Episode 1 begins in Alberta, where Nolle Floyd arrives with Lady and Galano for the first stop of a 25,000-mile journey. The scenery is big. The questions are personal: How do you meet a horse as a partner, especially when your nerves and expectations have come along for the ride?If you havent watched yet, start with Episode 1 on YouTube. Its a great introduction to Joshs approach, and a glimpse of the questions Nolle will carry with her across North America. If you have watched, keep the Alberta chapter going with the podcast conversation and Joshs lessons on NF+.Who is Josh Nichol?Josh Nichol is an internationally recognized horseman and trainer based in Alberta. His work in relational horsemanship explores how horses communicate through behavior, movement, and space, and how understanding their needs can support both connection and confident work.Josh trains horses, works cattle, teaches clinics, and competes on the Canadian rodeo circuit. His approach reaches across disciplines, helping riders consider how they and their horses can meet challenges together.Listen to the conversation from AlbertaListen to the podcast recorded during filming. Nolle and Josh discuss how a horses needs, past experiences, and body language can affect the way they respond.Josh explains how the label we give a behavior can influence our response. A horse entering a persons space, for example, may be labeled pushy or disrespectful. Josh asks riders to consider what the horse may be communicating before deciding how to respond. This approach helps riders account for the horses perspective while still maintaining boundaries.They also discuss Joshs green, yellow, red, and gold framework. Green describes a regulated state; yellow is a moment of challenge; red is overwhelm; gold is the ability to meet a challenge while staying connected and able to think. For riders, this framework can help distinguish a manageable challenge from a moment that calls for a reset.The conversation also covers how past experiences may be reflected in a horses body through tension. Josh connects this to the way he reads behavior and movement, adding context to the work Nolle and Lady do in Alberta.Find the Josh Nichol Lessons That Fit Your HorseJoin NF+ to watch the Josh Nichol collection on NF+, whichlets you explore his work through several courses and formats. If Episode 1 has you thinking about what a horse may be communicating, these are good places to continue.Understanding Your Horses Needs explores the emotional side of the relationship and pairs those ideas with practical sessions. You can watch Josh work with horses on the lead, in the round pen, and under saddle. The lessons look at how a horses needs affect the work, and how a rider can respond with communication and support.Understanding Your Horses Body focuses on body mapping, balance, space, and movement. Josh works through areas such as the shoulders and hips, helping riders pay closer attention to how a horse carries and uses their body. This course is especially relevant if youre trying to connect what you feel in the saddle with what you observe from the ground.Josh Nichols Horsemanship Case Studies follows horses through complex challenges, including rearing, biting, and fear of saddling. The clinic footage lets you follow Joshs process across multiple days as he observes each horse and adjusts the work. Its a useful way to study how relational horsemanship applies when the issue is serious and the history is part of the picture. The collection also includes case studies on aggression, confidence, self-carriage, and pressure.For an audio introduction, Why Does Your Horse Struggle? covers the relationship between horse and human needs, relational and predatory pressure, the mind-body connection, and how to understand the horses mind. Josh also answers rider questions through Review My Ride and Office Hours, with topics ranging from mounting challenges to connection under pressure. Start with the subject closest to your own questions, then explore the other parts of Joshs collection as your learning leads you there.An NF+ membership gives you access to Joshs courses and case studies, along with the rest of the NF+ library. Join NF+ to start watching.Bring the Lessons from UNBRIDLED to Your BarnThe Alberta episode offers more than a new place on the map. It introduces a way of learning that Nolle carries with her: seek out people with knowledge, stay open to what the horse is showing you, and let the relationship remain part of the work.Thats the thread connecting the episode, the podcast, and Joshs NF+ library. Watch Nolle begin the journey, listen to her conversation with Josh, then spend more time with his teaching. You can follow along from your home, at your own pace, with your own horse as the questions come up.Watch Episode 1 on YouTube, then keep learning with Josh Nichol on NF+. Explore the official UNBRIDLED page for more about the series.

One woman. Two horses. A road across North America.My trainer once told me I ask too many questions. It wasnt said once. It became my story.That story travels with Nolle Floyd as she sets out with Lady and Galano on a 25,000-mile journey across North America. From Alberta to Idaho, she follows a trail of mentors, new skills, unexpected challenges, and questions about what it takes to meet a horse as a partner. The series moves through Alberta, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Wyoming, and Idaho, with the landscape changing at every stop and the lessons gathering along the way.The viewing journey is part of the story: watch Episodes 1 and 2 free on YouTube, then continue with Episodes 36 on NF+.Begin on YouTubeIn Albertas open country, Nolle and her horses arrive at their first stop: horseman Josh Nichols. With Lady, the work asks Nolle to pay attention to what her horse is telling her, stay in the conversation, and reconsider the instincts she brings to the ground and saddle. Watch for free below:Then the road carries them to Colorado. At Mark Rashids clinic, ideas from aikido meet horsemanship as Nolle explores contact and connection with her horses. Conversations with animal communicator Delaya Diana and therapist and horseman Duey Freeman take the inquiry further, toward the ways horses respond to the people beside them. Watch for free below:Continue the journey on NF+Episodes 1 and 2 are free on YouTube. To watch the rest of the season, you can either purchase UNBRIDLED Season 1 on its own or subscribe to NF+, which includes the complete series and the NF+ library.In Florida, Nolle and Lady work on liberty training with Tik Maynard while an equine health team investigates a concern about Galano. In Texas, Nolle visits the Fort Worth Stockyards, learns from cutting legend Lindy Burch, and takes Galano to a ranch sorting competition. The Wyoming episodes take Lady and Galano into the Wind River Range for a pack trip, where a steep trail leads to a nerve-racking moment. The season concludes in Idaho, where horseman Martin Black works with Nolle and Lady, and a new chapter begins for Nolle and her partner.Purchase the series on NF+Each stop brings its own scenery, teachers, and tests. Along the way, Nolle keeps learning with her horses, sharing the awkward moments as well as the breakthroughs.To see the whole story unfold, start with Episode 1 on YouTube, then follow Nolle, Lady, and Galano all the way to Idaho exclusively on NF+. By the end, you may see your own horses questions in a new way.

