The NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast

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I Sold My House to Make a Horse Docu-Series UNBRIDLED | Noëlle Floyd with Yellowstone's Jen Landon Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

What does it cost to go and find out who you are?

For me, it cost a house.

I sold mine to travel 25,000 miles across North America with my horses, Lady and G, and I filmed all of it. That road became Unbridled, a six-part horse documentary series. Episodes 1 and 2 are on YouTube now.

This time the microphone turned around.

Jen Landon, actor, Yellowstone cast member, horsewoman, and the person who owns Shorty, took the host's chair and asked me the questions I usually ask everyone else.

She asked why I nearly stopped filming. So many times on that trip I looked at the footage and heard the same three sentences. I'm not good enough. This isn't good enough. No one's gonna care.

I kept the cameras rolling anyway. I'm so glad I did.

Jen tells the story of how Unbridled reached her. My husband, Ben, looked at me and made me promise to send it to her. I thought that was gauche. I sent it. She planned to watch two episodes as a favor to a new friend, and she watched the whole season.

She compared it to Chef's Table. Jen calls herself a bad cook, and she still walked away from every episode of that show with something for her own life and her craft as an actor. She says Unbridled did the same for her. The horses are the backdrop for a bigger lesson.

That is my hope for this horse documentary. That someone who has lived their whole life away from horses watches it and sees who I became because of the way Lady and G live as horses, every single day.

We talk about process-based horsemanship and outcome-based horsemanship, and how far that idea reaches past the arena.

"If you focus on the process, then the outcome is more expansive than you could possibly imagine. But if you focus on the outcome, then you're limited to the outcome you can imagine as the person you are in the moment."

Then we go to Texas.

Florida humbled me. I left it feeling small. And then I cut cows with Lyndi Birch and Barbra Schulte, on Jen's own horse, Shorty, who carried me like the all-star he is. Barbra is nurture. Lyndi is nature. Two sides of one coin, and between them I learned what I now call cowgirl confidence. Thinking confident is one thing. Being confident lives in the body.

Jen adds the piece I keep coming back to. Cowgirl confidence has fun in it.

When you sell the house, where do you find home?

Inside ourselves. In our horses. In the people who show up for us.

If you have a big, scary dream, you are more capable than you think. And you will be amazed by the allies, the people and the animals, who arrive to support you on your hero's journey.

Episodes 1 and 2 of Unbridled are on my YouTube channel. Episodes 3 through 6 live on NF+, and you can buy Season 1 on its own, separate from membership. Episode 4 is Texas: Shorty, the cows, Lyndiy and Barbra.

Watch Unbridled Episodes 1: https://youtu.be/XI6lxdaSM7Y

and Episode 2: https://youtu.be/X0xOcksn7TQ

Buy Unbridled all 6 Episodes of Season 1 on NF+: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/IpBkLxUk8AA

About Jen Jen Landon is an actor and horsewoman known to Yellowstone audiences. She worked cattle on her horse, Shorty, between takes on the Yellowstone set, and Shorty appears in Unbridled Episode 4 in Texas with Lyndy Burch and Barbra Schulte. She is a recent NF+ member who watches lessons before heading to the barn.

Episodee Sponsored by: YETI

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No shortcuts. No compromise.

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Explore more at YETI.com | @YETI | facebook.com/YETI

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

The Real Reason I Walked Away From Horses | UNBRIDLED Official Trailer Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

Is the horse-human bond the ultimate secret to better training?

Watch the trailer as professional horsewoman Noëlle Floyd launches her new six-part documentary series NOËLLE FLOYD: UNBRIDLED.

🐴 Subscribe for more horse training & equestrian insights:

https://noellefloyd.com

💻 Catch the SEASON PREMIERE on Youtube MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 AT 4PM ET and binge the whole season! at NF+ https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

Created and hosted by Noëlle Floyd, this groundbreaking documentary series explores the deep connection between horse and rider through adventure, master class training, and essential equestrian skills.

Discover powerful answers and insights that have the potential to completely transform the equestrian community.

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

When the Bridle Comes Off, the Truth Comes Out | A Letter to Lady (Unbridled) Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

I wrote my mare a letter the day she came to me. Out in the field with her, with G grazing nearby, I read it to her out loud for the first time. It is the most honest thing I have said about horsemanship in fourteen years.

