July 2026

Wexford Training Newsletter Finding Balance from the Inside Out

Dear Friends,

This month I share two personal stories. The next piece of the book, Accidental Therapy, The Side Effect of Loving Horses, continues with a shorter story this month compared to last month. Scroll down to the bottom to find it. I also share part of my journey with horses in the Thoughts to Ponder section. It was a big deal for me to change my thinking and that was the precursor to better results. Anyone new to working with me also has to find the same shift in thinking in order to fully understand balance in mind and body. So I wrote about it this month.

Enjoy!
​Kirsten
​kirsten.wexford@gmail.com

P.S.
​As a subscriber, please share the newsletters with other horse lovers! If you are not signed up, click the link below and receive a free four part video series to get you started with your horse.

​https://kirstenwexfordtraining.mvsite.app/products/courses/view/1048890​

Thoughts to Ponder

“Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.”
- Mignon McLaughlin

Training for Balance As A Skill

During my journey with horses I had a change of perspective that changed how I did everything. A new understanding caused a complete pivot, created a new path on my journey. Before this change I used to find myself hoping a lot that things would work. After this change, I find myself knowing how to make things work.

I used to think, “If a horse can do a task, especially a complex maneuver, then the horse and I must be in balance, as a side effect of doing the task.”

This perspective of horse training was unconsciously entrenched, unquestioned. I did not even realize it or how it was directly affecting my riding experience and relationship with horses. It is still is the most prevalent way people think about training horses.

Now I think very differently, “If a horse can develop balance as a skill, in mind and body, then all tasks are easy as a side effect.”

This new perspective changed how I viewed every single task and how I went about developing myself as a rider and developing horses in training. My experience of riding, training and my relationship with horses all improved significantly.

In hindsight, I see that the unspoken message of traditional and classical training programs is that balance in mind and body will be the side effect of following a series of tasks in a certain order. This way of thinking is the very root cause of many problems. If I could not do the task, then I failed, I wasn’t good enough, I did not try hard enough or I was just unfortunately untalented. If my horse could not do a task, then my horse was disrespectful, stubborn, hot, untalented, the wrong horse for the job, the wrong breed, wrong age or just had unfortunately bad conformation.

I had somehow absorbed the unspoken message that tasks = training and never questioned things until I worked with Gavin Scofield, an osteopath who shifted his career from helping people to helping horses. As I began understanding how horses balance, learning The Point of Balance concept from Gavin, I was initially shocked to realize that horses could perform athletically demanding, complex tasks at the highest levels of training while being completely out of balance in mind, body or both.

When I thought that tasks = training, then I was easily frustrated when tasks became challenging or my horse would not cooperate. Like everyone else I quickly got stronger in my aids, reached for leveraged devices, new gadgets or a different training program. It was the same everywhere, so I never thought to question any of those options. I felt justified being hard on horses because ultimately it was for their theoretical benefit, if we could just master that damn task. I was impatient and easily lost my temper when I felt stuck, blaming a lack of progress through the task hierarchy on myself and my horse.

Once I realized that even high level tasks do not guarantee balance at all, in me or my horse, everything changed.

For the first time I saw that my horse could not do the task because of fear or because of physical imbalances. I saw how impossible it was for me or my horse to even control physical coordination if either of us felt worried, frustrated, distracted, defensive or pressured. As I dove into understanding the complexities of physical coordination for horses, I realized that my own coordination as a rider was part of the equation. “Heels down, shoulders back and look where you’re going” would never put me in balance and my imbalances would prevent my horse from balancing in motion.

Even after improving my own balance, and patience, as a rider, horse balance was still complex and difficult to understand. How horses lose balance is wildly unpredictable and unique to each horse. Suddenly the reliable instructions did not work. “Inside leg to outside rein, drive energetically forward into the bit, bend correctly on a circle and the mysterious half-halt” would never put my horse in balance even if we managed to pull off the maneuver, pattern, test, clean round or come in first place.

The link between my horse’s emotional state and ability to do tasks became more obvious. The link between my horse’s physical coordination and ability to steer accurately, adjust speed reliably or do the maneuver easily also became more obvious. It wasn’t my horse being obstinate or lacking athletic talent. It all boiled down to the fact that my horse could not do what I was asking in a comfortable way because staying in balance physically was not a skill my horse possessed.

After years of learning about balance I developed a hypothesis. If all people and horses share the same nervous system, then training can optimize the use of the nervous system in order to cultivate mental focus and a calm emotional state. This allows equilibrium in the mind, maximizing capacity for learning anything. Also, if all people and horses share the same anatomies, then training can optimize the use of the inherent design of the body in order to cultivate a balance physical coordination, despite conformational differences.

