Horse Nutrition, Old Habits & the Science of Change with Dr Katherine Goldberg - Part 1

Podcast #73

Why is it that we can be told something is better for our horse... and still find it incredibly hard to change what we do?

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Dr Nerida is joined again by Dr Katherine Goldberg, veterinarian and social worker, to turn the microscope away from the horse for a moment and onto the humans making the decisions.

Because improving horse welfare and horse nutrition isn’t always as simple as giving people better information. Human behaviour is messy. We have habits, beliefs, identities, fears, practical limitations and social pressures, and sometimes the benefits of staying exactly where we are feel bigger than the benefits of changing, even when the science is telling us otherwise.

Dr Katherine walks us through the psychology of behaviour change, including readiness for change, decisional balance and why some people simply aren’t ready to hear a new message yet. 

And then there’s information overload: the vet says one thing, the trainer says another, Facebook says something else again, and suddenly doing nothing feels easier than working out who to believe.

If you’ve ever wondered why you or the horse people around you resist change, why better information isn’t always enough, or why knowing better doesn’t automatically mean doing better, this episode is for you.

Part 2 continues next week.

Connect with Dr Katherine Goldberg 

Dr Katherine works with horse owners through Horses First Stewardship, helping people navigate horse care, feeding, track systems and those tricky situations where you know something needs to change, but you’re not quite sure what to do next.

Website: ⁠https://www.horsesfirststewardship.com⁠   Email: ⁠horsesfirststewardship@gmail.com

• Full Episode Transcript

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:07:23

  Dr. Katherine, welcome back to the Happy Horse Nutrition Podcast.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:07:27

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be back.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:07:32

  Oh, it's so good to have you back, and as we tend to do, we've had so much fun getting ready for this podcast, just pinging backwards and forwards on the things we both see in the horse world. So, I'm really excited to get into this topic, because I think it's something that, professionally, we come up against all the time, and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:07:49

  And we both know, as humans, we have these blind spots. Everyone has blind spots. So what I'm really hoping we achieve is that maybe we can uncover some of those blind spots for some horse people along the way in this discussion. So the last time we spoke.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:08:04

  We looked in detail at species-appropriate horse keeping and why track systems work so well for horses.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:08:13

  this conversation, I really want to lean more into the social worker side of you, because you are this cool combination of veterinarian and social worker, and have a look at.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:08:25

  Um, this peculiarity in our behavior as humans of sometimes being aware of what our horses need and still not changing or not doing the thing that we know that our horses need. So first question, just a small one to start off for you. Why are human beings so resistant to changing sometimes even relatively simple things?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:08:48

  Yeah. Well, it's funny you call that a small question because it feels like actually a very big question. Why?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:08:56

  See, this is, this is the difference between, um, Americans and Australians. We have a use of sarcasm in that, which you may not have… Sorry, that was, that was, yeah, that was me being very Aussie.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:03

  Okay, fair.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:04

  Fair. I'll question.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:09

  Gotcha. I mean, I will start by saying I'm so glad to be having this conversation. And I might even be, it's hard to say, but like even more excited about this one than the first one, because I shared this topic actually with a couple like horse people and vet people like that this was going to be the topic. And the consensus was, oh, that's a really important conversation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:28

  So I'm really glad we're having it, so thank you for that. And I think it's important also to start by naming, like, why this topic is relevant for animal welfare and our interactions with horses to begin with, right? Like, why are we even talking about this?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:44

  And the reason is because we can't do anything for horses without somehow manipulating human behavior. And this feels like very personal to me because it's really why I ended up becoming a social worker. And that's why I'm here.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:09:59

  Taking that turn to begin with that like these decisions that we're making in animal environments really have

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:10:07

  animals at a certain point. Like these horses are not filling their own hay nets, right? Like they can't make these decisions. And so the horses we're talking about on your podcast are domesticated, which means we're responsible for their survival. They're dependent upon us. Like that feels like a very.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:10:12

  Yeah, thank you.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:10:24

  obvious statement that goes without saying, but I think it's actually important to say it, because it's what underpins the importance of understanding human behavior around.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:10:29

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:10:37

  Horse care and models of change like generally. So why?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:10:42