Fourteen years I spent interviewing the horse world's best — the trainers and riders everyone turns to for answers. Then Lady arrived, more wild than tame, and I stepped in front of the camera to say the one thing the interviewer's chair never let me say: I don't know.

That admission is where Unbridled begins.

This is the solo letter underneath the whole series — the private writing that became the reason I made it. Lady came to me more questioning than compliant, unwilling to perform a smaller version of herself for anyone's comfort. Loving her made it impossible to stay safely behind the microphone. She asked me harder questions than any guest ever had. Not "can you make me do this," but "how can you meet me if you will not meet yourself?"

Somewhere in there my horsemanship began to change, and so did I. I call it rewilding — taking the bridle off my horse and the invisible one off myself at once. Fit in. Obey. Be manageable. Do not become too much. Lady answers every one of those instructions by simply being who she is.

When the bridle comes off, the truth comes out. Without the equipment and the familiar measures of success, what remains? Two bodies. Two nervous systems. Two living beings trying to understand each other across the line between species.

This letter is about worthiness — and how Lady taught me it was never a thing I earn by knowing enough. It lives in the willingness to listen, to repair, to begin again.

If you have ever loved a horse who would not let you hide, this one is for you.

Unbridled is a six-part series following me and my horses across North America, asking whether partnership can go somewhere freer than control. Lady is the reason it exists.

▶️ Watch Unbridled — Catch the SEASON PREMIERE on Youtube MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 AT 4PM ET

and binge the whole season! at NF+ https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

In This Episode:

Why she almost didn't make Unbridled — the fear that fourteen years of interviews still left her unworthy of her own horse.
The gap between a horse obeying you and a horse choosing you, and why only one survives the bridle coming off.
What Lady asks that no technique can answer: how can you meet me if you will not meet yourself?
Rewilding horsemanship — taking the restraints off the horse and off yourself in the same motion.
Why "I don't know" became the beginning of her authority instead of the end of it.
The promises she wrote to a horse she had dreamed about before they ever met.

Chapters :

0:00 — Out in the field with Lady (and G)
1:00 — Why she writes letters to her horses
2:31 — "Dear Lady" — the letter begins
3:52 — The mare unlike any she'd met
5:10 — When the bridle comes off, the truth comes out
8:00 — Rewilding her horsemanship, rewilding herself
9:00 — The Fool, the threshold, the heroine's journey
11:37 — What Unbridled actually became
13:02 — "You did not come here to heal me"
14:50 — Worthiness, and the horsewoman she's becoming

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

The Horse Husband: How Evan Went From Terrified to the Barn Every Day ] No Stupid Questions with Evan the Groom Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

The same patience it takes to earn a horse's trust is the patience Evan the Groom brings to teaching the rest of us. He came to horses the way most people never do — from the outside, with no background, terrified of the biggest one in the barn — and turned that beginner's-eye view into an education. Today he does the horse grooming and horse care in his wife's dressage business, and the horse world knows him as the viral comedian who makes the barn make sense to people who have never touched a horse.

This is a No Stupid Questions episode, and it is one of my favorites we have done. Evan explains horses the way he once needed them explained to him — no jargon, no ego, just plain answers to the things beginners are too embarrassed to ask out loud.

He was an engineer turning algae into protein. Then marketing. Then the pandemic took his job, his wife Ashley needed help at the barn, and he picked up a camera. The videos were meant to make his own family laugh — people who knew nothing about horses. Instead they built a following, and somewhere in there Evan became something he never trained to be: an educator.

We get into the skill he rates above all others and hears discussed least — observation, watching for the thing that is off today — and how six years of it on the ground is only now showing up in the saddle. His advice for every "horse husband" and non-horse partner out there: just support that. Why he would rather make a video so ridiculous you remember it than one only horse people understand, and how a loogie teaches you the word "hock." The groom's real job when no one is watching: being the horse's constant. And the mare who taught him the most — a year to earn her trust, and then, he says, she gives you everything.

There is also a talking pony named Piper, a children's book about a lost little bird, and — as of last week — his first ride off the lunge line.

If someone in your life doesn't understand the horse thing — or if you're the one at the rail — send them this.

