Fairy Tail Farm

01/31/2026

🙌🏻🥰Permission to - “Not Do Much” 🥰🙌🏻

😇 When I go out to clients this time of year, I’m often met with apologies.

😥 “Sorry, we haven’t really done much since you were last here.”
🫢 “Sorry, we’ve not made much progress.”
😩 “Sorry, it’s been a quiet few weeks.”

🤔 As if stillness is something to explain. As if care needs justification. As if rest is a failure.

🌎 In the horse world, “not doing much” can feel like falling behind. It can feel lazy. Unproductive. Like you’re not trying hard enough.

💪🏻 We’re taught to train, improve, push, progress. To always have a plan, a goal, a timeline. To be moving forward; always.

❗️But sometimes, not doing much is exactly what’s needed.

👉🏻 Sometimes it looks like:

✔️ Quiet days in the field.

✔️ Gentle handling instead of schooling.

✔️ Rest days instead of ridden work.

✔️ Consistency instead of intensity.

✔️ Care instead of correction.

🍁 Not every season is a building season. Not every horse needs pressure to grow. Not every problem needs a programme. Not every phase needs fixing.

🐴 For horses in rehab, horses in recovery, sensitive horses, young horses, tired horses, and tired riders, stillness can be medicine.

🥱 “Not doing much” creates space for nervous systems to settle. For bodies to heal. For trust to rebuild. For connection to grow without pressure.

😇 Progress doesn’t always look like movement.

✅ Sometimes it looks like stability.

✅ Sometimes it looks like calm.

✅ Sometimes it looks like doing less

❄️ So if your season looks quiet…
🤫 If your goals feel paused…
🫶🏻 If your yard days are more care than training…
❤️ If your focus is wellbeing, not performance…

💪🏻 You’re not failing.

💪🏻 You’re listening.

💪🏻 You’re protecting.

💪🏻 You’re choosing sustainability over speed.

😇 And in the long run, that choice matters more than any ribbon ever will.

🎟️ Permission slip to “not do much” - Granted! Please do share this with someone who needs to hear it.

🥰 Love always, Hx

01/31/2026

🥱 The Quiet Burnout of the Yard 🥱

😇 Caregiver burnout isn’t just a human thing. It lives in yards, in stables, in tack rooms and in those quiet moments before the first feed and after the last check. It’s just as real when you’re caring for a horse as it is when you’re caring for a person.

🐴 In the horse world, we don’t often call it burnout, we call it “part of it.” Early mornings. Late nights. Endless routines. Rehab schedules, vet plans, farrier visits, physio, feed charts, supplements, turnout management, training adjustments. There’s always something to manage. Always something to monitor. Always something to fix.

🙈 You become everything: the carer, the advocate, the organiser, the decision-maker, the one who holds it all together. You learn to listen for small changes in breathing, movement, appetite, mood. You sleep lightly. You carry responsibility in your body. And over time, that weight builds, quietly and steadily, until exhaustion feels normal and depletion feels like discipline.

😇 But burnout doesn’t mean you don’t love your horse. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’ve been giving more than you’ve been receiving for too long. It means your nervous system is tired, your mind is tired and your heart is tired. It means you care, deeply and deep care comes at a cost.

🫶🏻 And sometimes, caring looks like stopping.

✋🏻 Stopping the constant researching.

✋🏻 Stopping the endless planning.

✋🏻 Stopping the relentless scheduling.

✋🏻 Stopping the late-night scrolling for answers.

🫶🏻 Sometimes it’s ok to just do the minimum. To meet the needs, not the expectations. To focus on what truly matters and let the rest wait. To feed, check, care and go home. To choose a little rest over optimisation. To choose enough over absolutely, perfect.

🤔 Caregiver burnout in the equestrian world is often invisible. You still show up. You still muck out. You still feed. You still ride. You still do the jobs. But inside, you’re running on empty.

🤫 And the hardest part? No one tells you that it’s ok to be tired of being strong. No one tells you that loving your horse doesn’t mean sacrificing yourself. No one tells you that rest is not weakness and boundaries are not betrayal.

🥰 Caring is beautiful. Devotion is powerful. But you are not limitless.
And neither is your nervous system.

🤗 Looking after horses means learning to look after yourself too because you matter in this partnership, just as much as they do.

📷 At the time this photo was taken, I had nothing left. I had 3 lame, struggling horses. Vally, the one I’d got as my only ridden horse had a check ligament injury; Kitty, who wouldn’t stop abscessing amongst her many other and never ending issues, and my youngster with a bacterial leg infection. It was the depths of winter and I was absolutely done in, saturated, a completely exhausted mess. Caring for horses isn’t easy, caring for horses with high needs is even less so…

😇 As always, this is a safe space to share your stories.

❓Have you experienced burnout?
❓How did you manage?

❤️ Love always, Hx

01/16/2026

01/05/2026

If you ask trainer and “R” judge Geoff Case how to become a better rider, he won’t tell you to buy a better horse. He’ll tell you to ride more horses—especially the tricky ones.

