The Equine Haven LLC

06/19/2026

Ms. Rachel is defending her right to speak out on political issues impacting children: https://intouchweekly.com/ms-rachel-defends-her-right-to-speak-on-politics-people-who-care-about-kids-should-have-a-say/

06/18/2026

A story about a bear and the power of positive reinforcement in the equine neurologic system. This is from a dear friend, Faith who has also come to a few of our clinics.

“Yesterday at dusk, Frisco and I came within 20 feet of a black bear. Like this one, running through the top pasture, a few years ago. The bear stepped out onto Trillium Trail from the other side of a stand of downed trees. He was as surprised as we were. We all froze.

I could feel Frisco’s heart pounding. He felt mine too. And then the most amazing thing happened. Frisco stood there, face-to-face with a huge black bear, and resisted his natural instinct to run. He stood, waiting for me to tell him what to do. Neither of us panicked.

I pressed my left leg into his side and asked for a turn on the haunches. It was flawless. He stepped into a nice flat walk that was more purposeful than fearful. His reaction to the bear was the result of practicing over and over how to manage his fear on all of the rides before this one.

He has learned to stop whenever he’s startled by deer, turkeys, or something rustling through the leaves. And he is rewarded for stopping. Over time, what used to be a 180 degree spin then bolt, became just a spin. 180 became 90, then 45, then a step to the side, until now where his feet do not move.

He has gotten better because he is given a bridge signal and a reward for the slightest improvement each time he is tested. He faced down a bear and managed his fear. It was incredible. This is what happens when the brain is rewired using positive reinforcement.”

Pretty incredible right? Have you had any experiences like Faith’s?

06/18/2026

Shoutout to all! ❤️‍🩹

The hidden weight of being a therapist isn't something our clients are responsible for carrying, fixing, or worrying about.

Our clients don't owe us reassurance.
They don't need to manage our emotions.
And they certainly aren't responsible for our self-care.

But that doesn't mean these experiences don't exist.

Many therapists know what it's like to wonder about former clients, carry difficult stories in their hearts, question whether they've done enough, or feel the loneliness that can come with being the one who holds space for everyone else.

These feelings aren't signs that you're doing therapy wrong. They're often part of being a human who cares deeply about other humans.

The goal isn't to eliminate every hard feeling. It's to acknowledge them, seek support when needed, and remember that therapists deserve spaces to be held, too.

If any of these resonated with you, you're not alone. 🤍

06/18/2026

The capacity to hold two truths at a time.

I lived a very privileged life as a child.

AND

I dealt with a lot of trauma, hardship, and financial struggle.

But, the financial privilege my family had up until I was about 10 years old allowed me to access spaces and build skill sets that have afforded me the ability to build this business and become the person that I am today.

My family could afford to put me in riding lessons at age 4. I got to work with horses on a regular basis, attend shows and build my skill set from a young age

When my dad had a stroke when I was just seven years old, this shifted a lot of things. He could no longer work and was permanently disabled. My mom became caretaker for him and also went back to work as a teacher.

Prior to this, my dad had told my mom to trust finances to his brother, if something ever happened to him. Which she did. My uncle proceeded to embezzle all of our savings, all of our university fund and bankrupted my family.

Somehow, my mom managed to keep horses in my life. I started to work at the Barn to pay off the cost of my Horse.

I could do this because I was able-bodied and I had enough Horse experience to be trusted to do this type of thing without being overseen by the Barn Owner.

As time went on, I got more opportunities to ride for free or ride to work off board and other expenses.

As I started to pursue a career with horses, I was given way more opportunities to learn how to start horses under saddle, work with different types of horses, and otherwise build my skill set because of the knowledge that I already had.

If my parents hadn’t been able to afford my lessons at an early age, I would have latched the skill set to be useful enough for people to offer me free opportunities or to want me to ride their horses.

I built my business from the ground up myself.

I took the risk of ending my job working in the food services industry as a hostess and started training professionally in 2017.

I have worked for myself ever since.

And I have worked hard.

For the first many years of starting Milestone Equestrian, I was galloping racehorses and between that and my regular clients, I was averaging upwards of 15 horses a day, 6 days a week.

I was doing this while going to university, which I paid for out-of-pocket. I would go to the Track early, gallop racehorses, drive straight to university, change in my car and go into the lecture.

It was exhausting, but it was the commitment that I had to make if I wanted to get the education that I was looking for while also being able to afford to live and pay for it.

It was incredibly expensive on my body and mind, but I continued to gain these experiences and be offered these opportunities because of the skillets that I had been able to build because of the privilege that was being able to start riding at such a young age.

