HORSE, FIRST - with Lockie Phillips

In this special episode of Horse First, Lockie Phillips reads a chapter from his forthcoming book exploring the origins of his professional objection to whips.

Part memoir, part reflection on horsemanship, this chapter traces the early experiences that shaped his understanding of fear, power, violence, and the complicated relationship many horse people have with training tools.

Far from being a discussion about equipment alone, this episode asks deeper questions about memory, conditioning, and the experiences that quietly shape our values long before we have language for them.

How do our earliest encounters with fear influence the horse people we become?

And what happens when we stop treating our reactions as weaknesses and start treating them as information?

A personal and vulnerable reading from a book still in progress.

Because sometimes understanding the horse begins with understanding ourselves.

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What kind of future are horse people building?

And perhaps more importantly, what kind of future are we failing to imagine?

In this episode of Horse First, Lockie Phillips sits down with horsewoman and thinker Kim Hallin for a conversation that moves far beyond training techniques and management systems.

Together they explore the uncomfortable reality that many horse owners have more faith in euthanasia than in society's ability to care for their horses after they're gone. From there, the conversation opens into larger questions about stewardship, extraction, community, and the place of horses in a rapidly changing world.

www.emotionalhorsemanship.com

What happens if the economic and cultural systems that currently support horse ownership begin to change? What responsibilities do horse people have to imagine alternatives? And what might horses themselves have to teach us about cooperation, leadership, resilience, and shared living?

This is not a conversation about answers.

It's a conversation about asking better questions.

Because if horse people cannot imagine a future worth leaving horses to, who will?
Get to know Kim Hallin here:

https://myunbridledlife.substack.com/

https://www.kimhallin.com/

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When a horse develops a behavioural problem, most of us reach for training.

More lessons. More exercises. Better technique. A different method.

But what if the horse isn't expressing a training problem at all?

What if they're expressing a living problem?

In this episode of Horse First, Lockie Phillips explores one of the most overlooked realities in modern horsemanship: horses spend far more time living in their management systems than they do being trained within them.

From difficult-to-catch horses and separation anxiety to tension, explosiveness, and so-called laziness, Lockie examines how movement, forage, social contact, comfort, and predictability shape behaviour long before a trainer enters the picture.

This is not an argument against training.

It's an argument for looking at the whole horse.

Because before we ask how to change a behaviour, it may be worth asking what problem that behaviour is solving for the horse.

Sometimes the answer isn't a better technique.

Sometimes it's a better life.

And remarkably often, when the life improves, the behaviour follows.

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STUDY AN ONLINE COURSE WITH LOCKIE:
https://emotionalhorsemanship.com/online-courses

In this episode of Horse First, Lockie Phillips sits down with Canadian horse trainer Remy Burley, a specialist in operant conditioning and clicker training.

The conversation begins with identity, representation, and the reality that who we are inevitably shapes how we move through the horse world. Together, Lockie and Remy explore the idea that the personal is political, what it means to be visible within a community, and why representation continues to matter.

From there, they turn their attention to clicker training and operant conditioning, a field that has become surprisingly controversial despite its growing influence on modern horse training.

Rather than debating camps and labels, this episode explores the practical realities of training horses, where different approaches overlap, where they diverge, and what both trainers have learned from their own experiences working with horses and people.

This is a conversation about identity, training, belonging, and the importance of staying curious enough to learn from those whose paths differ from our own.

Remy is based in Canada and is available for online coaching and tuition.
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https://emotionalhorsemanship.com

Most horse people assume dangerous horses are disobedient horses.

What if the opposite is sometimes true?

In this episode of Horse First, Lockie Phillips explores the hidden risks of teaching horses that they have no options, no voice, and no meaningful way to disagree.

Far from creating safety, the removal of dissent can create horses who suppress communication until they have no choice but to express themselves in larger, riskier, and more dramatic ways.

Through practical examples ranging from trailer loading and catching to veterinary care and everyday handling, Lockie examines the difference between obedience and cooperation, compliance and agreement, and why some of the safest horses in the world are the ones who know how to say "no" without losing the relationship.

This is a conversation about consent, communication, and the often-overlooked connection between freedom and safety.

Because the safest horse isn't the horse who never disagrees.

It's the horse who knows how.

And knows someone is listening

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