  Are humans resistant to change? As we sort of joked about, that's a huge question. It's not one with a simple answer. And I think like any good therapist, I'm going to answer your question with another question or a few other questions.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:10:48

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:10:57

  Starting with like, what does change in a particular situation mean?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:11:02

  What does it represent? What does it feel like? We could go on, but I think it's important to recognize what's at stake really when we're considering a change in our horse keeping or anything for that matter, but since we're talking about horses, 'cause this is gonna help to explain some of the reactivity that we have as humans around change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:11:13

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:11:23

  And the dynamics of change for humans and within systems, like this is such an important area. We actually have different models of change and a whole research literature around this and a variety of academic areas, like from mental health professions, of course, including social work.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:11:40

  but ranging to like organizational leadership and industrial and organizational psychology and others that look at change behaviors and resistance among other things. So I just want to like name that and recognize the bigness of this as a topic.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:11:47

  Hmmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:11:54

  Yeah. Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:11:57

  It is, it's such a huge, it's such a huge area, and as humans, we're so interesting, like, I find myself doing things and reacting to certain situations, and, you know, as I've gotten older, I've learned to also catch myself and look at, you know, what's underneath.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:06

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:12:13

  that reaction. But, you know, for a large part of my life, I was oblivious to all of… all of that going on. And that… and that's just, you know, that's a micro-scale look at it. Like, it is a massive topic. So, um, thanks for saying yes to…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:14

  Exactly.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:21

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:27

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:29

  It's an evolution of us, yeah, of our awareness. But I think for this conversation, for the purposes of this conversation, I mean, I think I want to focus on a few concepts that I have thought about of like, how do we introduce these to your listeners and what are things that are important? And the first is what's called the trans-theoretical model of behavior change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:49

  or more simply just called stages of change model. And that's attributed to Prohaska and Clemente in 1983.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:12:57

  Related to this is something called decisional balance, and then the third is a more recent 2019 holistic model of resistance by Paul Gibbons.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:13:06

  So those three things we'll touch on a bit. But I think if we start with stages of change, this model outlines six stages of change or readiness for change. And those are pre-contemplation, contemplation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:13:23

  preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:13:27

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:13:28

  So without getting into the weeds of this, which is not important for our purposes, I'd say that for our purposes with horse keeping practices and resistance to change, this model identifies that before an action is even taken, there are three other stages we need to go through.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:13:44

  Yeah-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:13:44

  And I should also clarify that if we're in the first stage, which we call pre-contemplation, this, by definition, means there is no intention of taking action.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:13:54

  Okay, so is it that we're actually unaware that action needs to be taken in that stage, or that we're aware, but we…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:13:56

  So, yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:06

  not even contemplating changing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:09

  It could be either, I would say, but there's no intent. Like, there's no intent.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:12

  Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:16

  It's not going to happen. There's no preparation. There's no interest even yet in doing anything substantive.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:18

  Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:25

  Okay. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:26

  So if we learn that an individual or an organization is in the horse industry, for example, like is in pre contemplation, then we could honestly save ourselves a lot of effort.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:37

  Umm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:38

  Because…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:40

  that's not a place where change… we talk about resistance to change, but we have to also… I start before that and think about readiness for change, that we can then understand resistance, right? I mean, we can have a different conversation, certainly, about how we might move someone, as you're saying, from pre-contemplation.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:48

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:14:51

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:14:59

  to contemplation. But I think for our purposes today, it's just important to assess like, where are we? You know, because we need to establish that there will be situations in the horse industry for sure, where there's no readiness for change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:15:00

  Mm-mm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:14

  And that's really important to know.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:17

  If we had an unlimited amount of effort and time on everyone's hands, it's like, I guess we could start working in every stage.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:27

  it's a matter of figuring out, like, where our efforts, I think, are best directed, and so figuring out readiness.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:15:32

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:35

  feels really important.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:15:36

  Yes. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:37

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:15:39

  And so it's not going for the fruit at the top of the tree. It's the, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:44

  Exactly. Exactly.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:15:46

  Finding the low hanging and going for that. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:15:48