Evan is a groom, content creator, and horse-care specialist in Southern California, where he works alongside his wife, dressage trainer Ashley Donant. He built his following making horses funny and reachable for people who have never touched one.

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Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

How Steffen Peters Trains a Horse: Self-Carriage, Groundwork & a New Stallion (Part 2) Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

A horse has two choices. Learn to accept the bit, or fight it for the rest of its life.

That's Steffen Peters, and this is the half where his hands are on the reins. If you heard Part 1, you met the man — six Olympics, the dark place, the way back. This one is the horse training — the groundwork up through Grand Prix. Forty years of it, distilled into the way he starts a five-year-old and the way he brought a brand-new stallion into the ring after two weeks together.

Here's the thing that runs through all of it: he doesn't push a horse into the bridle. Ever. He thinks ninety-five percent of horses are ridden with too much contact, and he'll tell you why "more hind legs, more into the hand" was never the answer for him. What he wants is suppleness, self-carriage, lightness — a soft rein you can see, and a horse that carries itself instead of leaning on your hand.

We get into where that starts, and it is earlier than you would think. The groundwork — on a lead rope, in a halter — the horse that stops when you stop without a pull on the rope. He calls it cooperation, not submission, and he means the difference exactly. From there it's the walk work most riders rush past, the half halt that becomes a reflex, the spur as a reminder and never a crutch, and the three aids he says are the only tools you really have.

There's the new stallion — fourteen, extremely smart, the horse that trained his rider to say "don't quit." There's Totilas, and what it takes to watch someone beat you and mean it when you call it good. And there's the compliment two vets paid him without knowing he could hear: at Steffen's barn, they can't make any money — because of the walk breaks, and what they save.

If Part 1 was how he learned to manage himself, this is how he manages the conversation with the horse. Same man. Now the method.

Steffen Peters is a German-born American dressage rider, a six-time Olympian and multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the most decorated dressage athletes in United States history. He returned to competition this year, opening his season aboard a new stallion with wins across the Prix St. Georges, the Intermediaire I, and the Grand Prix.

Chapters:

0:00 Riding Becomes Training 01:39 Flow State With New Stallion 02:19 Suppleness Over Hind Legs 04:37 Stop the Nagging Leg 05:52 Feel Over Looks 08:16 How Much Contact 11:57 Western Lightness Lessons 13:45 Warmup Is Training 17:30 Mindful Aids and Tools 20:38 Reliable Tests and Nerves 22:32 Refining Pressure Release 25:05 Walk Work and Discipline 27:12 Quiet Coaching Shift 27:54 Trainer Judge Clinics 29:06 From Thinking To Reflex 31:02 Flow State In Competition 34:09 Building Presence On Ground 37:46 Mindfulness In Daily Life 41:04 Rapid Fire Questions 47:59 New Stallion Partnership 50:26 Walk Breaks And Longevity

Want to go deeper into the training behind a clean, confident flying change?

In his new NOËLLE FLOYD Masterclass, six-time Olympian Steffen Peters breaks down the entire process—from developing the right canter, balance and response to the aids to introducing the change and troubleshooting tension, anticipation, crookedness and changes that are late behind.

Learn more and watch Training the Flying Change with Steffen Peters: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/flying-changes-with-steffen-peters

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Steffen Peters: The Six-Time Olympian on the Dark Place Behind the Medals (Part 1) Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

When did you make it?

Ask most riders that question and they'll point to a medal. Steffen Peters points somewhere else — to the darkest place he has ever been, and the way back out of it.

This is Part 1 of my conversation with a six-time Olympian, and we barely touch a rein. Forty years of horse training sit behind this man, and the first thing he wants to talk about isn't a horse. It's the thing underneath the ribbons.

The neuropathy in his hands and feet after Paris that twenty-five doctors couldn't explain. The cold plunge and the vagus nerve, and the natural experiment that gave him relief when the medications didn't. The one ride in Tokyo — September 27th, 2018, a date he can still name — that sent him spiraling, and what it taught him about himself that no arena ever did.

He says you cannot manage stress. You can only manage yourself. He learned it, in his own words, way too late. The quality of your thoughts becomes the quality of your life, and for a while his thoughts were trying to take him under.

