April 2026

Wexford Training Newsletter Finding Balance from the Inside Out

Dear Friends,

Welcome to all the new newsletter subscribers! I hope you found the video series helpful and are starting to play with some application of the core concepts. Understanding balance, in mind and body, is a big shift of perspective more than anything else when it comes to riding and training horses. It can feel daunting at first. We can feel a bit bummed like we have to start over. But once we change how we look at training and focus on internal elements, it gets easier and resolves long term problems in the process. Hope you guys all enjoy the two “lesson” segments of this newsletter, which both talk about perceptions in different ways.

Kirsten
​kirsten.wexford@gmail.com

P.S.
​As a subscriber, please feel free to share this or any of my newsletters with other horse lovers! If you have not signed up yet, just click the link below to get on the mailing list and receive the FREE four part video series about Training for Optimal Balance.

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Thoughts to Ponder

“The trick to living well is knowing how to tip ourselves over
and let the beautiful stuff out.”
- Ray Bradbury

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​Multidimensional Balance is Optimal Balance

Optimal Balance must be multidimensional. In horse training we tend to think in just one dimension, such as go faster, go slower, turn from the inside or outside, turn from the leg or rein. Sometimes we think in two dimensions, such as inside leg to outside rein or drive a horse energetically forward into bit resistance in order to lift the back. Even those instructions do not really consider the whole body and mind.

Optimal Balance means balancing everything all at once, moment to moment. The first step required is expanding our perceptions of training, wrapping our minds around all the dimensions involved with a single person, a single horse and the unique combination of a horse and person moving together. That’s the hard part.

The easy part is the practical application of a new multidimensional perception. We can focus on aspects of balance in order to get the hang of things slowly and feel tangible improvements in all dimensions simultaneously. Balance does not have to be perfect to reap the rewards of it. Optimizing multidimensional balance is a process, a journey into a way of doing things. As a person or horse becomes more balanced, moves towards optimal, then all the things we do feel easier, more enjoyable with less stress or drama.

Physics has the most accurate description of balance, a much better perception than our horse world. According to physics, balance is always a point of static equilibrium, a zero sum of force, that results from equalizing amounts of force in opposing directions.

On a physical level the body of a person or horse always has three dimensions, at least six different directions. If we also include the invisible forces generated by thoughts and emotions, then we add more dimensions that have a direct influence on the physical three dimensions. We also have to consider invisible influential forces such as gravity, weather, ground force reaction and whatever is happening around us. That is a lot to consider.

Physics also tells us that for every action, involving changes of force, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is why focusing on one aspect of balance, one dimension with two opposite directions, influences the balance of a whole person or horse. This influence can improve balance in the whole body if we think multidimensionally. This influence can also create imbalances in dimensions that are out of our awareness if we think only about one or two dimensions.

Ultimately we optimize balance working in all dimensions simultaneously. But this can be a lot to process at first. We learn by thinking multidimensionally and focusing our efforts on just one dimension initially, just two opposite directions. By equalizing amounts, or the magnitude of force, in opposite directions we arrive at a zero sum of force between the opposing directions. This feels like stillness. If we just focus on the lateral dimension of a physical body, equalizing amounts of force left to right for example, we can positively influence all dimensions at the same time. The stillness achieved just left to right by equalizing the forces of body weight distribution, muscle tone and skeletal symmetry simultaneously focus thoughts, calm emotions, increase coping capacity for unexpected situations and begin to equalize forces in the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the physical body. But we are not done until all dimensions, opposite directions in each, are equalized and stabilized.

This can feel a bit mind-blowing to understand. But the simple doing of it feels so natural to the body that the ease of balance, stillness in one dimension, is felt immediately.

It does not matter whether forces, including body weight, are heavy or light. It does not matter if muscle tone is strong or weak. Equalizing the amount of any force in opposing directions always creates a zero sum, or stillness, at the center of opposite directions.

We can also look at multiple dimensions from the other way around too. If a body maintains stillness in the center, at the intersecting point of all dimensions, then stillness in the midpoint of a physical body helps equalize forces in all the opposing directions simultaneously.

In other words, the easiest way to start optimizing balance is to focus on stillness in the physical center of a body, quietness in the mind and emotional equilibrium that feels like calmness. By doing this, we can literally develop optimal balance from the inside out. Maintaining stillness in our mind, body and situation is a simple concept that is very effective, but that does not mean it is easy to do, especially under pressure.

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Did You Know? MemberVault

The new page at MemberVault is really coming together. Whether you are interested in all the free stuff I offer, want to find the educational materials I sell, want to book a remote lesson or want to join my online mentorship group called Wexford Students, all of those options can be found in one place! Finally so easy!

You can connect to all my free podcasts, blog posts and videos. You can find all my books. You can contact me for personal help all from one landing page.

No need to log in when you arrive. Just scroll down, below the intro part, in order to find everything I offer that is segmented into different banners.