With this hypothesis in mind, I tested it daily. Volunteering at horse rescues provided a lot of testing opportunities and people with horse problems became my clients. Horses and people who seemed to be failing in traditional programs started to turn around when the focus of training was balance first, in mind and body, tasks second.

It has taken over two decades of testing my hypothesis before finally feeling confident enough to put it out there, widely into the world as a theory of training. Training for Optimal Balance is the organized theory of making balance the priority of training, in mind and body, for people and horses. The consistent result, the test of the theory, is that all tasks are easier and safer to accomplish. The side effect is supporting health with better musculoskeletal use of the body and nervous system regulation.

The entire experience of riding and training horses just feels a lot more enjoyable than it ever did before balance became my priority. My horses look forward to training sessions and my barn is peaceful.

When we understand what balance means in body and mind, and shift our training priority to balance, the feeling of hope is replaced with knowing.

Did You Know? Optimal Balance Essentials

After writing this newsletter, I thought I should repeat the announcement that the book Optimal Balance Essentials is now available for sale. As I am building on line courses I also found that the four companion workbooks could use an update. The information in the workbooks will not change, just an improvement on the flow of information. So I will let you know when the next edition of each workbook is available as well.

Optimal Balance Essentials is a deep dive into the core concepts that are the theory of Training for Optimal Balance. These are the core concepts for developing balance in life and working in harmony with horses.

You can find the book here https://kirstenwexfordtraining.mvsite.app/products/courses/view/1192949​

kirstenwexfordtraining.mvsite.app

---

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

Vero Beach, Florida July 11 Coordinator: Spring 772-538-5208 or springrides@gmail.com

Culpepper, Virginia August 14 Coordinator: Deb 540-718-4083 or atmydreamnow@gmail.com​

Baltimore, Maryland August 15-16 October 17-18 Coordinator: Ginny 443-250-8017 or hqueen13@gmail.com

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

“Everything in nature invites us constantly to be who we are.”
- Gretel Ehrlich

After finding Phineas a better home than I could offer, I was done. It was time to move out of my parents home and start a life of my own in a new part of the country. Not having a horse made life a lot simpler. I also realized I was not the rider I thought I was either, so I did not pursue lessons anymore and shifted my focus to a different passion, plants.

My love of plants took me in the direction of floral design, back to school for horticulture and I landed owning a flower shop. Although I rarely even thought about horses for about five years, fate stepped in and pulled me back into the world of horses.

Horse people just recognize other horse people. While chit chatting with customers in my flower shop horses would come up in conversations, or I would ask because the customer just looked like a rider, a horse person. A customer eventually asked if I would like to ride, exercise her horse regularly because she didn’t have the time.

We met at the barn and I had a brief ride on her Tennessee Walking Horse, Major. California winters can mean nonstop rain for weeks. It was one of those winters and the only place she could watch me ride was in a muddy round pen. I didn’t even think about my shoes before I arrived and showed up wearing wooden clogs, my flower shop comfort shoes. All I could do was kick my clogs off once I was up on the fence and ride in socks. The horse cooperated with me mounting from the fence and we walked around a bit. I had no idea that gaited horses don’t trot, so when I sped the horse up a little I wasn’t sure what he was doing but it was not trot. I blamed the odd movement on the deep mud and the owner said again, “He is a Tennessee Walker” which explained nothing to me at the time.

I felt at home again on a horse. It was a piece of me that was missing, but I did not realize how big the piece was until I was up on a horse again, even if the movement was odd.

Something woke up. I felt excited to ride again, to be around a horse again. I started going to the barn and riding as often as I could. It was only when Major got nervous while shortly out on a trail ride, that my past bubbled right back up to the surface.

It was like PTSD when the horse’s energy came up and I felt him tighten underneath me. To my body and nervous system, those signals from a horse meant a huge buck or uncontrollable bolt was imminent. My brain froze. I managed to turn Major around and get back without bolting or bucking. Even though the owner rode him on the trails regularly and told me to do the same, I was just not going. I was content riding in the arena, closer to the barn where the horse was calmer. I needed to enjoy riding again. I did not want a repeat of Phineas rides thank you very much.

The more I rode, the more I chatted about riding with my flower shop clients who were interested in horses. Another client eventually asked if I would like to ride her boss’s horse. She was the nanny for a successful tech company owner who had an expensive show horse that was not getting ridden at all. I agreed and this time I showed up in proper riding gear for my assessment ride.

Little did I know when I arrived at the barn that meeting John and Lynn Strong and John’s friend Terry would completely change my life. Not only did meeting them get me riding obsessively again, it opened the path that I followed into becoming a horse trainer instead of a flower shop owner.

Email Feedback