Angel Rock Farm

There’s a special kind of magic in watching horses roll, shake, and run freely around the arena. No agenda, no pressure, just movement, dust, and the sound of hooves. Moments like this remind us why we love being around them.

Photo Credit: Diane Valberg-Groulx

Hope everyone stays warm this weekend! Thinking of all those who have to work or need to be outside this weekend. We are looking forward to warmer weather with these beautiful beings ❤️

Photo Credit: Diane Valberg-Groulx

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Funny story that turned into a really important reminder.

As many of you know, last July we experienced a true 500 year flood here. Fencing was destroyed, neighbors lost their homes, entire houses were picked up and gone, ancient oak trees were ripped out of the ground...it was devastating.

We were incredibly lucky that all the horses were safe, but it was still a massive amount to process.

The day of the flood, I was coping. We were in crisis mode. Checking animals, checking neighbors, handling what needed to be handled. And then something very small happened.

One of my hay troughs got swept away by the water. A hay trough. Replaceable. Not a life. Not even close to the worst thing that happened that day.

And that was it for me.

I remember looking at my husband and saying I am done. I cannot do this anymore. Not because of the trough itself, but because it was the last tiny piece added to a cup that was already overflowing.

This is a perfect example of trigger stacking.

The final straw is rarely the biggest thing. It is often the smallest and most seemingly silly thing that tips everything over the edge.

And this is exactly how it shows up for our horses.

They cope. They cope. They cope. And then one day you spray fly spray and they say no. Or you put on a ba****ck pad they have worn a hundred times and suddenly they cannot handle it. It feels out of the blue to us, but it almost never is.

It is not really about the fly spray.
It is not really about the pad.
It is about everything that came before.

I’m telling you this story because just the other day, that hay trough showed back up. Intact, with the hay net still on, buried under debris down the creek. It felt poetic in the strangest way.

That moment reminded me why compassion matters so much in training. Why behavior always has context. Why it is rarely helpful to focus only on the last thing that happened.

If this happens to us, of course it happens to our horses. Sometimes the most important question is not what did they react to today, but what have they been carrying all along.

Euthanasia and Ageing: When Needs Change, and When They Do Not

Euthanasia and Ageing: When Needs Change, and When They Do Not

A comment on my previous post about euthanasia raised an important point, one that deserves to be met carefully, not defensively, and without collapsing into either extreme. It spoke to the concern that euthanasia can sometimes be used too early, that we may not be allowing our horses to truly become old, and that we may be losing something vital when we step in too quickly rather than allowing a natural ending.

This is a vital question to raise, and it asks us to slow down rather than polarise.

Yes, there are places where euthanasia has become too quick, too tidy, and too entangled with convenience, cost, or human discomfort with decline. That reality cannot be ignored. Old age is not pathology. Thin does not automatically mean suffering. An ageing horse, when supported well, carries wisdom, rhythm, and emotional regulation that younger horses benefit from deeply. Elder horses absolutely bring steadiness and social memory to a herd.

The bay horse in the photo is 31. He is thin, yet vital, mobile, and socially engaged. He moves freely as part of a nomadic, agroregenerative herd, living in rhythm with land, movement, and choice. His life reminds us that when horses are allowed to live close to their nature, with space, variation, and purpose, longevity often follows. Confinement, overwork, or work that runs against natural rhythms can quietly shorten that arc. How a horse lives shapes how long, and how well, a horse can age.

It is also true that humans have become increasingly uncomfortable with witnessing natural decline. We medicate, manage, and intervene, often because watching a body change asks something of us that we have not been taught how to hold. That deserves honest reflection.

At the same time, we need to be careful not to romanticise natural death in a domestic setting.

To witness a horse die naturally, peacefully, and within the presence of the herd is a profound privilege. It requires circumstance, timing, and a horse whose body and nervous system are able to complete the process without fear or escalation. When this happens, it can be deeply moving. It often stays with those present for a lifetime.

