Curious Equestrian

Noche Miller turned to trick training when Rusty, a young rescue Morgan, bit and walked straight through people. He had been dumped at auction because nobody could handle him, and two or three months of traditional handling had got nowhere. Noche, an instructor with Horse Tricks 101, tells Anna Louise how teaching him to fetch a rubber chicken changed the way she works with horses, and why the same small steps prepare a horse for trailer loading, dental checks and being ridden.

In this episode:
- How fetch is built up from a single nose touch
- Why standing on a pedestal makes trailer loading less of a leap
- Treat manners, and why a good scratch can be a reward too
- Choosing a reward worth working for that doesn't tip a horse into overexcitement
- Scent boxes and grazing boxes for horses with limited turnout
- Why it's fine to own a horse you don't ride
- How Rusty and Ghost the cow each earned a Guinness world record for tricks

Guest: Noche Miller, instructor with Horse Tricks 101
horsetricks101.com, plus Facebook, Instagram and YouTube @horsetricks101

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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Rusty, the rescue Morgan nobody could handle
07:55 What changed when trick training began
09:21 Building fetch from a single nose touch
13:43 Becoming a Horse Tricks 101 instructor
14:52 Treat manners: from biting to waiting
16:30 Dumped at auction
21:00 Where Rusty's behaviour came from
22:22 Guinness world records for Ghost the cow and Rusty
26:02 Tricks for horses that can't be ridden
27:28 Useful tricks: mounting blocks, trailers and teeth
31:31 Working around a bad start
32:43 Scent boxes and grazing boxes
36:59 The Horse Tricks 101 community
39:07 Over-horsed? Go back to groundwork
41:17 It's fine not to ride
45:09 Changing horsemanship by example
49:01 Does a horse need to be food motivated?
51:45 Choosing the right value of reward
53:38 What trick training does for the human
56:53 Ending the stigma around food

In June the headlines said 90% of Dartmoor's semi-wild hill ponies faced a cull. A former consumer journalist went looking for who had actually said so, and for what would happen to a moorland herd that had to leave.Recorded in June 2026, before the Government changed the grazing rules on 15 July. There's an update at the end of this description.Angelique Ruzicka is a former personal finance and consumer journalist who now writes about sustainability in the horse world at Willow's Earth. Host Anna Louise Claydon starts where the panic started: why do so many people care so much about these ponies, and where did the cull story come from? Then the two of them test every rescue plan people were proposing against what a pony that has lived wild on the moor actually needs.In this episodeWhere the cull fear came from, and what Natural England had and hadn't saidWhy "let them stay" runs into a moor where grazing is already scarce and shared with sheep and cattleWhether an unhandled moorland pony could, or would want to, become a riding school ponyWhat a farmer's field, a sanctuary or a family home would ask of a pony used to travelling miles a day with its herdWhy throwing out hay is harder than it soundsThe question Anna couldn't answer on the day: what happens to the foals taken off the moor every year?What a journalist does when the headlines start shoutingFind Angelique Ruzicka online Willow's Earth: https://willowsearth.shop Her June piece, "Saving Dartmoor ponies sounds easy until you try and do it": https://willowsearth.shop/blogs/news/saving-dartmoor-ponies-sounds-easy-until-you-try-and-do-it Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willow20222026 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelique-ruzicka/Subscribe to our newsletter: www.curiousequestrian.co.ukBook shop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/curiousequestrianMerch: https://curiousequestrian.teemill.com/

Horse whisperer — or horse listener? Nicci Mackay on what horses are really telling usCan horses actually understand us? Nicci Mackay has spent her life arguing the question is backwards. She doesn't "whisper" to horses, and she's quick to correct anyone who calls her a horse whisperer — she listens.Nicci has communicated with animals since childhood, and has built a remarkable career translating what agitated, shut-down and "broken" horses are trying to say. In this episode she challenges the conventional wisdom around equine communication, what horses pick up on, and why so many of us are shouting when we should be listening.We talk about:• Why "horse whisperer" is the wrong word — and what "horse listener" actually means• What horses are really responding to (hint: it isn't the words)• The danger of anthropomorphising our horses — and how to read them on their own terms• Nicci's years as a groom and jockey, and what working in secret taught her• The moments she's been able to reach horses everyone else had given up onAbout the guest: Nicci Mackay is the author of Spoken in Whispers — The Autobiography of a Horse Whisperer. She has worked with horses, domestic pets, farm animals and birds, travelling widely to translate on behalf of animals for their owners. Her book is a rare insight into the minds, emotions and behaviour of the animals she's spent her life alongside — thought-provoking, often funny, and always honest.📚 Grab the book in our bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/4745/9781780572987

Chartered physiotherapist Ciara Glaisher treats horses and their riders as one system, and she says horse rider fitness starts with the breath. Most of us mouth breathe, brace our bellies and sit in chairs all day, then expect our pelvis to move with a horse's back. She tells host Anna Louise Claydon why a rider's position collapses mid-ride, what she keeps finding when a "sluggish" horse gets checked out, and why she'd rather riders learned a short symmetrical flow than signed up to a strengthening programme.
In this episode:
Why the yoga breathing rule, in through the nose and out through the mouth, might be wrong
What holding your tummy in does to your breath, and what a baby does differently
The horses booked in as "a bit sluggish, maybe arthritis", and what a horse-and-rider assessment keeps turning up instead
Whether a sitting sport lets riders skip the warm-up every other sport demands

Find Ciara Glaisher: merlinvetphysio.co.uk (her Symmetry & Synergy rider programme
Instagram @ciaraglaisher_merlinphysio
Facebook: Merlin Physiotherapy

Curious Equestrian
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Equestrian vaulting is gymnastics on horseback, and everyone in this episode says the same unlikely thing about it: you can start with no riding, no gymnastics and no particular level of fitness. Curious Equestrian spent a day at RDA Woodbridge as the centre launched vaulting for the first time, meeting Anne Hardwick, chair of British Equestrian Vaulting, two-star vaulter Annika Sievert, and Lizzie Bennett, The Para Vaulter, who started the sport from a wheelchair and coaches there from this month. Host Anna Louise Claydon, who is scared of heights, has a go herself. A sport that began with Roman cavalry and 18th-century circus acts, and appeared at the Olympics once, in 1920.

In this episode:

- Why Anna says you need no ability at all to start, and what the first sessions actually look like
- What Anna looks for in a vaulting horse, and why temperament is settled long before movement
- The other 23 hours: herd turnout, hacking and pole work, and why a vaulting horse that is only lunged does not last
- The hat question, handed straight back to us, and where RDA rules and FEI rules part company
- Why the barrel and the mechanical horse exist: rehearsing the biomechanics so a real horse never pays for the mistake
- Annika Sievert on the fall at Saumur that should not have happened, and what the sport gave her that school never did
- Lizzie Bennett on blacking out during every upside-down move, and what ten years of very small steps changed

Find the clubs and coaches:
British Equestrian Vaulting: britishvaulting.org
Find a club near you: britishvaulting.org/clubs
Suffolk Vaulting Club, Poplar Park, Hollesley: suffolkvaulting.com
RDA Woodbridge & District Group: rdawoodbridge.org.uk
Lizzie Bennett, The Para Vaulter: instagram.com/theparavaulter
Vaulting at the FEI World Championships in Aachen runs 13-16 August 2026 and is streamed online: aachen2026.com

Curious Equestrian
Follow the show on Spotify so you never miss an episode, and join our free newsletter for the full story behind this episode and the after-hours listener Q&A: https://www.curiousequestrian.co.uk/#/portal/signup