We get into the ego leaving, and the pride that stays. Why he loves that strangers in an airport call him "the rave horse" and never say his name. Why exposing weakness became the strength he's known for. What radical acceptance looks like at a Grand Prix, standing at the gate. And how the same sensitivity that can tip a person toward anxiety is the exact instrument that reads a horse — the sensitivity that is the whole art of his horse training, and also the thing that nearly broke him.

Dr. Reiner Klimke is here too, in a story Steffen didn't learn the truth of until five years after it had already set the course of his career.

If you have ever carried a bad day home and let it live in you overnight, this hour is for you. It is a rider telling you what the podium doesn't show.

Steffen Peters is a German-born American dressage rider, a six-time Olympian and multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the most decorated dressage athletes in United States history. He returned to competition this year after stepping away following the Paris Games, opening his season with wins in the Prix St. Georges, the Intermediaire I, and the Grand Prix.

Chapters:

00:00 When It Got Dark 02:04 Neuropathy After Paris 06:36 Managing Thoughts Not Stress 08:28 World Games Spiral 12:34 Why Horses Deserve Credit 17:55 Flow Junkies Explained 20:15 Stepping Away To Heal 22:30 Las Vegas Highs And Lows 25:07 Vulnerability And The Brain 27:23 Tools for Dark Days 29:15 Radical Acceptance Practice 30:34 Sensitivity as Superpower 33:05 Awareness in the Saddle 35:05 Judged Sport Pressure 36:35 How Dressage Judging Evolved 41:02 Modern Horse vs Tradition 42:10 Klimke Sponsorship Story 45:26 What Made Dr. Klimke Great 47:29 Flow State Principles

Want to go deeper into the training behind a clean, confident flying change?

Learn more and watch Training the Flying Change with Steffen Peters: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/flying-changes-with-steffen-peters

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

She Remade Black Beauty. Now She's Fighting to Save America's Wild Horses | Ashley Avis Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

There's one horse you would cross the country for.

You know the one. The horse who found you when you had the least to give and somehow handed you back to yourself.

Now hold that horse in your mind, and sit with this: roughly 20,000 of them a year get loaded onto trailers bound for Canada and Mexico, and it reaches every kind of horse — the show jumper, the Thoroughbred who ran too slow, the lesson pony grown old, the wild horses rounded up off land that was meant to protect them.

Ashley Avis has looked straight at it. She sewed a button cam into her shirt and walked into the Texas auctions where kill buyers wait. She founded the Wild Beauty Foundation, directed the mustang documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, and remade Black Beauty for Disney+. And she has turned all of it toward one aim: passing the SAFE Act in the year of the horse.

This conversation goes to the place most people flinch from. Ashley and I talk about why horse people, of all people, find horse slaughter the hardest thing to watch — and how she makes you look anyway, through ninety-second films voiced by Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Springsteen, and Diane Lane, and scored by Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?"

We talk about my mare Lady, one of those wild horses herself, who ran feral for fifteen years before she came to me, and who could have ridden that same truck to Mexico.

We talk about the black colt with pneumonia that Ashley coaxed out of a kill buyer's pasture, and the economics that let a man triple his price on a horse's life.

And we talk about Black Beauty — what Anna Sewell did in 1877 by writing from a horse's point of view, and why it still rearranges the people who meet it.

Then Ashley tells you exactly what two minutes of your day can do. A microsite. Your zip code. A pre-written letter your member of Congress will read.

If you have ever been remade by a single horse, this is the reason to pull the car over.

Ashley Avis is a filmmaker and the founder of the Wild Beauty Foundation. She directed Disney+'s Black Beauty and the mustang documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, and her Lost Horses campaign is carrying the SAFE Act toward a vote.

Make the call to Congress to pass the SAFE Act: Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard to directed to your Senators and Representative: 202-224-3121. Once connected, all you have to say is, "Hi, my name is [NAME] and I am calling from [City/State] to ask that the [Senator/Representative] pass the SAFE Act (H.R. 1661, S. 775) to protect American horses, both domestic and wild, from being exported out of the United States to slaughter. Thank you." Share the Lost Horses PSA: The Lost Horses campaign and legislation to stop horse slaughter is gaining momentum and we must keep up the awareness. Please share the PSA on social media and with your friends and family. Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

Donate to the Lost Horses campaign: Help continue to reach the masses so that no horse is lost again. losthorses.org/support

Episode Sponsor: YETI

No shortcuts. No compromise.

