How to Read Horse Behavior — Elsa Sinclair on the 5 Types of Leadership

There is a question almost every one of us carries to the barn and never says out loud.

Not how do I get him to do this.

But: does he actually trust me — or is he just complying?

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Elsa Sinclair, and it's the half where I kept having to stop and close my eyes. Because Elsa reads horse behavior in a way most of us were never taught to. She breaks leadership into five kinds — dominant, persistent, assertive, passive, supportive — and then says the thing that reorganized my brain: that leadership is simply any action that results in harmony. That dominance and abuse are not the same thing.

She takes us back inside the year she spent with a wild mustang named Myrnah — three to six hours a day, five days a week. The morning she got on at three months, did it badly, and wasn't allowed back on for another three. Not because anything went wrong. Because her timing was off by a hair, and the horse simply told the truth about it.

Then comes the line I haven't stopped repeating: "I'm not going to try to be the best horse trainer in the room. I'm going to try to be the most accurate."

This is freedom based training as a craft — not a philosophy you admire from a distance, but a practice you can take to the barn tomorrow. Elsa shows how to actually see a horse's thought before you reward it — the ear that flicks, the eye that moves, the breath — and gives a homework exercise you can start in the morning. We get into why hyperfocus on the goal keeps you tripping over the next step. Why confidence, quietly, trumps every strategy. And Atlas — the horse she bought off a slaughter truck, the one who broke everything she thought she knew.

If you've ever felt like you're learning too slowly with your horse, this episode reframes that ache as the whole point.

Elsa Sinclair is a lifelong horsewoman, horse behavior researcher, and filmmaker. Her year with the mustang Myrnah became a documentary, Taming Wild, and a book by the same name. She now teaches freedom based training to students across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

If you have a horse who's been trying to tell you something — this one is for you. And if you know someone still fighting the horse they love, send it to them.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN

Elsa's full leadership spectrum — dominant, persistent, assertive, passive, and supportive — and why she defines leadership as any action that results in harmony
The difference between dominance and abuse, and how a single raised hand tells her which one a horse has lived through
Why she got on Myrnah bareback and bridleless at three months — and the timing mistake that cost her the next three
The distinction between feel and timing, and why she'd rather be the most accurate trainer in the room than the best one
How to read a horse's thoughts through its senses instead of projecting the thought you wish were there
Why confidence can trump every technique, and how to build it from the bottom up if you don't have it yet
The case for the slowest training method on Earth, and how slowing down actually deepens what you learn

To find out more about Elsa Sinclair: website | instagram | facebook | patreon

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] Leadership options most training never breaks down
[00:23] The leadership spectrum: dominant, persistent, and assertive
[04:36] Building it bottom-up: passive and supportive leadership
[07:30] Riding bridleless: the year with Myrnah, and getting on at three months
[10:00] Feel versus timing, and rewarding the thought, not the action
[12:47] Why she'd rather be the most accurate trainer than the best
[15:33] Untraining yourself: the sensory system over mechanical habit
[21:44] "Playing in Puddles": letting go of the goal of riding
[36:00] The horse who decided humans always make bad decisions
[40:20] Confidence wins: when it trumps every technique
[45:36] The two horses who shaped her: the generous one and the mold-breaker
[54:00] The beauty of slowness, and learning to enjoy the snail's pace
[56:24] Rapid fire: the one book, the most undervalued skill, mares vs stallions

This Episode is Sponsored by:

Total Feeds

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

Check out our line of Quality Animal Feeds here: https://totalfeeds.com

Interested in more from Noëlle?

Noëlle's writing again — head to her Substack for essays, observations, and the kind of thinking that doesn't fit in an episode. https://noellefloyd.substack.com

Every episode is also on YouTube, where the conversation continues in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/@noellefloyd_plus

And if you're ready to go deeper, NF+ is where the real work happens — masterclasses, curated content, and a community that takes horses seriously. https://noellefloydplus.com

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Thank you for your listening!

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