Episode Details

Most of us learned to ride before we ever learned to ask.

We learned the halter, the rope, the pressure, the release. We learned how to make a horse do the thing. And somewhere in there, quietly, a lot of us started to feel that something about it wasn't quite right — and didn't have the words, or the permission, to say so.

Elsa Sinclair had that feeling at twelve.

She's the creator of Freedom Based Training and the documentary Taming Wild, and this conversation is the story of where it came from — which is really the story of a question she couldn't put down.

It started with a student, who asked her: do you think horses actually like being ridden? And then, before Elsa could finish answering — do you think they ever had a choice?

She didn't have an answer. So she went looking for one.

What follows is one of the most honest origin stories I've had on this show. A lonely girl on a spirited Appaloosa named Demi. Years of clinics and books and methods that never felt like the thing she was reaching for. An offer from a near-stranger she couldn't refuse. And finally a year in a field with a wild mustang named Myrnah — no halter, no rope, no treats, no way to make her do anything — just the freedom to walk away, and the hope that she'd choose to stay.

Elsa says something in here I keep coming back to. That she never set out to be spiritual or soft about it. She wanted something "logical and practical and understandable" — a way of being with horses built on peace instead of domination, that still actually worked.

We talk about why she refuses to promise her horse a calm, composed version of herself. About trust as the willingness to suspend judgment. And about the idea that rearranged how I see every herd I've ever stood in: that in a healthy herd, awareness replaces dominance — because dominance only shows up when nobody was paying attention in the first place.

This is the beginning of Freedom Based Training, told by the woman who built it.

Elsa Sinclair is a lifelong horsewoman, behavior researcher, and filmmaker. Her year with Myrnah became the award-winning documentary Taming Wild and a book of the same name, and she now teaches Freedom Based Training to students around the world.

If you've ever wondered whether your horse would choose you — this is Part One. Stay for Part Two, where she shows us exactly how it's done.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN

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