  Exactly. And so, you know, contemplation, then preparation, action, those are the stages where most folks who you and I are interacting with are going to fall. So I would say like by definition, if someone's reaching out to us, they're already at least in contemplation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:16:03

  People who are listening to this podcast are probably already at least in contemplation because they're choosing to listen to this podcast.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:16:09

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:16:10

  And, you know, I think it's just important to know that, right? But the conversation with the client who's in early contemplation is going to be very different from the one with the client who's already in action or in maintenance.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:16:26

  Those folks are gonna be, like, in my world, those folks in maintenance are gonna be the people who, let's say, they already have a track system, but they have questions, or they want to troubleshoot something.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:16:37

  Or they've been using flow feeding systems for a while, but like now there's something about their setup that's changing. Maybe the number of horses on property are changing or someone took a off farm job and like there's less time. Like it could be anything.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:16:37

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:16:51

  But I think understanding that readiness for change exists in stages, it's variable, is very helpful, and it's important for helping to frame your original question about, you know, resistance.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:17:01

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:03

  to change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:05

  Does that sort of…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:17:06

  Yep, no, it makes perfect sense. Yep, yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:10

  Yeah, so that's stages of change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:17:14

  And then you had, um… so then there was decisional balance and holistic model of resistance. So where do they… where do they fit in? They were just… just different models.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:22

  Oh, sure. Well, the, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:25

  We'll definitely talk about the holistic change in a…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:28

  coming up, and maybe we could edit that. And yeah, we'll we'll get to that for sure. Decisional balance. Maybe it's worth just mentioning what decisional balance is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:40

  So decisional balance is a very helpful framing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:44

  that I might call a more nuanced version of a pro-con list.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:17:51

  So, it recognizes that there's not just a pro, con, good, bad, benefit, disadvantage, that it actually operates on a grid.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:01

  So if we think about, like, you know, I know people are not going to see this, but, like, if we assume a grid, imagine a grid, right? And in one quadrant is the benefit of the change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:13

  And then another is the disadvantage of the change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:18

  And then there's the benefit of not changing, of staying the same.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:23

  And then the disadvantage of not changing, staying the same. And what this represents is that there's going to be a benefit and a burden to any decision or non-decision that you make. And it actually comes mostly from substance.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:18:35

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:18:36

  Yeah, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:39

  disorder use and addiction work? Because we have to really recognize that even if something on paper is, like, objectively.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:47

  healthier or better or perceived as.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:18:48

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:18:52

  a beneficial change for a human, we're not going to make a change unless we perceive and recognize that the benefit of changing is going to outweigh the benefit of staying the same. And there are a lot of benefits to staying the same for a lot of people and a lot of.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:19:02

  The disadvantage. Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:19:10

  areas. And there are a lot of really scary things and real true disruption that's going to occur for someone if they make a change, even if that change is like objectively healthier, right? Like to use the substance use example.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:19:22

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:19:26

  People have social networks and support around people who might also be.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:19:33

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:19:33

  Using substances, right? And so we have, unless we understand that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:19:34

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:19:38

  We have no hope really of helping create meaningful change. And you can apply this to a whole lot of other aspects of our lives with or without horses. But I do really draw upon that because it's not like, oh, am I going to feed my horse?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:19:56

  Six times a day now, where I used to feed them one and a half times a day, you know, well.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:20:01

  There's gonna be some benefit, but that's also gonna be a real problem, because unless you're home.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:20:07

  Practically speaking, you're not feeding six times a day. It's not going to happen.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:20:07

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:20:09

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I always say to people, and I've got distinct memories of doing it, particularly out on thoroughbred breeding farms where, you know, you're feeding horses in big groups all the time, and there's limited, especially in Australia, because our labour is so expensive, there's limited.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:20:28

  time, limited labour. So you're trying to achieve this balance between the best possible nutrition, but also within the constraints of the system. And I'm constantly saying to people, the best nutrition solution is never the most practical.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:20:37

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:20:45

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:20:45

  It's just not. So this is that benefit and disadvantage scale, you know, like the highest benefit is also typically if you're looking at the disadvantage being that the cost of the labour and the availability of the labour is always usually going to be the highest.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:20:50