Watching a great trainer explain something is useful.Watching the video, opening a workbook, figuring out where you are in the equation, and then taking an exercise to the barn? That is where things get very interesting.Many NF+ Masterclasses include detailed workbooks designed to be used alongside the video lessons. And we are not talking about three pages of write your thoughts here.Some of these are full training programs.There are readiness assessments, self-scoring exercises, ride plans, goal-setting worksheets, training journals, mental-performance exercises, troubleshooting guides and arena exercises you can print out and take straight to the barn.Basically, there may be a small stack of very good riding homework hiding inside your NF+ membership.Here are 10 we think are worth opening.1. Karl Cook: Strategic RidingUse this when: You have a goal, but you are not completely sure what needs to happen between here and there.Karl Cooks Strategic Riding workbook starts by asking you to examine the things you do with your horse because someone once told you that was how things were done. You identify traditions in your training, management, grooming or mental game where you may know the what without really understanding the why. Then you go find the answer and decide if that habit still belongs in your program.Then comes one of our favorite exercises: the prerequisite pyramid.You put your goal at the top and work backwards through everything you and your horse need to be able to do first. The workbook then asks you to identify the missing skills at the base of the pyramid, because that is where your training needs to start.Want to move up a level? Jump a bigger track? Improve your horses adjustability? Before you start attacking the end goal, Karl makes you figure out what it is sitting on top of.Slightly less glamorous than announcing your big goal.Potentially much more useful.2. Steffen Peters: Building Better Flying ChangesUse this when: You are working on flying changes, or you enjoy finding out that the thing you thought was a flying-change problem is really a canter problem.The workbook accompanying Steffen Peters Building Better Flying Changes Masterclass is essentially a diagnostic system for the flying change.Instead of giving you one exercise and sending you off to swap leads until everybody is annoyed, it starts with the quality of the canter. Steffens framework asks riders to look at self-carriage, balance, collection, straightness and lightness before worrying about the change itself.There is even a readiness audit covering walk-canter, canter-walk, forward-and-back work, response to the outside leg, travers, walk pirouettes, baby half-pass, straightening aids, self-carriage and the horses mental state. The point is to identify the piece that needs more work before repeatedly asking for the end result.That makes this workbook useful even before you have a horse doing flying changes.It teaches you how a top dressage rider works backwards from an advanced skill and asks, Does the foundation underneath this support what I am asking for?Very inconvenient when you wanted the answer to be buy a better flying-change button.3. Anne Kursinski: How to Bring Out the Best in Your HorseUse this when: You want to develop more feel instead of collecting more instructions.Anne Kursinskis workbook is one we would spend real time with because the course moves from understanding how horses think into partnership, connection, transitions, feel, jumping and putting all of those pieces together.This one is meant to be worked through over several weeks, with the workbook acting as a study guide while you take the exercises into your regular riding routine.One of the exercises asks riders to dedicate rides specifically to transitions and lateral work rather than treating flatwork as the bit you do before the fun stuff. The bigger goal is learning to notice the horses response to your aids and developing the elusive thing horse people call feel.That is hard to teach from a checklist.But you can train yourself to pay closer attention.Annes workbook gives you somewhere to start.4. Missy Clark: Recognizing and Riding the Distance to Every JumpUse this when: You would like to stop approaching every jump thinking, Please be there, please be there, please be there.Missy Clarks distance Masterclass is already extremely practical. The workbook makes it even more so.The program breaks seeing and riding distances into trainable skills: developing your eye, rider position, creating an adjustable canter, reactions and timing, line and track, and riding the short distance. Rather than treating a good eye like magical genetic material bestowed upon a lucky few, the course is designed around deliberate practice over several weeks.The workbook also gets you to assess where the problem is.Is it visually judging the distance? Your position? Adjustability? Timing? Track? The short distance?That distinction is pretty important.Because Im bad at distances gives you approximately zero useful information about what to practice tomorrow.Missys workbook turns one giant frustrating problem into skills you can work on one at a time.5. Ian and Amy Millar: The Millar Method Training SystemUse this when: Your rides could use a little more system and a little less lets see what happens today.The Millar Method resources are some of the newest additions to the NF+ toolbox, and they are designed to help you apply Ian and Amy Millars training system to your own horse.The system moves in stages, beginning with assessment and then working through flatwork, gridwork and coursework. The goal is a horse who can carry themselves, respond to the rider and maintain those qualities from schooling at home into competition.There is a companion exercise workbook too, which is where this gets especially fun.Exercises include cavaletti work that asks you to change the number of strides while preserving the horses rhythm and balance, grid exercises for rideability, and coursework used as a test of the training you have already done. The overall philosophy is wonderfully useful: each stage gives you information about what needs attention next.So instead of finishing a course and thinking, Well, that was kind of a mess, you learn to identify why.Lost balance through the turns? Back to the relevant flatwork.Horse got quick? Look at the canter.Straightness disappeared? There is information there.Your course becomes feedback rather than a personality test.Much healthier.6. Tik Maynard: Training the Anxious or Spooky HorseUse this when: Your horse has opinions about tarps, corners, shadows, cows, banners, flowers, leaves, invisible ghosts or life generally.Tik MaynardsTraining the Anxious or Spooky Horse workbook is particularly good because it forces you to get more specific about the behavior you are seeing.The workbook walks through identifying spookiness and anxiety, reading the horse, stress, relationship, groundwork, attention, pressure and release, managing spookiness and setting realistic goals. One exercise asks you to choose something that worries your horse, write down exactly what happens, then work through a problem-solving process: identify the issue, understand why it may be happening, examine the communication and decide how you can approach it.There is also an exercise around anthropomorphism, which challenges riders to replace stories about what a horse supposedly thinks with descriptions of the behavior they can actually observe.My horse is being dramatic becomes something useful like, My horse raises his head, speeds up and loses focus when we ride past that corner.Now you have something you can work with.Tiks broader approach combines groundwork, ridden training and equine behavior, which makes this workbook useful well beyond the particularly spooky horse.7. Mette Larsen: Dressage for All DisciplinesUse this when: You are not a dressage rider and have therefore decided dressage fundamentals could not possibly apply to you.We have some news.Mette Larsens Dressage for All Disciplines workbook is written for jumpers, hunters, eventers, equitation riders and dressage riders. The course uses dressage fundamentals to improve elasticity, balance, coordination, effectiveness of the aids and the horses ability to do whatever your particular sport asks of them.One of the early workbook exercises asks you to assess your horses strengths, identify the areas you would like to improve and then consider which of those areas could be influenced through dressage work. Another turns the focus onto communication, asking where the horse and rider are misunderstanding one another.That makes this a great workbook for the rider who says, I know our flatwork needs work, but has no idea where to begin.You do not have to develop a sudden passion for 20-meter circles.Although we cannot rule it out.8. Dr. Jenny Susser: Performing Under PressureUse this when: You ride beautifully at home and then your brain arrives at the horse show with its own agenda.Dr. Jenny Sussers Performing Under Pressure workbook treats mental performance like something you can train rather than something you either have or do not have.The course starts by helping riders understand their individual response to pressure. It then moves into tools for managing that response and performing more effectively when the stakes feel higher.The workbook is about creating true change. You identify internal and external sources of pressure, examine how they show up physically, choose coping tools, create process and outcome goals and practice mental rehearsal.There is also an exercise around recreating pieces of a high-pressure environment at home so the first time you encounter them is not when somebody rings a bell and starts judging you.Which feels obvious once someone says it.And yet.This is the kind of workbook worth doing before show season, not while sitting in the truck after a round wondering why you temporarily forgot everything you know.9. Tonya Johnston: How to Be a Consistent RiderUse this when: Tuesday-you and Saturday-you appear to be two completely unrelated equestrians.Tonya Johnstons How to Be a Consistent Rider workbook tackles one of ridings most annoying mysteries: why you can have an excellent ride one day and feel like you have misplaced all your skills the next.The course works through identifying your strengths, focusing on factors within your control, setting performance goals, breathing, visualization, personalized pre-ride routines, recovering after difficult rides and resetting between rides.One of the best sections helps you create your own pre-ride routine.Not a rigid lucky-socks situation.A repeatable group of physical and mental habits that help you arrive at the mounting block prepared to ride. That might include breathing, visualization, movement, nutrition, course preparation, music, grooming or another routine that helps you get into the state you want before getting on.The broader point of the workbook is that consistency starts before your foot goes in the stirrup.Which is mildly annoying information for those of us hoping our horse could take full responsibility.10. Boyd Martin: Building Bravery Through PreparationUse this when: You want to feel braver, but just be confident has proven to be spectacularly unhelpful advice.Boyd Martins Building Bravery Through Preparation workbook starts with a very useful premise: bravery comes from trusting your preparation.The course is designed as part of a progressive series, with each section adding skills to the riders toolkit instead of treating bravery as something you summon at the exact moment things get scary. The workbook asks you to examine your current routines and prepare for challenging situations at home. Boyds warm-up work, for example, uses familiar exercises, stride adjustment, flatwork and repetition so that the environment may change later, but the rider and horse already understand the job.That changes the conversation from How can I make myself feel brave? to What can I practice now so this feels more familiar later?Much better question.The secret is not downloading the workbook. It is using it.We know how this goes.You download a beautiful workbook.You think, I should print that.It enters the mysterious digital afterlife known as your Downloads folder.Fin.So pick one.Not ten. One.Choose the Masterclass that lines up with the horse or riding question you are working through right now. Watch the lesson, open the workbook and do the exercise. Take the relevant page to the barn. Come back afterwards and write down what happened.Many of these workbooks were specifically created to be used over several weeks rather than consumed in one sitting. Missys course, for example, recommends systematic work and repetition, while Annes workbook encourages riders to integrate the exercises into their regular riding over four to eight weeks.That is where these resources become much more than course notes.They give you a way to turn an idea from an Olympic rider, top trainer or sports psychologist into something you can test, practice, revisit and use with your own horse.And yes, there are more.These ten are only a starting point.There are also workbooks for Archie Coxs How to Win, Tik Maynards Training the Young Horse, Dr. Jenny Sussers Gaining Control of Fear and Anxiety and more across the NF+ Masterclass library. Archies workbook alone moves through flat performance, jumping, ring confidence, rider body type, strategy and mindset, while Tiks young-horse workbook includes exercises around prerequisites, voice cues, groundwork, transitions, lateral work and introducing jumping.So the next time you open NF+, do not only hit play.Check the resources attached to the course too.There may be an entire training plan sitting underneath the video you were about to watch.And with NF+ Member for Life, those are resources you can keep returning to as your horse, riding and goals evolve. The workbook you need right now might be about distances. The one you need a year from now might be about flying changes, confidence, young horses or riding under pressure.One payment. No renewals. A lot of very good horse homework.

