Train Your Own Horse with Stacy Westfall

Stacy shares insights from her first off-property trail ride with Ember, revealing a critical moment where riders unknowingly teach their horses problematic behaviors. By identifying the exact instant when most riders make a fundamental mistake at water crossings, Stacy demonstrates how arena training directly transfers to trail success.

This episode explores how shifting between perspectives reveals critical blind spots in your horsemanship.  To illustrate this Stacy shares a 'backward' look at a common problems: a horse that spooks.  When you commit to looking from each of these angles, you are more likely to get the full picture, transforming how you interpret and address training situations.

Key takeaways:

• Discover how alternating between perspectives expo...

Horsemanship is often described as an art—but teaching it requires breaking that art into pieces. In this episode, Stacy reflects on the challenge of translating feel, flow, and intuition into teachable steps—and why both structure and flow must coexist within the art of horsemanship.

Key takeaways:

• Building flow without foundation leads to instability—structure is what gives flow freedom
• Inspirational teaching often reflects ...

Stacy Westfall explores the hidden conversation happening between riders and horses—beyond conscious cues. Using the analogy of learning to float while swimming, she reveals how riders can unintentionally contradict their own instructions through subtle physical signals.

In this episode:

In this episode, Stacy explores the critical distinction between specific riding aids and your overall body intention. Riders often experience a disconnect between the small cues they apply (leg pressure, rein contact) and the broader message their body position and energy convey to the horse.
Key takeaways:

– The rider’s body communicates more than just cues—it reflects intention, emotion, and unconscious signals
– Clarity arises ...

This episode explores the two core elements inside the rider’s mind: the information you rely on and the thoughts that either help or distract you. Stacy unpacks how both missing knowledge and unexamined beliefs can quietly interfere with clear communication and forward progress with your horse.

Key takeaways:

• Gaps in understanding may look like missing information—but can also stem from mismatched or misapplied techniques
• You...

In this episode, Stacy explores how horses experience emotion—and more importantly, how they can learn to regulate it. Through stories, training examples, and thoughtful reflection, she illustrates how emotional elasticity allows horses to pause instead of panic, and process instead of simply react.

Listeners will learn how to recognize a horse’...

A horse’s body reveals more than just physical movement—it reflects their thoughts, emotions, and understanding. In this episode, Stacy Westfall explores how a horse’s behavior can show both their level of knowledge and their maturity. She shares why interpreting the horse’s mind requires stepping outside of our automatic reactions and learning to see things from their perspective.

Read more