The NOËLLE FLOYD Podcast

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
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at 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!

When I was eleven, my mom handed me The Man Who Listens to Horses.
Last week, the man who wrote it died.
Within days, the horse world also lost Alexandra Kurland — the woman who spent decades convincing us that a clicker and a handful of food belonged in serious horse training.
This is a solo episode. An essay, read aloud, on two pioneers who stood in opposite corners of horse training and still moved the same conversation forward. On join up, and what it asks of a flight animal sent around a round pen. On positive reinforcement, and why handing a horse food never automatically creates consent. On the disputed parts of Monty's story, and why we can hold gratitude and discernment at the same time.
And underneath it all, the question I keep circling: why do we need our teachers to be heroes?
We put trainers on pedestals. The flaws appear — they always do — and reverence flips to contempt overnight. Either way, the person is never allowed to be human. And pedestals are useless to horses. A pedestal has never once made a horse feel safer, calmer, or less confused about what we are asking.
I believe we are living through the biggest shift in the human-horse relationship since machines took horses out of our fields and our wars. The question used to be: can the horse do it? The question becoming ours is: what does it cost the horse to do it? Did the horse understand, or did it simply stop resisting? Does the absence of conflict mean the horse feels safe?
One day, we will be the outdated ones. The next generation will see pressure we could not recognize and pain we rationalized. I hope so. If they never outgrow us, we failed to help them see farther.
Monty Roberts and Alexandra Kurland do not need us to decide which one was right. They need us to carry the torch. And the torch is not join up. The torch is not the clicker. The torch is the responsibility to keep listening.
Thank you, Monty. Thank you, Alexandra. This one is for the lineage — and for my mom, who put that book in my hands.
In This Episode:
Why join up is pressure and release in learning-theory terms — and why naming that honors Monty more than sainthood ever could
The question Alexandra Kurland made possible: how do I create a learning environment where the horse becomes an active participant
What the clicker teaches the human — poor timing, criteria that jump too fast, a missed try; the horse reports every one
Why food on its own creates neither agency nor consent, and what positive reinforcement still demands of the person holding it
Becky Moody at the top of dressage: trained with Carl Hester, embracing clicker work — evolution over allegiance
The pedestal inversion: how reverence flips to contempt when the flaws appear, and why both extremes abandon the horse
The three sentences responsible learning gets to say: this is what you made possible, this is where I believe you were wrong, this is what I will carry forward
Learn more about Monty Roberts: website | facebook | youtube
Learn more about Alexandra Kurland: website | facebook
Chapters 
0:00 — The book that started it
2:30 — What positive reinforcement changed first
6:00 — Two truths about Monty Roberts
8:40 — The biggest shift since mechanization
13:00 — Pedestals are useless to horses
15:20 — The torch and the next generation
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!

You measure with your hand while he stands there.
Then he takes a step, and the horse you measured is gone.
Saddle fit is horse care. I rode my whole life before anyone said that to me plainly.
I met Letitia Glenn, founder of Contour Saddlery™, at Road to the Horse. She had seen footage of me riding, and the first thing she thought—which she then said to my face, out loud—was that I did not know what I did not know about saddles. She was right. I brought her to Florida on the hottest day of that summer, rode in one of her saddles, and felt my mare Lady's scapula move with a freedom it never had on the whole road trip.
Letitia came to horses at 47, with a two-year-old Paso Fino stallion named Echo, and has spent the last quarter century asking one question: Why do so many saddles fit a standing horse, yet interfere with the horse once it begins to move?
She found part of the answer backpacking. Fifty-five pounds, eight miles, the Rocky Mountains. Picture the corner of a book pressed into your spine. You will contort away from it. Horses do the same. Pressure behind the scapula changes posture, alters movement through the entire body, and creates compensation patterns that no amount of riding can truly fix.
So we explore what she looks for: the upward head nod at the walk on a loose rein, the Four Bs, the belly tickle test, and the hollow behind the scapula that reveals chronic restriction. We also discuss why the interface (the space between the saddle and the moving back) matters just as much as the saddle itself, and how the Contour Saddlery™ Saddle System and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System were developed to help accommodate the horse's changing shape in motion by restoring shoulder freedom and improving pressure distribution.
We also get into the part of horse care that never appears on a bill of sale. Saddle fitters are often paid by the brand they recommend. Trainers sometimes receive commissions on the tack their students buy. An expensive saddle isn't proof of a better fit—it may simply reflect a larger marketing budget.
Lady gave me a scar on my stomach the first year I had her, reaching back for me while I tightened the cinch. I used to call that her temperament.
Now I wonder if she was trying to tell me something.
I wanted the horse world to hear this conversation because Lady had been telling me the same story for years—I just wasn't ready to listen.
Learn more about Letitia Glenn, Contour Saddlery™, and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System, and request a free saddle fit evaluation: website | instagram | youtube 
This episode is sponsored by Contour Saddlery™
At Contour Saddlery™, we believe saddle fit should be based on the horse in motion—not standing still.
Our complete Contour Saddlery™ Saddle System and the VersaFit™ Saddle Pad System work together to create a dynamic fitting solution that supports shoulder freedom, accommodates your horse's changing shape, and helps improve comfort, movement, and performance. Whether you're looking to optimize your current saddle or invest in a complete saddle system, our goal is simple: Every Horse. Every Saddle. Every Ride.™
Learn how to improve the fit and function of your saddle:



Experience the difference a truly horse-first saddle can make. Visit Naturalhorsemansaddles.com to learn more.
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!
Chapters:
0:00      "Saddles are torture devices"
2:13      She doesn't know what she doesn't know
6:41      Lady's shoulder, and what freedom felt like
10:07     The fourth component nobody talks about
12:23     The upward head nod at the walk
16:08     The four Bs: bone, bulge, behind the bulge
17:17     The belly tickle test
22:20     The hollow behind the scapula
26:09     A steward at the end of the arena
32:00     Lady's scar and the cinch
33:41     The Black Stallion, age 47, and Echo
39:04     Dr. Stephen Peters: 27 saddlings a day
43:31     The Therm-a-Rest pad and the living interface
46:15     Where the shim goes, English and Western
50:41     A birdhouse roof on a beach ball
56:47     The free saddle fit evaluation
1:02:40   A body that changes
1:08:20   Rapid fire

We say we want a willing horse.
Then we climb on, and we start cramming.
And when the horse gets tight, or slow, or stuck, we do the one thing that guarantees it gets worse — we add pressure.
This is Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Stephen Peters, and this time he brought a horse's brain. Cut in half, in his hands, on the table between us. He points to the cingulate. He points to the little kidney-bean pituitary. And he shows me, physically, the difference between a horse who can talk itself back down and a horse who has no way back.
That difference has a name. It's a chemical called GABA.
An empowered horse can produce it — can send the "stand down" signal before the cortisol ever floods the system. A horse in learned helplessness can't reach it. Same event, two completely different animals, and most of what separates them is what we wired in, and the state we wired it in.
We get into the cocktail — dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, oxytocin, serotonin — and why drilling the same exercise seven times flattens every one of them. Why release is not the same thing as relief, and only the horse gets to tell you which one it was. Why recovery, the part everyone skips, is where the learning actually locks in. And why an hour on the clock is a human invention your horse never agreed to.
Then it opens out — touch, exercise, diet, the five domains, allo-grooming, the prairie voles who fall apart in isolation and settle the second the herd rushes back in.
And we close on Charles Darwin. Not the line everyone quotes. The one almost nobody does — the one where he says it's the cooperative communities, the ones that bond and help each other, that represent the highest level of evolution.
Horses have the chemistry for that built in. Dr. Peters' whole argument is simple: let's use it.
Start with Part 1 if you haven't — this picks up right where we left off.
Dr. Stephen Peters is a neuroscientist who directed a clinic for brain health and memory, and co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship (with Martin Black). His most recent books are Horse Brain Science and A Horse's Life (with Mark Rashid and Chrissy McDonald), which pairs 19 real case studies with the neurological detective work behind each one.
You can find all the books by Dr. Stephen Peters here: https://www.horsebrainscience.info/books
 Horse Brain Science: The Neuroscience of Ethical Horsemanship
Horse Brain Science: A Foundation for Equine Neuroscience
The Book of Neuropoetry
Evidence Based Horsemanship
A Horse's Life: The Neuroscience of Equine Welfare
You can find out more about Dr. Stephen Peters on his website -  Horse Brain Science
And on Substack
Episode Sponsored by: Total Feeds
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at Total Feeds!
Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com
0:00   Why we get in the way of our own horses
2:00   A horse brain, cut in half: corpus callosum & the cingulate
5:00   The stress circuit — HPA axis, cortisol, and GABA
8:00   Empowered vs. helpless: who can reach the brake
9:06   Wiring confidence vs. wiring fear
11:15  Lady's three stations: rebuilding a horse's love of learning
13:40  The neurochemical cocktail — and why drilling drains it
16:00  Sending the horse away: oxytocin, prediction, and the payoff
18:00  Release is not relief
19:25  A word from Total Feeds
23:00  Recovery, hippocampal replay & why silence matters
27:38  Short sessions, switching horses & the neurodivergent brain
28:57  Spaced vs. massed learning; every nervous system is a snowflake
32:11  The petals on the flower: touch, exercise, diet & the five domains
40:45  Allo-grooming, oxytocin & the prairie voles
44:13  Darwin's Descent of Man: cooperation as the highest evolution
46:43  Dr. Peters' books, Substack & wrap
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!