Competing has a funny way of exposing absolutely everything.The position problem you can mostly get away with at home? Suddenly very obvious.The horse who gets a little strong when you are nervous? Hello, warm-up ring.The tiny voice in your head that says, Please don't mess this up approximately three strides before the important part? Incredible timing, as always.Getting better at competition is not only about jumping more courses, riding more tests or adding another lesson to your week. Performance is the combination of dozens of pieces: your position, decision-making, mental game, physical fitness, preparation and horse care.That is where NF+ can become a pretty serious tool for competitors.Instead of only using the library to learn riding exercises, use it to create a better system around your sport.Here is where we would start.1. Start with the thing affecting every single stride: youBefore adding another exercise to your training plan, spend some time in Master Your Position.Your position is not only about looking pretty in the saddle. It affects balance, communication, timing and how easily your horse can do their job underneath you.Karl Cooks Fundamentals of Functional Position is a great place to begin because he approaches position from exactly that perspective. The goal is not to create a rider who photographs beautifully at one frozen moment. It is to create a position that works, giving you stability and allowing you to communicate with your horse without getting in their way.This is also a good place to get curious about the habits you have stopped noticing. Are you tipping ahead? Depending on your hands? Losing your lower leg when the pressure goes up? Working much harder than the person underneath you needs to?Competition has a habit of magnifying whatever is already there.So work on it before you pay an entry fee to discover it.2. Stop just riding the course. Learn how to compete.There is riding, and then there is competing.The Ride to Win collection is where you start studying the second part.Karl Cooks How to Ride Strategically is essentially an invitation to stop riding on autopilot. His work focuses on planning, making decisions and adapting as the ride unfolds. That is a very useful skill when the course you walked and the horse you have underneath you suddenly appear to have made separate plans.For hunter riders, Archie Cox gets incredibly specific about what separates a decent trip from a competitive one. How to Win and The Art of Perfecting the Hunter Ride get into the canter, flatwork, ring strategy, preparation and presentation that judges notice. You are not just practicing eight jumps. You are learning how to produce an entire round.If distances are where things start unraveling, go to Missy Clarks Recognizing & Riding the Distance. If confidence is the issue, Boyd Martins bravery series looks at competence, preparation and developing a horse who can still think when the questions get harder.Use this collection when you want to start thinking less like someone trying to survive the round and more like someone who knows how to ride one.3. Study the skills that make competition easier before you ever enter the ringThe glamorous part of competing is approximately twelve minutes long.The preparation takes months.NF+ gives you the chance to work backwards from what you want to happen in competition and strengthen the pieces that make it possible.For a jumper rider, that might mean spending time on Martin Fucsh work on adjustability so you can compress and lengthen the stride without the conversation turning into an argument. HisRiding the Turn Masterclass uses his winning techniques for mastering turns that are not only tighter and faster but also more balanced and horse-friendly.It might mean going into Will Colemans The Truth Behind Riding Leg to Hand and getting much more precise about a phrase most of us have heard approximately four thousand times without anyone fully explaining what it is supposed to feel like.Or maybe you need Ian and Amy Millar, Anne Kursinski, Peter Wylde, Steffen Peters or another trainer whose approach gives you a new way to look at the problem you are having.That is one of the big advantages of NF+ for competitors. You can have your regular trainer and program, then use the library to widen your education around it.Because your trainer does not need you showing up next Tuesday with a completely new personality and seven contradictory training systems.They will probably appreciate you becoming a more educated rider, though.4. Learn how to take care of the athlete underneath youIf you compete, your horse is an athlete.Which means performance does not begin when you get on and end when you get off.Spend time inside Caring for Your Horse, Inside & Out learning the management side of sport too.Max Corcorans Horse Care for All Seasons draws on decades of caring for elite event horses and gets into the practical details that change as workload, weather and environment change. Her Leg Protection 101 course breaks down boots, polos, standing wraps and when different types of protection make sense.Then keep going.Margo Thomas teaches post-ride leg care. Dr. Jill Copenhagen looks at how riding and management relate to long-term soundness. Dr. Bess Darrow gets into the horses mouth and bitting. Mette Larsen takes another look at bit mechanics. There is even Emma Ford teaching mane braiding because, yes, at some point somebody has to make those braids look respectable.Performance horse care is full of things that are easy to hand off to someone else until suddenly you are the one standing in a stall at 9 p.m. wondering if that leg looks different.Knowing more is useful.And even if you have an incredible groom, barn manager, veterinarian and farrier around you, understanding the horse you are asking to perform is part of being a better competitor.5. Train the athlete sitting on top tooWe ask horses to be strong, balanced, supple, coordinated and fit.Then sometimes we climb aboard after sitting at a desk for eight hours and expect them to work around our left hip.A little unfair.Inside Ride Well, Live Well, you can work specifically on the physical side of being a rider.Yoga for Equestrians with Chantal Russell focuses on mobility, strength and recovery for riders, while Cross Training for Equestrians with Ifa Simmonds targets the muscles that directly affect your effectiveness in the saddle.Use these sessions around your riding schedule rather than treating rider fitness as another giant project you have to take on.Ten or twenty minutes spent working on your mobility, core, stability or strength can support everything you are already trying to improve on the horse.Your horse has a fitness program.You can have one too.6. Train for the version of you who shows up at competitionsThen there is the brain.Possibly the most dramatic member of the team.You can ride beautifully at home all month and still walk into a competition feeling like you have temporarily forgotten how horses work.That is why sports psychology belongs in a performance plan just as much as flatwork does.Dr. Jenny Sussers work is a particularly good place to spend time. In Performing Under Pressure, she helps riders identify their own relationship with pressure and develop tools for competition nerves, riding in front of other people and those moments when the stakes suddenly feel much bigger. Her How to Control Fear and Anxiety course goes further into the science behind fear, breathing, mindfulness and what to do when your brain decides now would be an excellent time to imagine every possible disaster.There is also Karl Cooks Dealing with Disappointing Rides, because unfortunately competitive riding includes those too.Watch that one before you need it.Tonya Johnstons work on becoming a more consistent rider and NF+s rider mindset content can help you create routines around focus and performance instead of hoping you wake up on show morning mysteriously feeling like an Olympic champion.Mental skills are skills.Train them.7. Build your pre-show NF+ routineThis is where we would make NF+ work very practically for you.A few weeks before a show, identify what needs attention.Maybe your position has started falling apart when the jumps go up. Head into Master Your Position.Maybe the horse feels great but you are second-guessing every decision. Spend time with Dr. Jenny or Annette Paterakis' mindset work.Maybe distances have been inconsistent. Revisit Missy Clark.Maybe your horse needs to feel more adjustable before you start thinking about shaving seconds off a jump-off. Go back to Karl.Maybe your horse has a demanding competition schedule ahead. Spend an evening inside the horse-care collection