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:21:00

  disadvantage. And this is why we see, you know, racing stables feeding five, six kilos of grain in one meal a day, because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:00

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:07

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:21:08

  You know, and that makes both of our toes curl up when I say that, because we know that that's not the right thing for the horse, and we can both see the physiology of what's going on, you know, all of that starch traveling too quickly through the small intestine and being dumped in the hindgut, and then the whole cascade of problems that happen after that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:14

  Yep. Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:21:28

  But the disadvantage is so high that they continue to do that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:31

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:35

  Right. And this also brings up for me, I wasn't even thinking about this before you started sharing that, but the other grid in my brain at all times, especially working with students, is urgent versus important.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:21:49

  Uh, yep. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:21:49

  Right. So similarly, it's like things that are urgent or time sensitive or like have to get done now, they may also be important. And then that quadrant is like a really important, really key one to address because there's urgency and there's importance.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:22:04

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:05

  But with the feeding, the thing that jolted my mind with this is like, well, long term, there might not be a perception that there's an urgency.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:14

  But.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:15

  Very, very important that we're dealing with hindgut health in these racehorses.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:22:17

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:21

  But in the moment, it might not feel urgent yet.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:22:24

  No. And this is where I think we get that, you know, there are no problems, just disasters, because there's not the urgency around, you know, making sure that the hindgut is healthy or making sure that copper and zinc supplementation is done properly.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:32

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:22:41

  And horses are so… they're too robust for their own good, you know, they'll cope, and they'll cope, and they'll cope, and they'll cope, and then they don't, and you end up with some kind of disaster. But that can take years, like in the case of mineral deficiency, that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:22:54

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:22:59

  can take years to show up. And, you know, in the case of joints, like, if we're not supplementing them properly with minerals, like, it might be 15 years, and you've got your amazing dressage horse performing at the level you finally wanted, and then retired, because joints fall apart.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:13

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:23:15

  And, you know, I think that's… that urgency is missing, and it's a really, really good point. I'm glad you brought that up, because if there was more dire consequences to feeding horses.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:19

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:23:27

  the way we feed them sometimes, there would be that urgency there, you know? Like, if… if in… in… in racehorses.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:27

  Hmm. Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:31

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:23:36

  If feeding raw corn, which in both of our countries is still really, really common, Katherine's slapping her hand with her forehead, I mean, her forehead with her hand, that's me on Monday morning, everything's backwards. If the consequences were more urgent, you know, if a horse would immediately colic, for example, when you dumped that much starch in their hindgut, no one would be doing it.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:43

  Yeah

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:23:55

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:01

  Nope. Nope.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:02

  But there's not that, there's not, I've never thought about it like that. There's not that urgency there. Yeah, cool.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:07

  Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:09

  like, short-term, long-term, you know, the person who's then ending up with that off-the-track therapy, hopefully because they have another part of their life after the track, like, that's the person who's gonna be dealing with it, but, like, in the immediacy, I guess there's…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:21

  Short term.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:23

  you know, gain. And I'm not judging that, but that's like there's a different priority, right, of how.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:24

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:28

  Mmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:29

  Mm-mm. I'll judge it. It's just… It's, um… it's funny, I mean, this was part of my PhD project so many years ago, like, we can see how bad raw corn is in a horse's gut, so yeah, no definite judgment there from me. It's just a… it's a feed ingredient that should never, ever, ever, ever go in a horse's mouth.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:32

  Okay, let's judge it. Let's just judge it.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:41

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:46

  Perfect. Me too.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:50

  You're jumping on the judging bandwagon, everyone.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:24:54

  Trying to be good social workers today, Nerida. This is supposed to be my social work moment.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:24:59

  And then you switch to veterinarian. Love it.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:25:04

  Alright, I'm putting my other hat back on.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:07

  Oh, funny. So, so to, to sort of, um, summarize that, and it's a subject that you should never summarize, but, you know, why we are so resistant to changing even relatively simple things. Like, change is so complex, and there's so many, there's so many.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:23

  social, psychological, emotional, like, all this stuff feeding into…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:28