But a natural death is not an easy death. It is still heartbreaking. The stress is simply different. It asks the human to wait, to stay present, and to relinquish control, trusting that suffering will not take hold before the body completes its work.

Most horses today do not live in truly natural systems. They live within fences, managed forage, controlled movement, and human schedules. What looks like a natural death in the wild is often predation, exposure, or acute collapse. What unfolds in domestic care can become prolonged pain, anxiety, or slow physiological breakdown that the horse cannot step away from.

For many people, the moment veterinary intervention enters the space changes the emotional field. The clinical setting, unfamiliar smells, and the weight of an irreversible decision can heighten anxiety for both the horse and the human. There is often a strong sense of relinquishing control, even when the choice is made with care. This does not make the decision wrong. It simply reflects how heavy it is to intervene so directly.

Some horses do die naturally and peacefully. When that happens, and when the horse remains comfortable, connected, and regulated until the end, that is not something to fear or rush to prevent. It is part of life.

But many horses do not have that ending.

The question, then, is not chemical versus natural. The question is whether the horse’s needs are still being met in real time.

An elderly horse who is thin but socially engaged, mobile, curious, and settled is not asking to be let go. An elderly horse who is medicated, fed, and alive, but increasingly anxious, isolated, uncomfortable, or struggling to cope is communicating something different.

Euthanasia, when used thoughtfully, is not about erasing age or inconvenience. It is about preventing a horse from being carried beyond their capacity for comfort because we are unsure, afraid, or attached to an idea of how things should look.

We also need to acknowledge that herd needs do not override individual welfare. Yes, elders bring balance. But no horse should be required to endure ongoing distress for the benefit of the group. Horses regulate herds through presence, not through suffering.

Stepping in with a chemical end is not always taking something away. Sometimes it is preventing something from being taken, safety, ease, dignity.

This is not an argument for earlier euthanasia. Nor is it an argument for waiting at all costs.
It is an invitation to discernment.

To notice the difference between supporting ageing and prolonging struggle.
Between discomfort we can meet and distress we cannot resolve.
Between our discomfort with loss and the horse’s experience of living.

There is no single ethical answer that fits every horse. But there is an ethical responsibility to keep listening, without fear, without justification, and without turning either choice into a moral identity.

That listening, more than the method of death, is what determines whether we are truly meeting a horse’s needs.

LET’S TALK CONTACT (again)

Very recently, several articles and videos have appeared in my feed highlighting the importance of maintaining contact when riding. I don’t know why there have been so many, but it has driven me to write once again about contact. I apologise if you have heard this rant before.

It is obvious from what I read and view on other sites that contact is almost universally defined as the feel in the reins required to encourage a horse to carry itself in the correct balance and posture. This explanation of contact is largely preached by people focused on the biomechanics of horses. I believe a very different understanding of contact is required.

I should add that contact can refer to the contact of any aid, including the rider’s seat and legs, but for most purposes, contact refers to the feel of the reins.

I define contact as “The minimum amount of feel required to evoke a change in a horse’s thought.”

This definition is very important to understand because without a change in a horse’s thought first, any change in balance, posture, and movement is forced by physical coercion.

When you read the posts I have seen recently, it is clear that physical coercion into submission is exactly what many trainers are looking for. They don’t say that. They believe it is not submission by coercion, but when you push a horse to make adjustments without it first being the horse’s idea, coercion and submission are the only way it can be achieved. And it is never as pretty as the horse could offer if it were its idea.

In the world of dressage, horses are taught to “seek” the contact. In other words, they are trained to push into the reins. In some horses, it is a simple holding of the bit at the end of the outstretched rein. In other horses, it is a bearing down onto the bit – a leaning into the reins. It will differ a little from trainer to trainer. But what dressage people almost universally criticize is to ride a horse on a rein with slack in it. It is widely considered to be incorrect because they think that slack in the rein means no contact, no influence of the rein, and no control.