reviewing recovery, legs, soundness and management.NF+ does not have to become another thing on your training to-do list.Use it to support the thing you are already trying to improve.8. After the show, resist the urge to declare the entire weekend a success or disasterCompetitive riders are extremely normal about results.Obviously.After a show, use NF+ to help you debrief more usefully.If the round went well, figure out why.If it did not, resist turning one bad ride into a referendum on your entire riding career.Was the issue technical? Tactical? Mental? Fitness-related? Horse care? Preparation? Did you lose your position? Did you stop riding strategically? Did your horse need another kind of preparation?Then choose the part of the library that can help you work on it.That gives you something much more useful than replaying the video seventeen times and zooming in on fence six.Although you are still allowed to do that.9. Go Behind the Barn DoorsNot every lesson needs to look like a lesson.The Behind the Barn Doors collection gives you something competitors rarely get: access to what high-level sport looks like when nobody is riding into the ring.Watch A Day in the Life with Piggy March. Tour Maydwell Lodge Farm and see the systems surrounding a world-class eventing operation, from arenas and gallops to turnout and rehabilitation. Follow Mavis Spencer through a day at the Winter Equestrian Festival. Peek inside Peder Fredricsons tack room.Then there are NF+s exclusive and extended behind-the-scenes cuts from Faultless, giving members another look inside elite sport beyond the polished rounds we normally see.Watch these when you need inspiration, but also watch them with your competitor brain switched on.What does the barn look like?How are the horses managed?How are riders spending the hours when they are not competing?What systems are surrounding the performance you eventually see in the ring?Sometimes the most useful thing you can learn from a top rider is not how they rode the combination.It is everything that happened before they got there.10. Learn across disciplinesThis is one of the easiest NF+ advantages for competitors to underestimate.Do not only watch riders from your own discipline.Hunter rider? Go listen to Karl Cook.Jumper? See how Steffen Peters thinks about responsiveness and the aids.Dressage rider? Watch an eventer prepare a horse for pressure.Eventer? There is plenty to steal from the precision of hunter and equitation trainers.You are not trying to become a dressage-jumper-hunter-eventer hybrid creature who owns fourteen saddles.You are looking for principles.Balance. Timing. Preparation. Feel. Decision-making. Fitness. Horse management. Mental performance.High-level sport may look very different from ring to ring, but excellent riders spend a lot of time thinking about the same things.NF+ lets you eavesdrop on all of them.Use NF+ as part of your competitive seasonThe real opportunity is not watching one Masterclass and expecting your next show to magically produce a blue ribbon.Use NF+ over time.Spend your off-season working on your position and rider fitness. Go deeper into training courses while you are developing your horse at home. As competition gets closer, revisit strategy and sports psychology. During the season, lean on horse care, mindset and specific technical lessons. After shows, come back with the questions your rounds gave you.Then repeat.Because improving as a competitor is not one course, one trainer or one breakthrough.It is years of collecting better information, noticing more and getting a little smarter about how you prepare.That is also why Member for Life makes so much sense for competitive riders.You do not need every part of NF+ today.You might need rider position right now, sports psychology before your next show, horse-care content halfway through the season and a completely different Masterclass when your goals move up a level.Member for Life gives you one payment, no renewals and access to the NF+ library available when you join, so you can keep coming back as your competitive career changes.Because your show schedule may have an end date.Your education really shouldnt.

Theres been a lot happening inside NF+ this year.Four major new Masterclasses have joined the library, Tik Maynards training collection has gotten even bigger, exclusive footage from FAULTLESS is now streaming, and The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast has had some seriously good conversations lately.Basically, if you havent poked around NF+ in a while, you have some catching up to do.Heres where wed start.Will Coleman: Developing a More Balanced, Adjustable HorseRide your horse from leg to hand.Cool. But what does that really mean when youre sitting in the saddle and your horse is either running through you, behind you, or somehow doing both at once?Olympic eventer Will Colemans new NF+ Masterclass gets into exactly that.Will breaks down how he develops horses that are balanced, responsive and adjustable, with a big focus on helping riders understand the communication behind the aids instead of handing them another list of instructions to memorize.And no, you do not need to be an eventer to get a lot out of this course.Dressage riders, jumpers and anyone who has ever been yelled "More leg!" at, will find plenty to work with here.The Masterclass also includes a companion workbook with chapter summaries, illustrations, key lessons and space to reflect on your own rides.Ian and Amy Millar: The Millar MethodThere are not many families in equestrian sport with the depth of experience of the Millars.In The Millar Method, ten-time Olympian Ian Millar and Canadian Olympian Amy Millar open up the training system their family has used across generations of horses.And spoiler: its not just about jumping bigger fences.Ian and Amy start with the pieces underneath everything else. Rhythm. Straightness. Responsiveness. Balance. Adjustability. Even how a horse is handled outside of the riding session.Youll see how they think through flatwork, coursework and the small responses that tell them when a horse is ready to move on or when its time to revisit the basics.Its a fantastic course for those actively competing, and it comes with a workbook as well.Steffen Peters: Building Better Flying ChangesA flying change can look like one movement.Steffen Peters makes a pretty convincing case that it is anything but.In Building Better Flying Changes, the six-time Olympian works from the quality of the canter and the horses response to the aids all the way through first changes, late changes, crooked changes and eventually changes in series.One of the best parts is seeing Steffen work through the imperfect moments.A horse gets excited. Another starts anticipating. A change is late behind.Rather than drilling it until everyone is annoyed, he looks at what is missing and returns to an exercise that helps the horse understand the question.Even if flying changes are nowhere near your current to-do list, there is a lot here about canter balance, straightness, responsiveness and self-carriage that applies to any discipline.Tik Maynard: Restarting the Off-the-Track ThoroughbredAn OTTB does not arrive as an untrained horse.They already have an education. It just happens to be an education designed for racing.That distinction sits at the center of Tik Maynards newest Masterclass, Restarting the Off-the-Track Thoroughbred.Tik follows three Thoroughbreds at three stages of the process: one recently off the track, one several months into retraining and one several years into a second career.He looks at how racing influences a horses expectations and responses, how to evaluate an OTTB before buying, groundwork, restarting under saddle, balance, canter work, jumping, adjustability and eventually competition.The course also includes conversations with an FEI veterinarian and an experienced stable manager around selecting and caring for an OTTB.So this is not just, Heres how to get them jumping.Its a much bigger look at how to understand the horse you have before deciding where you want to take them next.More Tik Maynard: The Confidence AdvantageTiks NF+ library has also continued to grow, because apparently one Tik course was never going to be enough.In The Confidence Advantage, he tackles one of the biggest questions riders have with nervous, reactive or uncertain horses:How do you help a horse become more confident without just pushing them through something until they stop reacting?Tik looks at thresholds, curiosity, preparation and the riders role in helping horses work through new situations.Youll also see Nolle work through herd-bound behavior with her own horses as one of the case studies.That