  Whether or not we change as humans. So.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:32

  there's some… there's some pretty wild examples, um, throughout history of resistance to change, and honestly, the two that I'm going to bring up blew my mind when I read about them. So, the first one was the discovery that iodine was actually the cause of.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:47

  goiter. And is it cretinism? Is that? Am I saying that right? Cretinism, where they're like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:25:54

  people who were born with severe iodine deficiency were severely stunted and had, um, unusual facial features, and there was lots of physiology that went on with being… went with being born in, um, a severely iodine deficient state.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:26:08

  And, you know, people back then thought that goiter was hereditary, because the mother had goiter, and then the baby was born with goiter, so… and it makes logical sense, when you don't understand the science of it, that it's hereditary. So there were… and it wasn't just one doctor, there were doctors realising that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:26:24

  It was iodine deficiency that was causing this condition in humans. And one story that I read a couple of years ago now, a doctor started actually taking iodized salt out to this community and cured them of this disease because they were all of a sudden not iodine deficient.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:26:27

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:26:38

  Wow.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:26:40

  But you can also read in the history of this that, you know, there was, um, doctors that were afraid to leave their house for fear of being stoned, because people were so vehemently opposed to the… to the thought that this disease could be caused by iodine.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:26:56

  that they were wanting to kill some of the doctors that, like, it's extreme reaction to change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:27:03

  Hmm. Indeed.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:27:04

  There's, yeah, it's just, it's interesting from a human perspective, the way we react to things. And then the other really interesting one that, and I remember, and you would too, and maybe not so much, I don't know whether it's because I'm Australian and the ozone layer was essentially disappearing from above us and skin cancer rates are really high here because we don't have so much ozone protection.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:27:20

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:27:26

  But I distinctly remember as a, as a, you know, kid, a young child in school in the 80s learning about, you know, um, CFCs and how they're damaging the ozone layer.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:27:37

  What I've learnt as an adult is it took decades for those scientists to have that science actually accepted in the scientific community, and for them to actually do something about it. And, you know, you've got the…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:27:50

  The companies that were producing CFCs, obviously, were really opposed to it, because if it was true, then they lost that part of their industry.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:00

  And there was a point where they measured the ozone over the Arctic, and everyone thought that the equipment was faulty because the levels were so low that they thought it couldn't possibly be correct. And if you read the story, and in my case, I listened to it in a book, but when you hear the story, you realize how much the scientists who made this discovery, and they knew.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:23

  That they had to keep pushing for change, because they knew.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:28

  But it's just, it staggers me that, that as a, as a community, we all went, nah, like, you know, no, that can't be right. Like, rather than, ooh, you know, maybe these guys are onto something and maybe we should, maybe we should.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:44

  look into this more. They got so much pushback, and they had to, you know, their whole reputation was at stake. They also, you know, received, from what I remember, threats.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:28:46

  Yeah, okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:54

  Um, so it's… it's pretty full-on trying to get things to change. I mean, we're not trying to change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:28:59

  Things at that level.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:02

  But…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:05

  what…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:06

  is… and again, another small question for you. What is happening in our brains when new information is clashing with something we believe to be true? So, you know, in these two situations, people believed it to be true that goiter was hereditary and you couldn't cure it with iodine, and also that iodine was toxic, like, that was… that was the other thought there.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:08

  -H

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:17

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:21

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:27

  And, you know, we believed it to be true that the ozone layer couldn't be destroyed, and that it wasn't CFCs. Like, what goes on in a human brain in those situations?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:37

  What goes on? Yes, and I share our… we are of the same generation of ozone-layered education in the 80s, so yeah, I mean, it was…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:44

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:48

  Memorable, right?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:49

  Yeah, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:50

  And we haven't yet escaped the.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:53

  Debate, I guess I'll say over.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:56

  Ian.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:29:57

  Science and environmental degradation, evidently.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:29:57

  Yeah, I…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:01

  Fun… fun fact is horse… and this is just completely stupid, but did you know electric fences create ozone?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:02

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:07

  I did not.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:07

  And that's how they smell it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:11

  You know how they… There you go. Google it afterwards. Electric fences create ozone, and that's how the animals can detect whether it's on or not without touching it. It's freaky. And I may be completely… It's a long time since I've discovered that fact, and I might be completely…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:12

  What?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:16

  Oh my gosh.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:27

  Completely off, target here, but. Yeah. Yep. Because they absolutely know when it's on.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:27

  I did not know that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:30

  I did not know that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:34

  Oh, they do!

