Five Minutes That Could Save You A Long Walk Home

Your horse has opinions. Find out what they are before you climb aboard.

We’ve all seen the rider who skips straight from the stable to the saddle — headphones in, routine on autopilot, confidence unshaken. Sometimes it goes fine. Sometimes it goes viral. The truth is, your horse has spent the last day or two forming very firm views about the world, and without a few minutes on the lunge line, you’re about to discover those views the hard way. Lunging before you ride isn’t a ritual for the overly cautious — it’s a five-minute conversation that tells you everything you need to know before you commit your weight to the saddle.

1. Safety First

A horse that has had a day or two off — or simply woke up on the wrong side of the stable — is going to tell you about it the moment you send them out on the line. Watch how they move. Are they flowing freely, or do they feel tight and coiled? A horse that’s “fresh” — bucking, scooting, or bolting on the lunge — is showing you exactly what was waiting for you in the saddle. Better it comes out on the ground, where you’re in control, than underneath you.

2. Building Connection Before You Climb Aboard

Lunging isn’t just exercise; it’s a conversation. Working your horse through walk, trot, and canter on the lunge gives you the opportunity to capture their attention and establish your communication channel before you’ve put a foot in the stirrup. What you’re looking for is a horse whose inside ear and eye are on you — one that’s responding to your cues and settling into a relaxed, rhythmic way of going. When you achieve that, you’re not just getting on a horse; you’re continuing a dialogue that’s already well underway.

3. A Moving Assessment

The lunge line gives you a front-row view of your horse’s soundness and condition. Any unevenness, stiffness, or reluctance to move forward will show up clearly, often before it would be apparent under saddle. If something looks off, that’s your cue to investigate further — and to reach for the spare set of keys rather than push on regardless.

4. Getting the Equipment Right

There’s another practical reason to lunge when you first put the saddle on: many horses have a habit of “blowing themselves up” — deliberately expanding their chest to keep the girth loose. A few minutes of active movement tends to solve that problem naturally. Walk the horse out on the lunge, let them settle and breathe, and then revisit the girth before you mount. It’s a simple habit that takes thirty seconds and could save you from an unscheduled dismount mid-ride.

What to Look For: A Simple Starting Framework

Before you even ask for trot or canter, the walk will tell you almost everything you need to know. I start by asking the horse for a single complete circle in one direction — nothing more. At the end of that circle, I ask for a stop: I relax my body, raise my hand, and say whoa clearly and calmly. These are deliberately close to the signals I’ll use in the saddle, so the horse is already learning the language we’ll be speaking together.

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If they ignore the stop — or break gait mid-circle without permission — I don’t fight it. I simply keep them moving, often at a faster pace, until they start searching for a reason to slow down. That might mean trotting or cantering ten circles before I ask again. I’ll repeat the process as many times as it takes, because what I’m waiting for is the moment they soften, tune in, and actually listen for the whoa. When that moment comes, it’s unmistakeable — and it tells me the horse is ready to have a conversation.

Once we have clarity at the walk in both directions, I’ll ask for a single circle at trot and then canter, holding the same standard throughout. One circle, responsive transitions, a clean stop. That’s the bar.

Throughout all of this, I use a lunging whip not as a threat, but as a precision tool — a way of applying the minimum amount of pressure needed to communicate clearly. Used well, it allows for a level of nuance that simply isn’t possible otherwise, and by the time I put my foot in the stirrup, the horse and I have already established a working understanding. The ride, almost always, reflects that.

Showing Up Daily: The Power of Consistency

Here's the question. That thing that separates those who achieve extraordinary things from those who dwell in mediocrity:

Do you show up even when you don't feel like it?

It sounds simple. But in practice, it's one of the hardest things a person can commit to. Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition, a company valued at over a billion dollars, has spoken extensively about this exact idea. His perspective is worth paying close attention to, because he didn't come from a place of natural talent or motivation. By his own admission, he was lazy, unmotivated, and showed no early signs of promise.

Discipline Is a Muscle, Not a Gift

One of Bilyeu's most important insights is that discipline is not something you either have or don't have. It's something you build through deliberate, repeated effort, day after day.

He's been open about the fact that the gym isn't just about physical fitness for him. It's a training ground for his discipline.

By showing up and doing the work on something that doesn't necessarily come naturally or feel pleasurable, he builds the mental fortitude he needs in every other area of his life. The gym has become a proving ground for him, a place where he gains what he calls "credibility with himself."

Think about this idea. Credibility with yourself. Every time you show up when you said you would. Every time you do the hard thing instead of taking the easy route, you are quietly building a track record with the most important audience you'll ever have: you. And that internal credibility compounds over time.

The Growth Mindset Foundation

Consistent training only becomes possible once you shift your beliefs about what you're capable of. A fixed mindset tells you that your abilities are set in stone, you're either talented or you're not, athletic or you're not, disciplined or you're not. But a growth mindset flips this entirely. It says that talent and intelligence are malleable. Through practice, discipline, and sustained effort, you can shape yourself into almost anything you choose to become.

This isn't just motivational language. It's a framework that changes how you respond to setbacks. When you miss a training session, a fixed mindset says I'm not the kind of person who can stick to this. A growth mindset says That was a miss — what do I need to do differently tomorrow? One ends the journey; the other continues it.