makes this course especially useful because you get to see the ideas applied to a real problem with real horses, not a perfectly staged training scenario where everyone magically behaves.New Case Studies in Tiks Trailering MasterclassTiks Common Trailering Problems Masterclass has also expanded.The course already walks riders through trailer loading from the groundwork up, including exercises you can teach before ever bringing a horse near the trailer.Now there are additional case studies featuring Utopia, Gunther, Ruger and Yogi.Each horse brings a slightly different problem, which means you get to see Tik adjust his approach instead of using the same method over and over again.Thats one of the things we love most about Tiks teaching.There is no do these three steps and your horse will load forever fantasy here.You learn how to look at the horse, figure out what is happening and choose your next move from there.Now Streaming: Exclusive Cuts From FAULTLESSTraining videos are only part of whats happening inside NF+.FAULTLESS takes you inside the world of top-level show jumping, and NF+ members now have access to exclusive cuts from the series.These extended and behind-the-scenes pieces give you more time with the riders, horses and people behind the polished rounds you see in the ring.Because as every horse person knows, the interesting part is usually everything that happened before they walked through the in-gate.Coming This Fall: NOLLE FLOYD: UNBRIDLEDAnd this might be the most personal thing weve ever made.In NOLLE FLOYD: UNBRIDLED, Nolle hits the road with Lady and Galano for a new documentary series exploring the horse-human relationship from a much more personal angle.Across North America, she meets horsemen, equine therapists, psychiatrists and communities with very different relationships to horses.The series asks bigger questions.Why do horses become such a huge part of our identity?Why do we keep choosing this life even when it is expensive, exhausting and occasionally involves standing in the rain holding a horse who has suddenly decided the mounting block is deeply suspicious?And what are horses giving us that we sometimes struggle to find anywhere else?UNBRIDLED is raw, personal and much less interested in pretending anyone has all the answers.Two episodes premiere publicly on October 19, with the complete six-episode season available exclusively on NF+.New Conversations on the NOLLE FLOYD PodcastThe NOLLE FLOYD Podcast has also had a particularly good run lately.If your barn commute could use a few new episodes, these are worth adding to the queue.Steffen PetersIf you enjoyed Steffens NF+ Masterclass, his recent podcast conversation gives you another side of him.The conversation moves beyond riding and competition into the person behind six Olympic appearances, then comes back to the training itself.Steffen talks through young horses, self-carriage, contact, groundwork and the approach he takes when developing a new horse.Basically, you get both sides: the rider everyone knows and the trainer thinking through the details.Kasey Perry-GlassKasey Perry-Glass spent years inside elite dressage.Her husband, Dana Glass, starts colts.Those two worlds have influenced each other more than you might expect.Kasey talks with Nolle about perfectionism, groundwork, knowing when to end a training session, separating physical issues from behavior and what happens when you finally reach a goal you have spent years chasing.There are a lot of moments in this episode that will follow you back into the barn.Ashley AvisFilmmaker Ashley Avis, director of Disneys Black Beauty and Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, joined Nolle for a conversation about the horses who disappear from view after their riding careers end.They talk about horse auctions, wild horses, advocacy and Ashleys Lost Horses campaign.It is less how do I ride this exercise better? and more what responsibility do we have to horses once they stop being useful to us?A very different conversation, and an important one.And Because Horse People Love Merch...Yes, weve been making things for your closet and tack trunk too.The NOLLE FLOYD shop now has Team Mare and Team Gelding sweaters, because apparently choosing sides is part of horse ownership now.There are also stickers for the laptop, water bottle, tack locker, trailer, or any other surface that could use a little more horse-person energy.And if Team Mare vs. Team Gelding isnt the hill youre prepared to die on, theres more apparel for the horse people who have strong opinions about things like turnout and putting the horse before the sport.Basically, consider this your permission to wear your barn opinions outside the barn too.Shop NOLLE FLOYD merch One Library. A Lot of Ways to Learn.NF+ has never been about giving you one trainer and telling you that person has the answer to everything.Because, respectfully, horses would never make it that easy.The library gives you access to riders, horsemen, veterinarians, psychologists, grooms and trainers across disciplines so you can compare ideas, watch people work through real problems and find tools that make sense for the horse standing in front of you.There are now more than 1,300 videos across jumping, dressage, eventing, groundwork, horse behavior, rider mindset, horse care and more.Some days you might need an Olympic rider explaining balance.Other days you might desperately need Tik Maynard and four horses who have opinions about trailers.Both are in there.Become an NF+ Member for LifeAnd right now, theres another way to access all of it.NF+ Member for Life is one payment of $399. No renewals.You get ongoing access to the NF+ library available when you join, including the new Masterclasses from Will Coleman, Ian and Amy Millar, Steffen Peters and Tik Maynard.Which means you can take the course you need today, forget half of it because your horse immediately invents an entirely new problem, and come back six months later when you need it again.That feels a little more realistic to us.One payment. No renewals. Your NF+ library for years to come.Become a Member for Life

Maybe you joined NF+ because you want better groundwork. Maybe your horse has started doing something that has you standing in the arena thinking,Okay...now what? Or maybe you are not trying to fix anything at all. You just want to become a more educated, capable horse person.Good. You are in the right place.There are a lot of videos inside NF+, but the goal is not to sit down one weekend and attempt to watch all of them. Your horse would probably prefer you came to the barn anyway.Instead, think of NF+ as a horsemanship resource you can keep coming back to. Start with the skill you need today. Learn the thinking underneath it. Spend enough time with one trainer to understand their approach. Then branch out, compare ideas and follow whatever catches your attention next.Here is how we recommend using NF+ to grow your horsemanship.1. New to groundwork? Give yourself a starting point.If groundwork is relatively new to you, start in the Groundwork collection, particularly with Chelsea Canedys Two Weeks to Better Groundwork.Chelsea gives you a place to begin instead of sending you into the arena with a rope, a horse and a vague instruction to work on your connection.Over two weeks, you can work through core skills like leading, personal space, moving different parts of the horses body and becoming more aware of how you use your own body and energy. Watch a lesson, try it with your horse and return for the next piece.The point is not to collect a bunch of groundwork exercises you can perform on command. You are learning to communicate with your horse from the ground and, just as importantly, starting to notice how your horse responds.Once you start noticing those details, horsemanship gets a lot more interesting.2. Learn the exercise. Then learn the reason behind it.Sometimes you do not need an entire masterclass. You need an idea for this afternoon.That is where the How-To Exercises collection comes in.Use it as your practical toolbox. Browse for exercises you can take straight to the barn, especially when you need something concrete to work on with your horse.Then resist the urge to stop there.An exercise becomes far more useful when you understand why you are doing it, what response you are looking for and how to adjust when your horse does not respond the way the demonstration horse did.Because, naturally, your horse has not watched the video.That is where the rest of the NF+ horsemanship library starts working together.3. Spend some serious time Inside the Horses Mind.This might be one of the most important collections in NF+ for anyone interested in horsemanship.Because