Please have a look around my new MemberVault page and let me know what you think.

​https://kirstenwexfordtraining.mvsite.app/​

kirstenwexfordtraining.mvsite.app

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Upcoming Events Contact Me

To join a scheduled clinic, please contact the coordinator directly. To book a clinic, please contact me directly at kirsten.wexford@gmail.com

Williston, Florida April 4-5 Coordinator: Shaun 989-387-5165 or shaunrcity@yahoo.com​

Baltimore, Maryland April 11-12 June 27-28 August 15-16 October 17-18 Coordinator: Ginny 443-250-8017 or hqueen13@gmail.com

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Accidental Therapy The Side Effect of Loving Horses Email Feedback or Stories

“I believe that the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
- Viola Davis

Horses see who we are on the inside, often better than we can see ourselves. The ability to perceive the most subtle parts of nonverbal communication is why horses accidentally become our therapists. Horses help us become aware of our authentic self, what our body is saying no matter our thoughts, words or deeds. Horses will point out how little control we have over ourselves while we try to control them.

Horses are heart centric beings, with hearts much larger than brains. When they are not just surviving through instincts, horses are highly intuitive with a level of sensitivity that is difficult for people to fully grasp. Research on horses’ five senses shows us that their vision is not a primary sense like it is for people. Horse’s are limited in focal vision and see the world through peripheral type vision. A horse’s sense of touch is the primary sense for navigating the world, with a body sensitivity similar to human finger tips. Horses also have a range of hearing that exceeds our human capacity and a sense of smell that is highly refined, more like dogs than people. What all this means is that we may not even perceive something that is glaringly obvious to horses.

People are brain centric beings, with brains much larger than hearts. When we are just surviving we also rely on instincts, failing to use the higher functions of our brains. The amazing complexity of our human brain is what we use to develop intuition, refine our sense of touch and listen to our heart’s intelligence. The potential to be as heart centric, intuitive and sensitive as horses lays dormant in all people until we decide to develop those parts of us.

What we focus our brilliant brains on affects how we feel emotionally. Emotions are a chemical process in the body, stimulating peptide releases that alter things at a cellular level. Changes in our body chemistry generate different energy emissions that horses perceive through their sense of touch, emotions change our tone of voice no matter what words we use and different emotions even generate different pheromones that horses can smell. If what we are thinking about changes our body in tangible ways, then we can sort of say that horse’s read our thoughts because they can sense our emotional state very clearly. This is the mystery behind “horse whispering” that is not really mystical. The nonverbal exchange of information between us and horses is natural but subtle to us.

When we think we are hiding our fear by using thoughts our body still unconsciously holds the state of fear, or anxiety, or tension, or anger etc. Blood pressure and heart rate change, breathing changes, stress hormones are still released and we clench in some way. Our body energy always emits our authentic emotional state. Even if we think we are controlling ourselves, our thoughts, words, actions or even body language, horses still perceive the energy of our real emotional state.

This realization hit me like a lightening bolt one evening while I was on my horse Raffanna, doing nothing at the halt. It felt unbelievable at first when I suddenly realized that Raffanna was reacting only to my emotional state.

At the time I was feeling really frustrated and angry with myself. At this moment I had already learned the hard way that I needed to control my actions with Raffanna or things only got worse. This time, as my aids got harder and Raffanna got more reactive, I decided to just halt and take no action. We stood there for a long time while I berated myself inside my own head and felt the flames of frustration burn internally. I was proud of myself for controlling my actions, not having the same old argument with Raffanna, but I did not know what to do. Raffanna remained quiet at halt while I sat there beating myself up, thinking I was hiding my internal world from my horse. Then Raffanna started acting out as if we were having our usual argument, as if I was taking my usual actions. Her head went up, her body tightened and she wanted to move. What on earth was she reacting to now? Then it hit me. Raffanna knew exactly how I was feeling even if I was not acting on those feelings. Even though all that anger was directed at myself and not her, she felt it just the same, like a big invisible cloud of energy that put her back on high alert.

My first thought after this realization was, “Are you kidding me?” My second thought was, “Shit, I can’t fake it?” Then frustration turned to depression and I thought, “I am such an impatient temperamental person how on earth can I control my emotional state? That just seems impossible!”

I decided to get off because it was feeling more difficult to control my actions as Raffanna’s anxiety increased again. I stood next to her feeling more frustrated, then depressed, then sort of hopeless. Crap, is this even possible? This was not the lesson I had planned on at all. It was a bitter pill to realize that I could not develop the harmony with my horse that I dreamed of as long as I could not control how I really felt on the inside.

I had accidentally stumbled onto a new path of training, training myself in order to train my horse, and I knew I was just at the beginning. I was going to have to get my shit together somehow and for real. Nobody told me about this part of training horses, but there it was, finally obvious to me thanks to my mare.

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