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:34

  Cattle and, yeah, and that's apparently it has a, it has an odor and yeah. Anyway, that's completely off. I just boggled your brain.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:40

  I didn't know. Okay, well.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:44

  You did, yes. Well, speaking of brains, I mean, I do appreciate how you framed this question as a…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:30:53

  brain. You know what is happening in our brains, because, as you know, we're learning more and more all the time about the neurobiology around all kinds of different things, right? And I think that some of these things that we now know to be.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:30:55

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:31:08

  simply neurobiology used to be sort of dismissed as like, quote, soft skills, or, you know, it's just, it's emotion, it's a woo-woo, it's like, this is, this is that these skills can't be taught. Um, you know, this comes up for me remembering even, like, my own medical veterinary education, where it's like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:31:14

  Mmm…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:31:26

  people didn't think you could teach bedside manner, so to say, and as it turns out, it's like, these are actually skills. Like, these are skills that could be taught about communication and.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:31:37

  Empathic.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:31:38

  you know, listening and all these different things. But I think it it changes things when you make something a neurobiological phenomenon rather than just like just the way it is, and like a soft skill. So it might seem like a small thing. But I think it's actually big to frame it that way. But it complicates things for sure.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:31:41

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:31:57

  Because every human brain is not the same.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:32:01

  So there are things that are generally consistent across central nervous system functioning of a species, of course, which is why it's so important to know the difference between how the horse brain works and the human brain works. But we're increasingly aware.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:32:16

  particularly in humans, of course, of genetics, environment, you know, adverse childhood experiences, even, like, medical data points, like concussion history, for example, and so on. And so, the reason I'm mentioning this is that these things influence how we each respond to a particular stimulus, like a change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:32:35

  Or, like, a challenge. And so, I think this is a good time to introduce this Gibbons model, um, of resistance, and this model provides a pretty extensive list of types of resistance to change that we might see.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:32:35

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:32:36

  Yeah, right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:32:49

  And this model has nothing whatsoever to do with horses, but when I look at this list, I think a lot of it resonates with some of the challenges that you and I have been dialoguing about over the past several months.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:33:02

  So for example, I'll just sort of give you a couple of the types of resistance that this model identifies. One, of course, is emotional, right? Fear, anxiety, or uncertainty about the unknown, which can drive humans to resist change or human resistance to change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:33:07

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:33:20

  And then there's liberty. Like, people feel that their autonomy is actually being threatened, and then they expect they're going to have the ability to self-actualize and have autonomous decision-making, and maybe something's a threat to them.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:33:34

  Gibbons talks about identity, like a change might challenge personal or professional identity, making individuals feel disconnected. So this one for me, it brings up like the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:33:46

  This is how we do things, and something new is a threat, and the we could be, you know, a racing stable, a dressage barn, a pony camp, whatever the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:33:57

  group is, the ingroup that's like personal or professional identity related. And then there's the rational resistance. So this is people who resist change because they disagree with reasoning based on insufficient knowledge or the wrong facts.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:34:14

  Uh-huh, yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:15

  I'm going to read that one again because it's so important. You're disagreeing with reasoning based on insufficient knowledge or the wrong facts. So for me, this is where the like 24/7 forage self-regulation conversation comes in because I am told over and over and over again that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:34:17

  Yeah, yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:34

  This can't…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:35

  happen, it's not possible, and so on and so on. And it turns out, like, well, if you're feeding the wrong hay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:42

  You can't feed it 24/7.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:34:42

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:34:44

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:44

  So it's all about, like, there's this resistance to change, but it's based on…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:34:49

  insufficient knowledge, or the wrong facts, or insufficient integration of facts. Right? So you take this concept of 24, 7 forage, and people may have actually had experiences where it didn't work. It made the horses fat. It made them colic. It gave them laminite. It's like all these different things which could legitimately people are like. But this is what happened when I did this thing.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:10