there is a big difference between knowing how to perform an exercise and understanding the animal you are performing it with.Inside the Horses Mind gives you a place to study the behavior underneath the training. You can learn more about how horses perceive their environment, what motivates them, how they experience pressure and how fear, anxiety, curiosity and confidence can influence the response you are getting.Tik Maynards Understanding Horse Behavior is a particularly good place to start. Tik looks at how horses experience the world and why behavior that can look silly, stubborn or inconvenient to us can make perfect sense from the horses point of view.Then keep exploring.Listen to Dr. Stephen Peters talk about the equine brain and the neuroscience of learning. Spend time with Josh Nichols work on the horses emotional needs. Explore conversations around feel, communication and horse behavior from trainers working across disciplines.This collection is less about giving you a script and more about improving the questions you ask.Instead of only thinking, How do I make my horse do this?, you start wondering, Why am I getting this response in the first place?That question can take your horsemanship a long way.4. Go deep with Josh Nichol.At some point, we recommend choosing a trainer whose philosophy interests you and really spending time with their work.Josh Nichol is a great person to do that with.His Relational Horsemanship content moves beyond isolated exercises and into how you understand the horse as a whole. Start with Understanding Your Horses Needs and continue into his work around the horses body, pressure, fear, self-carriage and common training struggles.Then watch him problem-solve in real time in his Horsemanship Case Studies.Josh's Review My Ride sessions are especially useful because you get to see him look at real horses and real rider questions, from herd-bound behavior and mounting problems to posture and connection.That is where studying a trainer becomes more interesting than copying their techniques.You start to understand what they notice first. You hear the questions they ask. You see which details change their decision about what to do next.Eventually, you are not just learning Joshs answers.You are getting better at finding your own.5. Use Tik Maynards library like a horsemanship encyclopedia.Then there is Tik.If you have a horse problem, there is a decent chance Tik has made a masterclass about it.His NF+ library covers horse behavior, groundwork, play, confidence, young horses, spooky and anxious horses, trailering, OTTBs and the everyday training situations that make perfectly competent horse people question every decision they have ever made.Start wherever your horse takes you.Have a spooky horse? Go into Training the Spooky or Anxious Horse.Your horse feels overwhelmed in new environments? Try The Confidence Advantage, which looks at how horses learn to process challenging situations rather than just endure them.Trailer loading becoming the bane of your existence? Tiks trailering work breaks the issue down beyond the trailer itself, including groundwork you can teach before you ever ask the horse to walk up the ramp.Working with a young horse? There is a full young-horse masterclass.Want to understand Tiks overall philosophy? His Four Building Blocks to Better Horsemanship series explores observation, communication and the foundational pieces underneath his approach.This is where NF+ can become incredibly personal.You can follow the problem you have today and end up learning something much bigger than the problem you started with.6. Do not marry one method.This might be our favorite way to use NF+.Go deep with a trainer.Really study them.Then go learn from somebody else using the NF+ library.There is enormous value in understanding one persons philosophy well enough that you can see the whole picture. There is also enormous value in hearing another respected horse person explain the same issue from another angle.Josh might make you notice one thing. Tik might notice another. Chelsea may give you an exercise that helps you put an idea into practice. A sport trainer may talk about the exact same principle using completely different language.You do not have to decide that one of them has The Answer.Horse people have been learning this way forever. They rode with one trainer, audited another clinic, watched someone work a tricky horse, read everything they could get their hands on and kept adding to their understanding.The best education is rarely one straight line.NF+ lets you do the same thing, with an unusually large group of horse people available in one place.7. Leave the horsemanship collection.Yes, really.Some of the best horsemanship lessons inside NF+ are not labelled horsemanship.Watch Ian and Amy Millar train sport horses. Spend time with Will Coleman. Watch Steffen Peters work through flying changes. Study Peter Wylde, Anne Kursinski, Karl Cook or another trainer from a discipline outside your own.Do not only watch the exercise.Watch the horse person.How do they react when the horse gets something wrong? How much do they ask for at once? What do they notice? When do they change the question? How do they prepare a horse before asking for something harder?Your goal is not to ride exactly like twenty trainers.It is to expose yourself to enough good horsemanship that you start developing a much richer understanding of your own.That is one of the biggest advantages of having an entire education platform instead of buying a single course.8. Work on the human half of the partnership too.We could give you every groundwork exercise on earth, but unfortunately you still have to bring your own brain to the barn.Horsemanship is not only about understanding the horse. It is also about noticing what we bring into the interaction.Fear. Frustration. Expectations. Confidence. Breathing. Body awareness. The day we had before we got to the barn.The horse gets all of it.That is why Ride Well, Live Well belongs in your horsemanship education too.Cassandra Ogiers Reflective Horse meditation series, for example, includes guided practices designed to help riders become more present in their bodies before and around their horses. Other mindset and audio content inside NF+ can help with nerves, confidence, goals and the mental side of riding.You might come to NF+ looking for a horse-training solution and realize there is something useful to work on at your end of the lead rope too.Rude, but helpful.9. Use NF+ when something happens at the barn.This is where the library becomes especially useful.Do not only open NF+ when you have an hour to study.Open it when your horse gives you a question.Your horse suddenly will not load.Your young horse has become pushy.Something that was easy last week is suddenly difficult.Your horse is spooky in a new environment.You have started noticing that the same training issue keeps appearing in several places.Search the library. Browse the Groundwork collection. Head into Inside the Horses Mind. See if Josh has addressed it. Check Tiks library. Look for a How-To exercise you can try.NF+ can be something you use alongside the horse you already have, not a curriculum you have to complete before you are allowed to apply it.10. Come back six months later.This may be the most underrated way to use NF+.Rewatch things.A lesson that feels useful today may feel completely different after six months of riding, another horse, a few mistakes and several new questions.You will notice things you missed.An idea you were not ready for may suddenly make perfect sense. Something you thought was about groundwork may turn out to be relevant to your riding. A video you originally watched because of one horse may become invaluable with another.Horsemanship education compounds.Which is also why Member for Life makes so much sense for this library.You are not buying NF+ because you need to watch 1,300+ videos right now. Please do not attempt that.You are giving yourself a resource you can return to as your horses change, your goals grow and your understanding deepens.Today you might need Chelseas groundwork program.Next year you might need Tiks OTTB work.Then you might find yourself studying Josh Nichol, getting ready for a competition with a sport masterclass, doing a guided meditation before a ride or revisiting a horse-behavior lesson because a completely new horse has just handed you a completely new question.That is the point.Member for Life gives you one payment, no renewals and access to the NF+ library available when you join, so you can keep learning from it for years to come.Your horse will keep giving you new homework.You might as well have a very good library.

