Mindful

Horsemanship

Clinics

A PATH TO SOFTNESS AND HARMONY WITH HORSES

Hosting a Mindful Horsemanship Clinic offers your facility a meaningful opportunity to support both horses and humans through an approach that prioritizes safety, regulation, and authentic connection.

Hosts participate for free or auditor fees for non-profits will be donated to your organization!

Mindful

Horsemanship

Clinics

A PATH TO SOFTNESS AND HARMONY WITH HORSES

Hosting a Mindful Horsemanship Clinic offers your facility a meaningful opportunity to support both horses and humans through an approach that prioritizes safety, regulation, and authentic connection.

Hosts participate for free or auditor fees for non-profits will be donated to the organization!

This work is grounded in honoring the horse as a sentient partner.

Sessions emphasize:

This work is grounded in honoring the horse as a sentient partner.

Sessions emphasize:

Low-pressure, consent-based interaction.
Nervous system awareness and regulation.
Clear communication through movement and body language.
Respect for the horse's capacity, boundaries, and needs.
Ethical horsemanship and long-term well-being.
Supporting people in better understanding their horses and how they influence them.

Low-pressure, consent-based interaction.
Nervous system awareness and regulation.
Clear communication through movement and body language.
Respect for the horse's capacity, boundaries, and needs.
Ethical horsemanship and long-term well-being.
Supporting people in better understanding their horses and how they influence them.

MINDFUL HORSEMANSHIP CLINICS EXPLORE:

The Three Tiers of mindful horsemanship

build a foundation that supports safety, connection, and cooperation

The three tiers of Mindful Horsemanship include:

1. How you show up and how the horse experiences you - cultivating awareness of your nervous system, body, boundaries, energy and movement, and how these influence the horses.

2. Giving the horse a reason to connect - creating a safe, inviting, and enjoyable space for your horse that they will choose to be in.

3. Communicating in the horse's embodied language - speaking the horses' language of movement, position, energy and body language and increasing awareness of how we are influencing our horses in each moment.

These tiers are woven throughout all clinic experiences on the ground and under saddle.

Connecting through touch

inspired by debono Moves for horses

Through supportive, intentional touch, participants will learn to:

Encourage release of unnecessary muscular tension and offer a sense of relief
Facilitate ease of movement and shift dysfunctional habitual patterns.
Calm the nervous system and support a regulated, relaxed state.
Strengthen connection by creating a space the horse chooses to be in.

As a Certified Debono Moves Practitioner, Stacey has learned from the best when it comes to developing a refined feel of subtle and nuanced movements within the body. Developed by Mary Debono, a Feldenkrais practitioner who also teaches Awareness Through Movement lessons for people, this gentle form of touch and movement offers a powerful way to calm, release tension, and strengthen connection.

This is especially beneficial for horses recovering from past trauma.

riding with mindful movement

experience the feeling of flowing together in unity, lightness, and ease

All horses are sensitive to subtle changes in a rider’s movement, balance, and internal state. Increased awareness of how we are organizing our bodies can dramatically improve our riding.

The clinic includes a movement lesson without horses to explore the specific, nuanced movements that naturally guide a horse without the use of pressure, force or discomfort. By first feeling these movements in their own bodies, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how horses perceive and respond to our bodies and movements.

These insights are then integrated into riding. Through these practices, horse and human can move together with greater ease, clarity, and mutual understanding.

Riding is optional, participants may choose to focus on engaging with their horse on the ground.

what PARTICIPANTS WILL GAIN FROM ATTENDING a clinic

Nervous-system awareness

Recognizing subtle signs of tension and stress and learning effective ways to respond that restore a sense of safety and trust.

Mindful, embodied communication

Influencing behavior through clarity, presence, and intentional movement

techniques for offering supporive touch

Gentle ways to help your horse release unnecessary muscular tension, find ease of movement, and experience relief, all of which enhance performance and connection

Practical, EFFECTIVE tools

You’ll stop second-guessing yourself and start responding with confidence, knowing how to adjust your energy, body language, and intention in real time

Relationship-centered approach

The horse learns that being with you feels safe, supportive, and enjoyable, increasing their desire to stay engaged

Transferable, lifelong skills

You’ll be able to apply these tools with different horses, in new environments, and through future challenges.

Meet Stacey Carter

Founder of Heart Centered Horsemanship and developer of the Mindful Horsemanship approach, Stacey's work integrates decades of experience as a rider, instructor, equine specialist in mental health and learning, yoga teacher, Certified Debono Moves practitioner, and lifelong student of the horse. Through a commitment to honoring equine sentience and nervous system well-being, she developed an approach that supports calm, cooperative partnership without force, dominance, or pressure. She teaches people how to show up with clarity, awareness, and intention to create relationships that feel safe, effective, and mutually beneficial.

