Welcome to our site

Equine Connections is devoted to helping people better understand horses. We feel that it is essential to build a relationship between horse and handler. All relationships grow through communication so it is this communication that Equine Connections tries to help people develop with their horses.

Equine Connections offers many avenues for people to experience horses.  We offer training, riding lessons, boarding and trail rides.  Our goal here at Equine Connections is to help you identify and reach your goals.

It is our belief that horses should live as close to their natural habitat as possible.  They need the social interaction with each other for starters.  Horses form deep bonds with herd mates and I believe that they need this connection to thrive. 

In the wild, horses are constantly on the move and spend most of their day eating.  Large meals a couple times a day is not natural to them.  My horses have free access to hay at all times.  I also do not like to feed processed grain such as pellets or sweet feed.  Most of these grains contain molasses which essentially is sugar.  Horses are not designed to process that.  Often times if someone is having trouble handling a horse I will tell them to cut out the grain and they find they have a different horse.  Our horses get a mixture of bran, shredded beet pulp (no molasses) and Black oil Sunflower seeds (BOSS).  The BOSS are packed with vitamins and minerals and the horses love them.  The horses also get free choice Sea Kelp.  Sea Kelp is rich in micro nutrients, vitamins and minerals including iodine.

All of our horses are ridden in bitless bridles.  I prefer to start horses in these bridles as well.  Bits can cause pain for the horse and pain causes fear.  Many times when a horse reacts in fear to something he gets jabbed in the mouth with the bit therefore causing him pain and giving him a reason to be anxious.

Then a stronger bit is used causing more pain and anxiety.  It isn't too hard to see where this is going.  I have seen horses that were "crazy" ridden in bicycle chain bits become calm in a bitless bridle.  I'm not saying that everyone does this or that no horse should go in a bit but if it works without one then why not.  Just a little side note here: we live in Maine and when I bridle my horses in the winter I am glad (as I'm sure they are)that I don't have to put cold steel in their mouths.