A horse refuses the trailer. Another startles at the same corner every ride. One stands for the farrier while another snatches a hind foot away.Those behaviors often become labels. Stubborn. Anxious. Lazy. Well behaved.Dr. Stephen Peters asks us to look somewhere else.As a neuropsychologist who studies both the human and equine brain, Peters explains that behavior is the visible result of processes unfolding throughout the nervous system. By the time we notice a reaction, the brain has already been predicting, adapting, and learning.On this episode of The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast, he explores myelination, learned helplessness, nervous system regulation, and why neuroscience offers one of the clearest windows into horse behavior.Your Horse Is Always PredictingModern neuroscience describes the brain as far more than a thinking organ.It predicts.Every experience teaches the brain what to expect next.When your cues remain consistent, your horse learns those predictions are reliable. Reliable predictions create safety, allowing curiosity and learning to replace vigilance.When every interaction feels uncertain, the brain prepares for survival instead.That shift influences every response that follows.Every Ride Strengthens Neural PathwaysOne of the central ideas in this conversation is myelination.Every time your horse repeats a behavior, neurons fire together.With repetition, those pathways become wrapped in myelin, a fatty coating that allows signals to travel dramatically faster through the nervous system.Dr. Peters compares it to paving a road. The more frequently a pathway is used, the more efficient it becomes.The brain isn't deciding which habits deserve to stay.It simply strengthens the pathways it uses most often.A horse that repeatedly rushes through trailer loading strengthens that pathway. A horse that has learned pulling a foot away ends the interaction strengthens another.The brain remembers what experience has taught it.When a Habit Looks Like PersonalityOne of Dr. Peters' most thought-provoking observations is that riders often describe a horse's character when they're seeing a habit.A horse that snatches a hind foot away may no longer be reacting out of fear.The response has become automatic.Dr. Peters explains that repeated behaviors eventually become the responsibility of a brain structure called the basal ganglia. Familiar responses require very little conscious thought, much like driving a familiar route home.That perspective invites a new question.Instead of asking why a horse is being difficult, we can ask what experience taught the brain to respond this way.Learning Depends on the Nervous SystemTraining often focuses on behavior.Dr. Peters focuses on the nervous system producing that behavior.As stress rises, curiosity narrows. Problem solving becomes less available, and the brain shifts its attention toward protection.Pressure often feels like the logical response.According to Peters, the nervous system usually benefits far more from returning to a regulated state before another question is asked.A regulated brain has greater access to learning.Great Trainers Teach RegulationOne of the most compelling ideas in this conversation is that exceptional trainers spend as much time developing a horse's nervous system as they do developing physical skills.Dr. Peters describes a process called pendulation.The horse experiences a manageable challenge, discovers safety, settles again, and gradually learns that curiosity can exist alongside uncertainty.Over repeated experiences, the nervous system develops confidence moving between activation and recovery.Those horses approach new questions ready to search for an answer rather than simply escape discomfort.Dopamine Encourages ExplorationSolving a problem rewards the brain with dopamine.That reward encourages exploration.Repeating the same exercise well beyond understanding gradually reduces that reward. The exercise becomes mechanical, curiosity fades, and participation gives way to routine.Dr. Peters contrasts this with horses that retain agency throughout learning.Those horses continue searching for solutions because discovery itself remains rewarding.Learned Helplessness and the Loss of AgencyDr. Peters revisits psychologist Martin Seligman's landmark research on learned helplessness.The studies demonstrated what happens when an animal experiences pressure with no opportunity for its behavior to influence the outcome.Eventually, the subjects stopped trying.Even after escape became possible, the nervous system had learned that action carried no value.For horses, that distinction carries enormous welfare implications.A horse standing still may appear compliant while experiencing something entirely different internally.Agency gives the horse influence over its own experience. That sense of influence supports healthier stress responses, stronger learning, and greater resilience.Behavior Is the End of the StoryBehavior is the part we see.The nervous system has already processed previous experiences, predictions, habits, hormones, and countless neurological calculations before a horse offers any response.Viewing behavior through that lens invites more thoughtful questions.Instead of asking how to stop a behavior, we can ask what the brain has learned and which experiences continue reinforcing that pathway.That shift opens the door to training that supports both horse and rider.Listen to the Full ConversationDr. Stephen Peters offers one of the clearest explanations of how neuroscience applies to everyday horsemanship, connecting brain science with practical decisions riders make every day. Listen to the full episode of The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast to hear Dr. Peters explain prediction, neuroplasticity, agency, and nervous system regulation, and how each one influences the horses we ride.Then continue learning inside NF+, where more than 70 masterclasses bring together world-class riders, trainers, sports psychologists, veterinarians, and horsemen to help you develop greater feel, confidence, and understanding with every horse you ride.

A horse walks about three kilometers an hour.If you spend enough time at that speed, you'll notice things other people miss.Filipe Masetti Leite spent eight years riding from Alaska to Argentina, covering 27,000 kilometers with eleven horses. Along the way, he crossed mountain ranges, deserts, jungles, and international borders. He also slept beside his horses, searched for water with them, waited out storms with them, and relied on them in places where instinct often mattered more than a map.This kind of partnership isn't measured in years, but miles.Most of us spend a few hours each week with our horses. We ride, untack, feed, and head home. Felipe lived alongside his. Every decision affected the entire herd, and every day offered another opportunity to understand how horses communicate.Horses Are Always Communicating"Horses speak," he says. "They just speak differently."Learning that language began with paying attention.Early in the journey, his horses refused to keep moving through a stretch of trail in Montana. Felipe encouraged them forward until a grizzly bear emerged from the brush. The horses had sensed danger well before he did. By the end of the expedition, he had learned to trust those instincts instead of questioning them.While it might not be a grizzly bear, every rider has experienced something similar.Your horse hesitates before a creek crossing. Their breathing changes. Their focus shifts toward something you haven't noticed yet. Horses gather information differently than we do, and they share it with us every day. The opportunity is giving ourselves enough time to listen.Modern life encourages speed. Horses invite us into another rhythm. They ask us to notice small changes, stay engaged with the present, and leave distractions behind for a while. Few places ask for your full attention the way a horse does.Courage Looks Smaller Than We ThinkFelipe's understanding of courage shifted during those years.Before leaving Canada, he assumed courageous people simply feared less. Thousands of kilometers later, he arrived at another conclusion."Courage is being scared half to death, but saddling up anyways."Every rider recognizes that feeling.It shows up before the first canter after a fall, before entering the show ring, before loading a reluctant horse into the trailer, or before trying something unfamiliar. Confidence grows through action. The feeling catches up later.Listen to the podcast episodeEvery Ride Begins With a Better QuestionOne of the most thought-provoking conversations in this episode centered on a question with no simple answer.Can we love horses while also objectifying them?Felipe and Noelle explored the question from several angles without trying to settle it. Every discipline asks remarkable things of horses. Every rider also has opportunities to pause, examine their intentions, and ask whose needs are being served. Curiosity creates room for better decisions, stronger partnerships, and greater respect for the horse standing beside us.That conversation also offered an encouraging reminder for anyone who has ever said, "I'm just a trail rider."Felipe rejects that way of thinking entirely. After spending years traveling on horseback, he sees value in every rider who enjoys time with their horse and treats them with care. Riding through forests, across fields, or down a favorite trail creates opportunities for connection that many people spend years searching for. The discipline matters far less than the relationship you create along the way.Leadership Starts With ListeningThat same curiosity shaped Felipe's understanding of leadership.When the expedition began, he believed leading meant making every decision. His horses had another lesson in mind.Some days one horse needed extra feed. Another needed more rest. Success depended on recognizing those individual needs instead of expecting every member of the herd to respond the same