So, while I consider this business self-made, it cannot be ignored that my capacity to create what I have was very much reliant on my parents being able to provide me with so much access to horses from a young age.

Even when all of that started to fall apart, and my family fell on hard times, I had an established foundation that offered me free opportunities to continue riding and building my knowledge.

I think my story is a lot different than a lot of equine professionals, particularly those we see in the show industry, because many of the people we see come from money and have had access to showing to an extent far beyond what I was even able to do.

But, it is a privileged story nonetheless.

I had to deal with trauma, hardship and struggle. Both financially, mental health wise and physical health wise.

But, I was able to have a foundation that made it easier to overcome all of that and still chase the dreams that I’d had for so long.

Privilege is not the idea that you have not worked hard.

It is all about the challenges that you haven’t had to face.

And, it is absolutely undeniable that my access to horses from a young age set me up to be able to go after these dreams in the way that I have.

My story would be very different if I hadn’t been afforded those opportunities at a young age.

Recognizing that doesn’t mean I am saying my life has been easy, because it definitely hasn’t been and my family has dealt with a lot of hardship over the years and continues to deal with hardship.

But, my life early on afforded me opportunities that many other people do not get.

And that is something that I cannot ignore and sharing my story because it paints a picture of access that many people don’t get.

Two truths can exist at once:

You can be privileged. And you can have dealt with struggle, trauma, and hardship while working hard to get ahead.

A lot of people run from the idea of privilege and try to insist that they are not. Even when they have so many things in life that make their lives easier.

So, here is your reminder that privilege is not an absence of hard work.

It is the absence of struggles that you have not had to deal with that other people have to first overcome before they can even get to where you are.

It is the descriptor of running a race that is either a straight shot or comprised of a variety of different obstacles that vary in complexity.

06/18/2026

06/17/2026

The term learned helplessness was coined in 1967 by American psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier. They first described the phenomenon while working at the University of Pennsylvania, observing that when animals were exposed to repeated, unavoidable stress, they eventually stopped trying to escape or change their situation.

Even when an easy escape route was later provided, they remained passive because they had learned that outcomes were entirely outside of their control. Seligman and his colleagues later expanded this research to humans, establishing the concept as a foundational model for understanding passivity and chronic defeat.

When looking at horse training, particularly traditional methods that rely on pressure and release, this exact concept sheds light on what is actually happening inside the brain. Learned helplessness happens when an animal experiences a continuous or repeated pressure that he cannot immediately escape or avoid.

Over time, if the pressure is persistent or inescapable, he stops trying to find a way out. He becomes passive and quiet. In traditional training, this quietness is often misidentified as compliance, calmness, or a horse being broke, but neurologically, it is the animal shutting down because he has learned that his behavioral choices do not change the outcome.

Understanding this dynamic is not about casting judgment, because nearly everyone in the horse world began their journey learning these exact methods. While science backs up that negative reinforcement is a way horses can learn, a growing body of scientific evidence proves that positive reinforcement is highly effective and produces superior behavioral and psychological results.

For instance, studies tracking equine behavior and physiology show that horses trained with positive reinforcement display significantly fewer stress-related and avoidance behaviors. Furthermore, research published in Applied Animal Behavior Science demonstrated that even adding small, regular amounts of positive reinforcement to a horse's routine significantly increases his desire to seek out human contact and interaction, fundamentally changing how he perceives people.

Even when a trainer is highly skilled, incredibly soft, and exceptionally sensitive with their hands and timing, traditional pressure-and-release methods still activate the brain pathways dedicated to escape and avoidance. The horse is operating out of a state of managing threat, working to stay safe by avoiding the pressure.

Recognizing this is simply a milestone in our own education as caretakers, allowing us to see the science behind the responses without blaming the trainers who are doing the best they can with the tools they were taught.
Interestingly, five decades after their original discovery, advanced neuroscience led Maier and Seligman to update their own theory. They realized that passivity in response to prolonged stress is actually the brain's automatic, default survival reaction, and what is truly learned through experience is the perception of control.

When a horse is trained primarily through pressure, he learns to survive the environment rather than engage with it. He becomes passive because taking the initiative risks triggering pressure. By shifting our focus toward teaching the horse that he has agency and that his choices can produce positive outcomes, we can move away from survival pathways and open the door to building an active, willing participant who feels safe to try, explore, and eagerly engage in the process.

06/14/2026

Ms. Rachel is a hero. ❤️ All children deserve love and protection.

Rachel Accurso — Ms. Rachel, to her millions of online followers — made her first visit to Congress with handwritten letters and drawings by children whom have been, or remain, in ICE custody at the nation’s only family immigration detention center. https://wapo.st/4vCZx92

06/11/2026

06/11/2026