Just gear that works as hard as you do.

Explore more at YETI.com | @YETI | facebook.com/YETI

And for even more expert-led workshops, in-depth courses, and exclusive lectures designed to elevate your riding and horsemanship, visit NoelleFloydPlus.com and use code 'DHW' for 15% off annual memberships!

NF+ brings you direct access to top equestrian professionals, training insights, and a passionate community of riders dedicated to learning and improving.

What this Dressage Rider Learned From a Cowboy - Kasey Perry-Glass Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

You get the thing you chased for five years.

And the ride is the worst one you've ever put down.

Kasey Perry-Glass reached the Olympic Games on the horse she bought to take her there — Doublé — and came home into a depression that blindsided her. This is the conversation under the medal photo. What it costs to want something that badly, and what she found on the far side of it.

She married a cowboy. Dana Glass starts colts and takes in the horses other people gave up on — the rearers, the buckers, the bolters, carrying baggage nobody unpacked. Two worlds under one roof: her classical dressage, his groundwork. What one taught the other is most of this hour.

We get into the perfectionism that dressage rewards and then punishes — a score out of 100 that stays out of reach, a sport where the best mark is a C or a D on a good day. Why she stopped posting to social media. The line Martin Black uses, let them cook, and why ending a ride a little early beats grinding it into the ground. Pain versus behavior, and the checklist she taught Dana: clear the ulcers, the hindgut, the teeth, before anyone calls it attitude.

Then the mental game she learned the hard way. Finding her number with Annette Paterakis — the exact pitch of nerves and calm that lets her ride her best. The work with Dr. Jenny Susser. Blacking out in the saddle, ten minutes gone, grinding the same movement. Boundaries. Getting told she was "too nice" for this sport, and what she kept anyway.

Behind the vertical, point of balance, throughness without a single draw rein — she explains the dressage the way she explained it to Dana, the sport he first met through her.

This one is for anyone who has wanted something so badly it made them small, and found their way back to the size they actually are.

Kasey Perry-Glass is a US Olympic dressage rider — team bronze at Rio 2016 (America's first Olympic dressage medal since 2004) and team silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games — who competes as Kasey Perry. Her longtime partner was the Grand Prix gelding Doublé (Goerklintgaards Dublet), now retired; she currently campaigns Heartbeat W.P. She and her husband, cowboy and colt-starter Dana Glass, run Two Worlds Equestrian, joining Western horsemanship and Grand Prix dressage under one program.

To Learn more about Kasey Perry-Glass: website | instagram | facebook

In This Episode You'll Learn

What it costs to reach an Olympic Games and ride your worst test there, and the depression Kasey came home to
The perfectionism dressage rewards and then punishes, chasing a score out of 100 in a sport where a great mark is a C
Let them cook: why ending a ride a little early beats grinding a movement into the ground
The pain-versus-behavior checklist Kasey taught Dana — ulcers, hindgut, teeth, before anyone calls it attitude
Finding your number with sports psychologist Annette Paterakis — the exact pitch of nerves and calm that lets you ride your best
Blacking out in the saddle, ten minutes gone on the same movement, and the mental work that pulled her out
Behind the vertical made plain: the poll as the highest point, and why a horse's own point of balance can't be copied and pasted
Throughness without a single draw rein, and how groundwork gave an Olympic rider tools her dressage babies never had

Chapters:

0:00 How Kasey met a cowboy 4:51 What Dana does: colt starting & unpacking a horse's trauma 8:41 Groundwork, the rope halter & being a beginner again 14:34 [ad: Total Feeds] 15:14 The perfectionism dressage rewards and punishes 19:51 Let them cook: ending on a good note 23:17 Pain vs. behavior: what we blame on the horse 29:05 Bringing two worlds together 30:36 Welfare, eliminations & the "blood" rule 33:44 [ad: Noëlle's Substack] 36:07 Judging transparency & educating the viewer 39:21 Behind the vertical, explained 41:44 Point of balance & throughness without draw reins 44:47 Training aids as tools; groundwork informs the saddle 49:34 The Olympics — and the depression after 53:44 Patience in a same-day world 57:22 The mental game: finding your number 1:02:29 Boundaries, thick skin & remaking herself 1:07:19 Tough vs. strong; raising horses and kids 1:12:50 Rapid-fire questions