Every rider has said it. He's being stubborn. She's testing me. He knows better.
Here's the harder, truer thing underneath: the horse isn't being anything. The horse is a nervous system, doing the one job every nervous system has — trying to stay safe.
Dr. Stephen Peters spends this conversation taking me under the behavior, into the brain that produced it. He's a neuropsychologist, co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship, and the person I call when I want to actually understand my horses instead of just managing them. This time we sat down as two diagnosed neurodivergent people talking about horse behavior from the inside — which is its own kind of honesty.
He explains why the horse that shoves past you off the trailer isn't defiant. It's running a pathway you built, three good grazes at a time. He calls it myelination, and once you hear how it works, you stop blaming the horse and start watching what you're teaching when you think you're not teaching anything.
We go into the thing so many of us get exactly backwards. You hit a wall, so you add pressure. More leg, more spur, more insistence. And Peters says it plainly: almost always the answer was to let the nervous system reset, not to push harder. Push harder and you don't get through the noise — you become the noise.
Then we get to the part I asked him to slow down on. Learned helplessness. The old experiment neither of us can listen to without flinching, and what it tells us about the quiet, compliant, "well-behaved" horse who has simply learned that nothing he does matters. That's not a trained horse. That's a horse who stopped voting.
And near the end, something bigger opens up. Peters describes the freeze — the shutdown that isn't a choice, the body flooding itself with its own opioids so it can survive what it can't escape. He says the thing I most needed someone with his credentials to say out loud: that response is the nervous system deciding, not the animal, and not the person it happens to. If you've ever been asked why you didn't fight back, this part is for you as much as your horse.
What you'll hear, underneath all of it, is a kinder and more accurate way to be with a horse. Not softer for its own sake — more correct. Work with the nervous system and you get performance and behavior far past anything pressure buys you. The willing partner everyone wants isn't obedient. He's involved.
Dr. Stephen Peters is a board-certified neuropsychologist and co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship with Martin Black. He studies the equine brain and nervous system and is launching a new podcast, The Skeptical Horseman, with Jillian Kreinbring, M.S., dedicated to separating good research from pseudoscience in the horse world.
This is Part 1 of our conversation. In Part 2, Steve puts a real horse brain on the table, cut in half, and shows me exactly what agency does to it.
If someone you ride with keeps calling their horse the problem — send them this one first.
You can find out more about Dr. Stephen Peters here: Horse Brain Science
Chapters:
0:00 — "They have good days and bad days": meeting the horse's nervous system where it is
0:26 — Who Dr. Stephen Peters is, and why brain-first is a different conversation
2:19 — Critical thinking, bias, and the "baloney sandwich" problem in horse science
4:50 — Two neurodivergent people on masking — and the horse equivalent
8:00 — The predictive brain: why "predictable = readable = safe"
9:42 — Myelination, oligodendrocytes, and paving the horse's highways
11:59 — The trailer example: habit vs. the labels we assign it (defiant, disrespectful)
15:24 — Clever Hans: the horse who was reading, not counting
17:11 — Nervous systems, sympathetic arousal, and why more pressure adds noise
21:03 — Down-regulation, pendulation, and training the nervous system itself
23:30 — [Sponsor: Total Equine by Total Feeds]
26:45 — Dopamine, "special forces" horses, and solution-seeking vs. robotic horses
32:41 — Learned helplessness: the Seligman experiment and what it does to the brain
37:27 — The five domains, agency, and why every creature needs its behavior to matter
38:55 — The freeze response, the periaqueductal gray, and the opioid flood
43:35 — When words fail the nervous system: compliance is not consent, or courage
46:53 — Dissociation, wearable tech, hyperscanning, and Peters' Substack work
50:37 — "We're stopping here": the cliffhanger into Part 2 and the real horse brain
This Episode is Sponsored by:
Total Feeds
Our mission to provide quality nutrition to people and animals puts us in contact with all manner of interesting folks. Whether you're interested in our animal feed, or the people involved in the animal industry: you'll find it at 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 
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe wherever you listen, leave us a review — it genuinely helps more people find these conversations — and please share this episode with someone who needs to hear it ..........thank you!!!