Identity-Based Habits: Becoming the Person Who Shows Up

Perhaps the most powerful idea Bilyeu champions is that sustainable consistency needs to be rooted in your identity, not in goals.

Goals are outcomes. Identity is who you are. And the difference matters enormously when motivation fades (and it always does). If your consistency depends on how excited you feel about the destination, you'll stop moving the moment that excitement dies down. But if you've built your self-concept around being the kind of person who follows through, showing up stops being a decision you make every day, it becomes an expression of your inner being.

This is why Bilyeu talks about how rebuilding his identity was the first real step toward his success. He stopped trying to motivate himself with goals and started defining himself by his behaviours. Not "I want to get fit" but "I am someone who trains every day." Not "I want to build a successful company" but "I am someone who does what needs to be done, whether I feel like it or not."

What Daily Showing Up Actually Creates

When you commit to consistent training, whether in the gym, in the arena, in your relationships, or in your personal development, something profound begins to happen beneath the surface. You are not just accumulating reps or sessions. You are building:

Momentum. The small actions compound. The person who trains every day for a year doesn't just get stronger or better; they become someone for whom training is simply part of life. The friction disappears.

Resilience. Every time you push through reluctance, you expand your capacity for discomfort. Bilyeu speaks about how being successful requires doing things you don't want to do, working on a Saturday when friends are out, grinding when rest is more appealing. Daily training is practice for all of it.

Self-trust. When you do what you said you'd do, you stop needing external validation to feel capable. Your confidence doesn't depend on results, it's built into the process itself.

Clarity. Consistent practice sharpens your instincts. You start to see what works and what doesn't. You stop overthinking and start trusting your body, your judgment, your process.

The Most Important Shift: Fall in Love with the Process

Bilyeu says that most people aren't excited enough about their future to push themselves when it counts. But there's a deeper truth beneath that idea, the most consistent performers aren't just excited about where they're going, they've learnt to find meaning in the act of showing up itself.

When the process becomes the reward, consistency becomes inevitable. You stop asking Will this session make a difference? and start trusting that it will, because you've seen it before, felt it before, and you know that the compound interest of daily effort is real.

Start Today

You don't need to be talented. You don't need to be naturally motivated. You don't need perfect conditions or a perfect plan. Tom Bilyeu didn't have any of those things when he started, nor do most people who eventually achieved something worth achieving.

What you need is simpler and harder than all of that: you need to show up today. Every day! Not because you feel like it. Not because results are guaranteed. But because the person you want to become is built one consistent day at a time.

With enough self-discipline, almost anything is possible. You just have to be consistent and see things through. Reflecting on 30 years of practicing public speaking, Bilyeu wrote on Facebook on January 13, 2020: “You can’t turn a pig into a racehorse, but you can make a very fast pig… I may not be a racehorse, but man, let me tell you, if I’m not, I’m one really f***ing fast pig.” 

Inspired by the work and philosophy of Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition and founder of Impact Theory.

Mastering Float Loading: Turning the Torture Chamber into a Cruise Liner

Float loading is one of those skills that can bring even the most experienced horse owner to their knees. Unlike many aspects of horsemanship, it isn't something that comes naturally; it is learned, practised, and built on a foundation of patience and preparation. 

In my book, The Horseman’s Way, I talked about how we as owners tend to see our horse floats as luxury cruise liners; convenient, practical, comfortable enough. Our horses, on the other hand, often see them as gloomy torture chambers. Bridging that gap is the real work of float training, and the most common mistake people make is leaving that work until the morning they need to be somewhere. The moment a deadline enters the picture, tension enters your body — and horses are masters at reading exactly that. Before you've even picked up the lead rope, your horse already knows something is off.

So where do you begin?

Start with safety. Before anything else, walk through your float with fresh eyes and ask yourself: is the floor solid underfoot? Are the walls secure? Most importantly, is there anything protruding that could catch a halter if your horse pulls back, or cause injury if he spooks and runs into it? A horse that has been hurt in a float carries that memory for a long time. Safety isn't a box to tick — it's the foundation everything else is built on.

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Think about what your horse can see. Visibility matters enormously. If the sides are closed up and the space feels dark and enclosed, it reads as a trap. Open the door, let the light in, and create the most inviting version of that space you can before you ask your horse to step anywhere near it.

Use food as your ally. Have good quality hay waiting inside the float. When your horse steps forward and begins to eat, something important happens — the act of chewing releases endorphins, those feel-good hormones that naturally lower stress and build positive associations. You are literally rewarding relaxation with biology.

Set clear, consistent boundaries. Your horse should move forward at your lightest ask, not barge past you or use his size to dictate the pace. Soft, clear leadership builds confidence — in both of you. Don't allow him to walk over you, but equally, don't make every moment a battle of wills.

Pick the fights you can win. This is perhaps the most important lesson of all. If your horse loses confidence and wants to back out of the float, let her. Don't block it, don't fight it. Instead, treat it as another opportunity to practise going on. Every successful step forward — however small — is a deposit in the bank. Over time, those deposits add up into a horse that loads willingly, calmly, and with confidence.

Float training isn't an event. It's a conversation you have with your horse long before you ever need to go anywhere. Start that conversation early, keep it low-pressure, and you might be surprised how quickly the torture chamber starts to look a little more like a cruise liner.