Episode Sponsor: Connaway & Associates Equine Insurance Services, Inc. The friendly and knowledgeable team at Connaway & Associates brings together more than 30 years of experience to offer a wide range of insurance services, including horse insurance, farm insurance, and liability insurance. Visit www.connaway.net | @connawayassociates | facebook.com/connawayassociatesequine

Episode Sponsor: YETI

No shortcuts. No compromise.

Just gear that works as hard as you do.

Explore more at YETI.com | @YETI | facebook.com/YETI

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

The Move Most People Get Backwards With a Cow — and What It Teaches About Horse Training | Martin Black (Pt. 2) Aug 17, 2026

Show notes

You think the cow is the hard part.

She isn't. You are.

You get ahead of her to turn her, and she beats you to the herd every time. You spur, you pull, the horse's head comes up, and now nobody is watching the cow at all.

Martin Black has read millions of head of cattle, and the horse training lesson underneath all of it is the one almost everybody gets backwards. To cut one cow out, you leave her alone and stir the herd around her. To turn her, you turn away — not toward. The horse rates the cow the way a foal learns to rate its mother in the first thirty minutes of life. It's already in there. Our job is to stay out of the road so the horse can use it.

This is Part 2 of my week with Martin on his ranch in the Great Basin. Part 1 is the ranch, the horses, and reading the moment — start there.

We work the balance point and the flight zone, and why a cow reads your horse's head like a horn and your horse's hip like something softer. Why getting in front of a cow to block her only sends her faster. What Tom Dorrance told Martin decades ago about turning tail, and how that one idea makes a green horse handier by the day. Gene Lewis, his mother's cousin, and jumpers that rate a fence with nobody telling them where to put their feet.

Then the part that reshaped how I keep my own horses. Turnout over stalls. Bare feet when the ground allows. A crick to cross and rocks to pick through, because a horse who has to sort out the terrain grows savvy, and a horse who never has to stays a passenger.

Martin runs horses as a business, not a companion animal, and says his vet bills will stand against anyone's. Colic almost unheard of. Feet the ground keeps honest. It made me ask what I was really protecting when I bubble-wrapped mine.

The horse training here is subtraction, not addition. Cows think more like horses than you'd guess, and empathy runs under all of it.

Martin Black is a lifelong Great Basin horseman and stockman from a multi-generation ranching family, working in the vaquero tradition and the lineage of Tom Dorrance. He spent ten years starting young horses at Calumet Farm in Lexington and now teaches horsemanship and stockmanship through clinics and a ranch school.

If you want to go further with your own horse, NF+ has 70+ masterclasses at noellefloydplus.com or through the app link in the show notes.

In This Episode You'll Learn

The move almost everyone gets backwards: to hold a single cow, you leave her alone and stir the herd around her
Why getting in front of a cow to block her only sends her faster back to the herd — and what to do the instant she turns
How a cow reads your horse's head like a horn and your horse's hip like something softer, so a leg-yield moves her where a headbutt would spook her
What Tom Dorrance told Martin about turning tail to a cow, and how it makes a green horse rounder and handier by the day
Gene Lewis and colts that rate a fence themselves, with nobody telling them where to put their feet
Why a collected walk finally had a purpose the day Noelle worked cattle on Lady
What ten years starting babies at Calumet and a lifetime in the Great Basin say about turnout, bare feet, and letting a horse sort out rough ground
The barbed-wire story, and what a horse who navigates real terrain has that a bubble-wrapped one lacks

