It's late night here and I'm done to go to sleep. But first I want to tell you a story.
Then I was in my teens something happend that changed my mind forever.
It was a terrable accident, that taught me the false safety in bits.

If i start at the begining. At the time I was very open to alternative horsetraining. 
But there was one thing I never wanted to risk and that was the safety of me, my friends or my horses.
In the groups I was following there was a lot of people that rode their horses with nothing on them.
I was already riding Korre with no bit since he thought he was back in trotter tracks as fast as he got a bit in his mouth. 
But I was riding with a strong rope sidepull, if i knew then what I knew today i had never used it, since I think it's to sharp. So this days it is just a decoration on my wall. When I saw all this girls ride around with nothing I thought it was stupid. 
What if the horse got scared? What would they do then?

So one day I was riding in the woods with a friend. Suddenly Korre got scared, very scared. He reared up on his hindlegs and spun around on two legs befor he landed in the other direction and took off.
I had been sitting on horses taking off in fear befor but this was something new.This was pure panic.
If there been a wall infront of us Korre would have run straight in to it with out hesitation. 
He was complitly gone. I tried everything, from camly sitting back, relaxing and just softly squeez the reins till full out pull and saw them back and forth. Pulling at one rein every trick in the book i could remember i tried. But nothing changed.
It feelt like i could just as well, tie the reins to the back of a train in full speed and pull to stop it. 
I was helpless, as a last resort I let the reins go, I leaned forward and warped my arms around his neck.
Slowly I tried to speak to him, I pat his neck and wisperd to him that he had to calm down, that everything was fine.
With in 20 meters we had come to a stop.
But it was to late, my friend had already fallen off her horse and she had badly injured her head.
Lucky, she is fine today but it was one of the scariest moments of my life. 

That day I learned that safety is keeping a good helmet on when you ride, if it wasen't for the helmet I had lost my best friend that day.
But I also learned the false safety we humans put in bits and halters. 
All people that say like I did "what if the horse get scared?" they have never sit on a horse in pure panic.
A horse that you can stop with a rein is not a horse in panic, it might be scared, but that full on fear of death panic I meet that day is something else, and it can not be stoped by any equipment.
The only thing that can stop that is a strong bond and relationship to your horse. 

I don't say that everyone should just throw everything away and jump up on their horse with nothing.
But I do say that a good relationship is safer then any bit you can find. 
We put a false safety in our equipment. 

A horse that wants to listen to you is safer then any equipment you can ever buy.
So don't say it's not my interest to bond with my horse from the ground.

Lots of people today say I'm crazy for riding Peewee in a neckring everywere.
I often get to hear my own old line "-what if he gets scared?".
I have had Peewee since he was 2 months old. I was the one to start him and I have been riding him for 11 years now.
He has never once tried to take off with me so I say:
The day Peewee gets so scared that he takes off even then I say everything is fine, that day no rein in the world will stop him.

Night and hugs

The secret to horsetraining. Is not a tool or a metod.
It is something you don't have to buy or pay for. 
It's something we all have and can use.
It's  so simple that most of us seem to have forgoten it.

The secret to good horsetraining is you. 
If you can get yourself together there is nothing that can stop you and your horses.
If you can prove to your horse that your worth trust and respect, if you can earn the title of being the leader.
It's not something you do, something you trained.
It's all you. 
Your way to hold yourself, your way to walk, talk and think.
Your way to keep your cool, your knowledge, your courage.

To be a leader does not mean that you will boss others around.
It means that you care for all the others.
To be a leader does not mean not listening to others.
It means that you listen very well and make wise choices.

You can not take the place of leader,
you have to earn it.

Hugs

In this blog there will be lots of horses. Most you will read about my horses Peewee, Tuffis, Little Red and Meinke. 
But there is seven other horses that I believe is going to be mentioned often in this blog so I thought I might as well introduce them right away.

I live on a farm together with my aunt and our animals. We have seven horses at the farm. Three off them are mine, and three of them are my aunts. Then there is Meinke that me and my aunt have together.
My aunts horses are three icelandic horses. Two mares and one gelding. 
One mare is chestnut and born 2003, her name is Eldrun she is also the mother of the gelding.
The gelding is silver dapple and born 2010, his name is Skotti. 
 The last one is a palomino mare born 2006, her name is Elja. 

Two other horses that might come up now and then is our closest neighbors horses.
There is their huge but very charming shetland pony gelding Ior and their chestnut roan trotter mare Chansa.

Also sadly there is two horses that I probably will mention a lot that are no longer with us in this world.
One is Korre a bay colored coldblooded trotter gelding and the other one is a palomino filly by name Kii, a crossbred of shetland pony and Icelandic horse. 

More about all this horses will you probably learn in the future in this place.
Hope you all have a great evening, it's now time for me to head for bed since I got the morning with the animals tomorrow. 

(note: English is not my first language, if i gotten the names of the horse colors wrong, feel free to correct me I'd love to learn the right terms)

Night and hugs