“The best riders aren’t the ones who only ride nice horses,” he said. “They’re the ones who learn from every horse they sit on.” The goal is growth. And the fastest way to grow is to stop waiting for ideal conditions and start learning from whatever you have right now.

Case’s training philosophy is rooted in experience, not ease. “If you only ride perfect horses, you don’t actually learn that much,” he said. “You get better by figuring things out.”

He remembers his early years, when getting on a variety of horses—green, lazy, spooky, or stubborn—wasn’t optional. It was how you earned your education. “You got on whatever needed to be ridden,” he said. “That’s how you learned timing, feel, and patience.”

That trial-and-error process, Case explained, teaches a kind of adaptability that can’t be coached. “You start to realize there’s no one-size-fits-all answer,” he said. “Every horse requires something different from you.” Those lessons stick with riders far longer than ribbons or medals. “It’s the uncomfortable horses that teach you the most,” he said. “They make you think. They make you better.”

Case believes curiosity, not perfection, is what turns good riders into great ones. “You have to want to understand what’s happening under you,” he said. “That curiosity is what makes you improve.”

When something doesn’t go right Case encourages riders to ask questions instead of getting frustrated. “Don’t get mad, get curious,” he said. “Ask yourself, ‘Why did that happen?’ Then try to fix it.”

That self-reflection, he added, is the real mark of a thinking rider. “It’s easy to ride well when everything goes right,” he said. “The real riders are the ones who figure it out when things don’t.”

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/12/29/why-the-best-riders-dont-wait-for-perfect-horses/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

12/31/2025

12/28/2025

❤️

12/27/2025

12/25/2025

Sometimes you have to think outside the box when talking to humans 😅

I was tending to a clients horse and as usual, chatting. It came up randomly in the conversation that the horse was behaving oddly when ridden. The owner was quite concerned about his knee. 😳
I asked "is he lame?", she said "no".
"Is it swollen?" Again she said "no".
I said "then what is it about his knee that has you concerned?"

She said "well he keeps rubbing it!"
I kinda have a feeling where this is going but thought let's lead her to it.
So I ask "what is he rubbing it on?"
She says "his nose! He suddenly stops when I'm riding and rubs his knee with his nose! The vet has been out and said there is nothing wrong with his knee but I'm sure there must be." She was visibly very worried.
So I asked "well what about his nose?" This puzzled her.
So I tried again "is there something wrong with his nose rather than his knee?" I saw the penny drop!
"Oh" she says, "I hadn't thought of that, but what could possibly be wrong with his nose?" I admit she looked a bit sheepish at this point 😅
So I asked "You mentioned it only happens when he's ridden? Never in the stable or in the field? What about when lunging?"
She says "never in the stable or field but yes he does on the lunge"
I ask "do you use a cavesson to lunge or your bridle?"
She said "bridle"
I double check "the same bridle you ride in?" And she confirmed. "I suspect the problem is your bridle is irritating him somehow" I finished.

Anyway, long story short, this horse happens to have an unusually high nasal notch and the owner was using a flash noseband which was fitted normally (not tight!) but given the horse's anatomy, it was sitting on the soft part of the nose, squeezing his nostrils and therefore his airway. The harder he was working, the more he was struggling to breathe easily through an airway that he couldn't dilate. The very clever lad had realised this thing on his nose was the problem and was stopping to try and get it off. The further into a session he went, the more frantic it was.

Now, in hindsight it's obvious, but the owner genuinely believed the problem was his knee! She was determined to find and fix the problem, just was looking at it upside down 🙃

I explained how to find the nasal notch and discussed nosebands that could work with his anatomy. We settled on a grackle because the horse was strong to a jump and could cross his jaw, hence the flash to start with. The problem vanished instantly 🥰🥰

We've always got to think outside the box, and ask the right questions. I've included a shot from my previous post on how to fit a noseband, just to demonstrate where the nasal notch is. In some horses it is very high and they cannot wear a flash or drop noseband at all! It's worth having a feel of your horse's nose and double checking too 😁

Just a quick edit - The part of this behaviour that was concerning is that it was interrupting his work. It is normal for them to have a quick rub at the end of a session or when resting but they should not slam on mid ride to do this. That points to a problem.
Also please note that this behaviour doesn't necessarily have to be the noseband. It was for this horse, but it can have many causes. As a few examples - dental wise we have wolf teeth (possibly blind ones), teething in young horses, sharp points, hooks, tooth root infections, food stuck etc. Other causes can be allergies, bridle buckle pressing on nerves, headpiece pressing on the ear base, poorly fitted bit, soft tissue damage, true trigeminal head shakers (this will be obvious daily and not just ridden though) and even none head related issues like neck pain or back pain (this is more about needing to put their head down rather than about the rubbing).
In this case it was a combination of the horse never showing the signs in the stable or field and showing the signs when lunged in the bridle without a saddle or rider that made me go to the bridle first.