But let’s again look at the purpose of contact. It is a means of communicating a rider’s intent to a horse, and the correct contact is the MINIMUM amount of rein pressure needed to evoke a change in a horse. So if riding a horse with a rein that is not taut can achieve both these criteria, then the rider must be using the correct contact. In fact, I would argue that to ride such a horse with more rein pressure than that is incorrect contact.

The purpose of riding – any sort of riding – is to achieve as close a unity with a horse as possible. To me, this means that the means of communication we use to talk to our horse should be quieter as we approach that unity. The more advanced a horse becomes, the more subtle our aids and the less pressure we need to transmit our intent. It would seem that the ultimate goal of every rider would be to have a horse that can be directed by the smallest change and the least amount of pressure. It just seems logical, therefore, that a horse that can be ridden correctly with slack in the reins is more advanced than a horse that requires anything more than that in order to be correct.

But I want to emphasize the importance of being ridden CORRECTLY. Correctness is key here. I would not want to sacrifice correctness just so I can say my horse does a canter pirouette on a loose rein if it is a poor canter pirouette. If taking a stronger feel on the reins would help my horse find a better quality canter pirouette, then I would. There is nothing to be gained by letting a horse flounder in mediocrity so you can ride on a loose rein. This is one reason why I don’t like most of the liberty riding that I see. Most horses ridden at liberty perform very poorly, and correctness is forgotten just for the sake of showing that the horse can be ridden without a bridle. To me, that has no merit. And I say the same thing about contact. There is no merit in riding a horse with hardly any rein pressure if he needs more rein pressure in order to help him be correct.

Contact is not one thing. Contact is the minimum amount of rein pressure a rider needs to evoke a change in a horse’s thoughts. On some horses, that might be 10kg, and on others it might be the weight of a carbon atom. Both are correct for those horses. But to ride a horse with a stronger feel on the reins than is needed is incorrect use of contact. Likewise, too little feel on the reins to help a horse change his thought is also incorrect use of contact.

I think to argue that a horse that can be ridden correctly with slack in the reins is either evading the bit or falling behind the bit is to forget the purpose of contact. I believe once you appreciate what contact is and why it is needed, that idea seems backward and counter to what our ultimate goal should be in riding. I believe it comes from a reading of the books and not a reading of the horse.

Photo: Bent Branderup from the Academic Art of Riding. Some might argue that the rider has insufficient contact because there is slack in the reins. They would be wrong in my opinion because there is still enough contact to communicate the rider’s intention to the horse’s mind to create a change of thought.

A new petition has been submitted to the Government of Canada to finally recognize animals as sentient beings, and it needs our support.

Despite everything we know through decades of research, Canada still classifies animals as property.

Our law is out of step with modern science, ethics, and global standards. It’s embarrassing, but we have an opportunity to change that.

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, now signed by hundreds of scientists, legal scholars, and animal cognition experts, affirms what the evidence has shown for years: vertebrates, including the species we work to protect, are sentient.

We know that animals, including grizzlies, wolves and cougars, grieve losses, defend family members, learn from elders, respond to stress and form long-term social bonds.

Canada’s own veterinary community agrees, with the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association calling for the legal recognition of animal sentience nationwide.

More than 30 countries have already updated their laws to reflect this science, including the UK,, New Zealand, Chile and Australia. Canada has not.

Recognizing animals as sentient strengthens our laws, creating the foundation for better wildlife protection, improved coexistence policy and a more honest relationship with the species who share these landscapes with us.

If we want policy that reflects reality rather than convenient and outdated assumptions that forgive our treatment of wildlife, we need to support this movement.

Please sign the petition urging the Government of Canada to recognize animals as sentient beings, not property.

Add your name here: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-6955

From having to cautiously walk outside on the ice and mud to running and jumping in soft sand —these hooves are loving the arena!

Photo Credit: Diane Valberg-Groulx

What an incredible day with Youville Centre! The joy was unmistakable, reflected in every smile and in the special bond formed with the Angel Rock ponies.

Photo Credit: Diane Valberg-Groulx