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Avoid Too Much, Too Long, Too Often, Sudden, Steady Pressure

When we practice Straightness Training (ST) exercises – for example the exercise ‘forward down’ – we need to avoid:

❌too much pressure
❌too long pressure
❌too often pressure
❌sudden pressure
❌steady pressure

Because these kinds of pressure might trigger the following:

⛔The horse goes in the opposite direction and in a state of ‘flight’.

⛔The horse goes against the pressure and gets in a state of ‘fight’.

⛔The horse ignores the pressure and gets in a state of ‘freeze’.

As a result we end up in a push/pull contest or a nipping/biting game!

Now don’t think it’s the horse’s fault…

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Checklist: How To Move Your Horse To A New Home?

Moving home will cause both you and your horse to leave the comfort zone, so for sure it will be ‘stretchful’, but it doesn’t have to be stressful.

It just requires planning and here are a few things I learned from my experience in moving from the Netherlands to Portugal.

So let’s wrap up the ‘Moving to Portugal’ series with the checklist with 3️⃣8️⃣ items on how to move a horse to a new home.

And I hope that – for those who will move their horses in the (near) future – it will help you and your horse to have your transition as close to comfortable as possible.

Now in this checklist, I divided the entire transition – from the old to the new home – into 6 phases:

  1. Early preparation
  2. Getting ready for transport
  3. Stress-free loading
  4. Traveling to your new location
  5. Arrival at the new home
  6. Reduce risks in the first week
  7. Settling down

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Moving To Portugal – Day 4: Arrival

On the final day of traveling, we loaded the horse’s early in the morning, before sunrise.

This way, we would be sure to arrive at our new house before sunset, so the horses would be able to get to know their new home during daylight.

Now already in July, we prepared an ‘arrival’ paddock in the garden behind the house, with a temporary fence.

And we scanned all three fields for poisonous plants, such as ragwort.

We also created two options for unloading, because we had the feeling, that the truck wouldn’t be able to pass the gate…

And indeed…

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