with our training, we often think about the time when we're actively training 1:1 with our horse... but there is a whole bunch of stuff that comes before the active training part that is inextricably connected to how successful any active training will be or not.
Some of the things that come before take some time to put in place & others can be done more rapidly. The very cool thing too, is that the more we get in place and the more practiced we get at setting ourselves and our horses up for success, the faster it becomes over time. So while initially, it might take some conscious, focused thought and actions – it will become easier over time.
Setting ourselves up for success is something we will be exploring in greater detail with you awesome humans who get involved in our virtual young & green horse program that launches on the 1st of August 2023… but setting ourselves & our horses up for success is so important & we wanted to touch on it here, through An Equine Conversation too.
There is so much we could talk about on how we set ourselves and our horses up for success but today we’re going to follow on from something we mentioned super briefly in Series 2, Episode 3 of An Equine Conversation with Dr Lisa Walter – that it takes a team.
S2 E5: The impact of periods on participation: a Pony Club Australia study
In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Julia Inglis, a very good friend of mine who I met virtually through a mutual friend. Julia lives over in Western Australia, the other side of the country from me, and we’re actually yet to meet in real life. Julia and I are messaging one another and sometimes talking, almost daily about horse training and management. While we had so much we talked about discussing on this episode, we decided that actually the best place to start, was with Julia’s story – or at least some of. It’s a story that there is a lot to learn from - both in the way of managing horses (particularly those with EMS and ulcers) and in the way of training approaches.