What others are saying:

This clinic really helped me understand how critical my position, energy, and timing are in communicating clearly with my horse. The experience gave me a much deeper awareness of how my own body language and intentions influence our partnership.

Mandy Yarborough, clinic participant

"A real game changer"

Stacey has found a way to unlock and put into words what the great riders already know and feel within their bones when communicating on the ground or in the saddle with these amazing animals.

Danni Wojick, student

"This clinic was extremely helpful"

"It's a better way, a kinder way, a way that makes more sense....Every person that has a horse should take this class!"

Stacey Landfield, clinic participant

mindful horsemanship offers

Small group learning with personalized attention to address specific goals, challenges, and circumstances.

Supportive, non-judgemental atmosphere that welcomes all levels of skill and experience.

Time for integration and reflection, including question and answer sessions during lunch breaks.

Respect for horses' needs and limits, with customized learning to support them where they are.

what you'll gain from attending a mindful horsemanship clinic

Nervous-system awareness

Recognizing subtle signs of tension, stress, and relaxation and how to respond in ways that restore safety and trust

Mindful, embodied communication

Influencing behavior through clarity, presence, and intentional movement

skills for offering supporive touch

Gentle ways to help your horse release unnecessary muscular tension, find ease of movement, and experience relief - enhancing performance and connection

Practical, EFFECTIVE tools

You’ll stop second-guessing yourself and start responding with confidence, knowing how to adjust your energy, body language, and intention in real time

Relationship-centered approach

The horse learns that being with you feels safe, supportive, and enjoyable, increasing their desire to stay engaged

Transferable, lifelong skills

You’ll be able to apply these tools with different horses, in new environments, and through future challenges

With a blend of equine-assisted mental health, therapeutic riding, yoga, and equine behavior rehabilitation

Stacey prioritizes:

Emotional and physical safety for both horses and people
Calm, regulated learning environments
Clear structure and professional boundaries

Emotional and physical safety for both horses and people
Calm, regulated learning environments
Clear structure and professional boundaries

This makes the clinic especially appropriate for

therapy centers, rescues, and facilities working with sensitive horses or clients.

SAMPLE DAILY CLINIC SCHEDULE:

Morning Session:

Exploring Nervous-System Regulation and Mindful Movement off the horse

Auditors may participate in this portion

Engaging on the ground with a focus on Connecting Through Touch and Speaking the Horse's Language

(this portion may include individual liberty sessions with group observation or a group session with all participants)

LUNCH BREAK/Q&A

Auditors may participate in group discussion

Afternoon Session:

Advanced groundwork and/or riding group session with personalized attention to each participant

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes this different from other horsemanship clinics?

Rather than training techniques that focus on what the horse is doing, this clinic teaches you how to adjust what you are doing to influence their behavior and bring out their best. This includes subtle nuances of presence, movement, energy, and non-verbal communication that are often unconscious. This clinic increases awareness of how the horse is responding to us in each moment, and offers tools and strategies to create cooperation that feels genuine and sustainable.

How many people can participate?

The recommended group size is 6 participants.

How many days do your clinics run?

Clinics can be designed to fit a single-day or multi-day format and can be customized according to the preferances of your facility and participants.

Can people participate without riding?

Riding in these clinics is optional. We will focus on building a foundation through engaging with the horse on the ground first. Participants may then choose to ride or explore more advanced groundwork.

Do you work with horses with behavioral challenges or trauma histories?

Absolutely. This work was shaped through years of working with horses who were reactive, shut down, fearful, or labeled “problematic.” Rather than attempting to correct and control behavior, participants will learn how to create the conditions that support safety, trust, and cooperation to bring out the best in their equine companion.

What if participants are following a different training method?

Mindful Horsemanship doesn't have to be practiced instead of other methods, it can be an enhancement to them. Developing awareness and feel will improve the quality of any activity, whether it involves sport, trail riding, or engaging on the ground. While some training methods are in direct contradiction to the practices in this course, this is not a training method. It is a way of being in relationship that can be a part of whatever you do with your horse.

Do you allow auditing at clinics?

Auditing is encouraged for an additional fee. Auditors are welcome to join in activities that do not involve working with the horses, such as mindful movement and Q & A sessions. Non-profit hosts may keep auditor fees to benefit their programs.