Chapters

0:00 Part 2: cutting a cow by leaving her alone 1:40 Holding cattle without a fence — what it takes 3:40 Sorting without stalking: keeping a cow parasympathetic 5:40 Cows think like horses — Dr. Peters & Temple Grandin 8:30 The old way wasn't the cruel way 10:40 After WWII: how the mechanized age lost the horsemanship 11:20 What a chuck wagon really was (Great Basin history) 14:34 [ad: Total Feeds] 17:49 The balance point & flight zone, explained 21:00 Rating: the foal, the herd, and the safe place 26:40 Headbutt vs. tail-butt: why a leg-yield moves a cow softer 30:40 The move most people get backwards: never turn into the cow 33:43 [ad: Noelle's Substack] 34:47 Predator habits that get in the way 37:30 Tom Dorrance on turning tail 40:50 Gene Lewis: horses that rate the jump themselves 47:00 Managing horses naturally: turnout over stalls 49:00 Barefoot when the ground allows 52:00 Rough terrain makes a savvy horse — the barbed-wire story 55:00 Horses as a business, not a companion animal 59:40 Advice for urban riders: get out of the arena

Episode Sponsor: Total Feeds

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

Why You Should Stop Patting Your Horse | Martin Black on Western Horse Training Aug 10, 2026

Show notes

We pat our horses to tell them they did well.

Martin Black says the horse would rather we kept our hands to ourselves.

He has spent a life inside western horse training — starting close to five hundred colts a year on the same Great Basin country his family has ranched since the 1860s, seventy miles from his nearest neighbor, the road over the mountain closed all winter. And what he showed me this week is that the pat is for us. The reward the horse is after is chemical: the flood of serotonin and dopamine that arrives when pressure lifts and the body comes home to rest. Martin calls it the cocktail. Rouse the horse, bring him down, and he licks his lips — he got his drink, and he will go to that edge with you again because he knows you will take him to the bar after.

This is western horse training as one of its living masters practices it, and almost none of it looks like technique.

Martin reads a colt the way the rest of us read a single sentence — ten things at once. He calls it peripheral thinking. The predator in us locks onto the prey: the outcome, the lead change, the plan for the day. Martin holds the objective and lets the plan bend to whatever the horse hands him. The seed that wants to grow today gets watered today. The one that is not ready waits.

We talk about the hours. I could shadow him in Idaho for years and still not own his timing, because feel does not transfer. You earn it one horse at a time, and no clinic sells it.

We talk about why he trains his cattle the way his family has since the 1860s — the rodear, the old vaquero work that crossed from Spain and reached Texas two centuries late — and why a dressage horse belongs on a cow as much as any ranch gelding does.

And we go into the cowboy neuroscience of it: sympathetic arousal, homeostasis, pressure and its relief as one thing rather than two. Dr. Steve Peters pulled Martin out of a lineup for this. Martin calls himself a bartender. He once waited forty-five minutes on a traumatized cutting mare, feeling her heartbeat through the saddle horn, until she finally licked her lips and found her way home.

Part one of two. In part two, Martin takes it to the ground — reading cattle by the million, and moving one cow out of a herd by leaving her alone.

Martin Black is a Great Basin horseman and colt starter who has started close to five hundred colts a year, working the same remote Idaho country his family has ranched since the 1860s. He carries the lineage of Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt into a plainer, harder question: what does the horse in front of you need?

In This Episode You'll Learn

Why the pat you give after a good round is for you, and what the horse is asking for instead.
The cocktail — how serotonin and dopamine turn pressure and its release into the reward the horse remembers.
Peripheral thinking: reading ten things at once, and why the predator in us locks onto only one.
Why Martin holds the objective and lets the horse choose which seed grows today.
The forty-five-minute wait on a traumatized cutting mare, and the heartbeat he felt through the saddle horn.
The hours nobody can hand you — why feel is earned one horse at a time.

Find out more about Martin Black: website | facebook | youtube

Chapters

0:00 — The pat is for you, not the horse (cold open)
0:30 — Seventy miles from the nearest neighbor
5:00 — No formula fits all: hold the objective, bend the plan
14:38 — Peripheral thinking and the predator's focus
19:33 — Moving the feet: sympathetic arousal and self-preservation
28:45 — Why loving on your horse is for you
31:01 — The invitation: the cocktail, the margarita, the lick of the lips
39:29 — Cowboy neuroscience: pressure, relief, homeostasis
50:40 — The colt-starting science project
51:53 — Can a jumper work a cow? Stockmanship and the rodear
57:29 — Holding the herd without a fence — and what empathy means

Total Feeds

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

You can also download the app - NF+ App

Thank you for your listening!

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