way. Years later, those experiences became the foundation of the leadership talks he now gives around the world. Empathy, humility, and observation carried far more influence than control ever could.Horse people understand this instinctively. Every horse brings a unique personality, history, and way of learning. The partnership improves when we spend less time trying to make every horse fit the same mold and more time understanding the horse standing in front of us.Bringing the Lessons HomeThe hardest chapter of Felipe's journey began after the ride ended.After spending years immersed in nature and living with a singular purpose, ordinary life felt unfamiliar. Felipe speaks openly about the anxiety and depression that followed the expedition, describing the experience as forgetting how to be human after spending so long as part of a herd.His path forward began with a simple realization.He needed horses in his life.Today, when work pulls him too far from that connection, he heads back to the barn. He parts a horse's mane, buries his face against its neck, and breathes. It reminds him where he feels most like himself.Most of us will never ride across two continents.Few of us need to.Felipe's story invites us to spend a little more time paying attention to the horses already in front of us. Every ride, every trail, every hour at the barn offers another opportunity to notice what they're saying, trust what they're showing us, and carry those lessons into the rest of our lives.Continue the JourneyFelipe Masetti's story extends far beyond this conversation.The Long Rider follows his 27,000-kilometer journey from Alaska to Argentina, capturing the landscapes, the people he met, and the horses who carried him across two continents. It's an unforgettable look at the partnership between horse and rider, and the lessons that emerged along the way.Then, continue the conversation by listening to Felipe Masetti's episode of The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast, where he shares the experiences, reflections, and life lessons that couldn't all fit into the documentary. Watch The Long Rider Documentary Listen to Felipe Masetti on The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast

Your Horse Already Has This VirusLast year, EHV-1 dominated conversations across the horse world.Horses were hospitalized. Some were euthanized. Competition schedules were questioned. Owners refreshed social media feeds looking for updates from Texas, Las Vegas, and every major western circuit stop connected to the outbreak.Then the conversation faded.The virus never left.That may be the most important point in this conversation on The NOLLE FLOYD Podcast with equine internal medicine specialist Dr. Bruno Kramm.Listen to the podcast episodeMost horse owners think about EHV-1 as something that arrives during an outbreak. A threat that appears, spreads, and eventually disappears. The reality is far less dramatic and far more complicated.Almost every horse has already been exposed to EHV-1. Most carry the virus for life. A horse can acquire it at a young age, recover from the initial infection, and continue carrying it for years. During periods of stress, illness, travel, or for reasons that remain poorly understood, the virus can begin shedding again.A horse can look healthy while participating in that cycle.That reality changes the way we think about disease outbreaks. An outbreak is rarely the arrival of something new. It is often the point where something that has been present all along becomes impossible to ignore.Part of the challenge is that EHV-1 and the neurological disease associated with it often get blended into a single conversation.They are related, but they are not the same thing.EHV-1 is the virus. EHM, Equine Herpes Myeloencephalopathy, is the neurological disease that can develop following infection. Most horses exposed to EHV-1 never experience that outcome. Many encounter the virus early in life and move on with little fanfare. The neurological cases are the ones that command attention because the consequences are so severe.The videos circulating during last year's outbreak were difficult to watch. Horses struggled to coordinate their limbs. Some became unable to stand. Those images shaped public perception of the disease, yet they represent only one possible outcome from a virus that exists far more broadly than many horse owners realize.That raises an obvious question.If so many horses carry EHV-1, why do some develop severe disease while others never show signs at all?Dr. Kramm returns to a principle familiar across medicine. Disease is a conversation between the pathogen and the individual. Two horses can encounter the same virus and have entirely different outcomes. Researchers continue studying the factors that influence those responses because the answer remains incomplete.Last year's outbreak highlighted another reality. Modern horses travel in ways that create ideal conditions for contagious disease.Large competitions bring together horses from many regions. They travel long distances. They arrive in unfamiliar environments. They share facilities with hundreds of other horses. The stress of travel and competition creates opportunities for viruses to move through a population with remarkable efficiency.The concern surrounding the western circuit reached such a high level because of how frequently those horses move. A horse can leave one venue, travel to another, and arrive before showing clinical signs. By the time illness becomes apparent, exposure may have already extended across multiple states.Those circumstances place an enormous responsibility on horse owners, trainers, veterinarians, and event organizers.They also explain why Dr. Kramm keeps returning to one surprisingly simple tool: athermometer.Among all the diagnostics available to modern veterinary medicine, temperature monitoring remains one of the most valuable habits a horse owner can develop. A horse's normal temperature range tells a story. Subtle changes often appear before more obvious clinical signs.The goal is not panic, but awareness.That same philosophy applies to vaccination. One of the most common criticisms surrounding EHV vaccination is that current vaccines target respiratory disease and offer limited protection against the neurological form. Dr. Kramm's perspective centers on risk reduction. Vaccinated horses may experience milder disease and may shed less virus, reducing opportunities for transmission throughout a population.Medicine rarely deals in absolutes. Veterinary medicine certainly does not.Throughout the conversation, Dr. Kramm returned to an idea that extends well beyond EHV-1. Science continues moving forward because every outbreak, every study, and every case contributes another piece to the puzzle. The recommendations we follow today are informed by the knowledge available today. Future outbreaks will bring new questions and new data.For horse owners, that means staying curious, staying informed, and paying attention before the headlines arrive.Because the next outbreak will begin long before anyone starts talking about it.

If youre searching for the Dear Horse World podcast, youve found it.Dear Horse World is now the NOLLE FLOYD Podcast.Don't worryif you subscribed to Dear Horse World, youre already subscribed to the NOLLE FLOYD Podcast. Your existing podcast feed remains unchanged, previous episodes are still available, and future episodes will continue to appear wherever you listen, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and NF+.The name change may already feel familiar to longtime listeners, many of whom have been calling it the NOLLE FLOYD Podcast for quite some time. Eventually, the official title decided to catch up.Why the Name ChangedThe podcast has always been part of a much larger conversation.For nearly fifteen years, Nolle has explored the horse world through writing, interviews, documentaries, educational content, and conversations with some of the industrys most respected thinkers and horsemen. Over the years, the platform has evolved from a blog into a magazine, a media company, an educational platform (NF+), a podcast, and now a Substack. The formats have changed as technology and audiences have changed, while the conversation itself has remained remarkably consistent.The new name brings the podcast into closer alignment with the broader NOLLE FLOYD brand and makes the show easier for listeners to find.While the title has changed, the curiosity that has guided the platform from the beginning remains the same. The podcast continues to be a place for thoughtful conversations, challenging questions, and a genuine interest in understanding horses and the people who dedicate their lives to them.If You Subscribed to Dear Horse WorldIf you followed Dear Horse World, you now follow the NOLLE FLOYD Podcast.Your subscription continues automatically, so there is no action required. You can keep listening through your preferred podcast platform, and the full archive of past episodes remains available.What to Expect from the NOLLE FLOYD PodcastThe NOLLE FLOYD Podcast will continue featuring conversations with riders, trainers, veterinarians, researchers, horsemen, horsewomen, and unconventional thinkers from across the equestrian world.The show will also include more solo episodes from Nolle herself, creating a more direct conversation with listeners. Questions submitted through social media, NOLLE FLOYD Plus, and Nolles Substack will help guide future Q&A episodes and discussions.Horses give us plenty to think about, and the horse world has never been short on opinions. The podcast will continue making room for both.A New Name for an Ongoing ConversationThe NOLLE FLOYD Podcast represents the next chapter of a conversation that has been growing for years.For listeners who first found the show as Dear Horse World, welcome back. For those discovering it now, welcome to the conversation.If you're endlessly curious about horses and the people who love them, you're in the right place.