  Yeah, yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:35:11

  But then if you, you know, dig away at the details, it's like, oh, well, that was never gonna be a farge that horse could eat for hours a day. But then that person is resistant.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:17

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:35:21

  to this change forever.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:24

  Yes. And it's…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:35:25

  Because they've had this experience.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:27

  And it's not, doesn't even need to be our own experience. It can be, my friend did that, or my riding instructor did that, or my, you know, someone else that you know. And, and you know, I, I think, you know how people say, never give a hot horse water?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:35:33

  Oh, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:35:44

  Right. Well, in the endurance world, that's not the case, but yes, I know prior, yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:44

  Like, don't let them drink when they're…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:35:48

  Yeah, because you… I mean, you have to, right? Like, imagine what would happen in an endurance ride if you all ran by the rule, don't give a hot horse water. You'd be standing around water points for ages, letting your horses cool down before you let them drink. But my theory on where that came from is…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:02

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:03

  from Black Beauty.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:05

  Oh!

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:06

  Because, you know, he gallops to the doctor and back, and then the stable boy gives him water, and, you know, and then he's down with colic, and he nearly dies, and it's all very dramatic. I actually think that that moment from that fictional book.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:11

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:14

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:22

  Written in the 1800s! It was 1800s, it was a long time ago. I think that… that's my theory, is we're… so, you know, like, there's this resistance to change around, like, just let… let horses drink. I mean, we do it all the time as humans, we're so hot, and it's not a good.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:22

  Has infused all of Horse Management.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:28

  No.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:34

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:38

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:41

  Good, um…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:42

  I shouldn't say that, because there's lots of things we do as humans. As humans, it's not good for our horses too.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:48

  like, let them drink when they're hot, and… but there's… there is definitely resistance to change in the horse world on… on that one.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:51

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:36:56

  100%. And I mean, one that comes to mind for me, it's not even a health-related thing. I think I was just taught as a kid behaviorally because the horse was being poorly behaved, which is terrible. But don't let your horse eat when you're riding. That's like my whole, right? And now, of course.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:36:57

  And and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:09

  Ah, yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:37:12

  In distance driving, you're like, please eat.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:37:14

  Of course they eat. You've like trained your horse to eat on the trail. So there's things that just set up. Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:14

  Eat, yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:16

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:18

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:21

  That, yeah, there is, there is a lot of resistance to that one. We did a, we did a trail ride, Ryan and I did a trail ride in the, in the Australian, um, Snowy Mountains, which was beautiful in April last year, and, and Brad, who owned all the horses and, and led the ride, what he would get us to do when we stopped, because he said to us, every time we stopped, I want those horses' heads down.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:37:30

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:37:40

  I love this person. Never even met him.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:41

  I know, and I just went, oh, thank goodness, because I hate being on rides and just sitting there going, my horse is getting ulcers. Um, but what he would do is get us to stop, turn our horses around.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:37:54

  so that they were facing where the other horses were coming from, and then let them eat. And it was really cool, because it meant that if we were pointing in the direction we were riding, they didn't try to eat all the time, but we turned them around. I was just… it was… it was clever, but yeah, there's definitely… there's definitely resistance, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:37:55

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:04

  Wow.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:38:11

  Uh, in that… in that space as well. And honestly, we could… we could name… So, one that will come up, um, as we… as we talk is the, you know, feeding hay before you ride.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:20

  Oh, yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:38:22

  big one for… for both of us, and, you know, there's… in the last couple of months, I've seen comments on social media, it's a straight road to colic.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:38:31

  And I don't ride with anyone else who feeds hay before they ride. So this fits here, doesn't it? That there's this rational disagreement based on the wrong facts. And it's not necessarily that…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:38

  Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:46

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:38:46

  They've had a horse that collates.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:50

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:38:50

  Or that even the person that told them that had a horse that colicked. It's like this… someone back in the 1800s said it, and it's been passed on down through the generations.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:38:58

  Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:03

  But that fits that model, doesn't it? That it's a rational disagreement.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:03

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:06

  It does.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:07

  Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're going to have to edit this. Do you want to go to the hay before we ride now or keep going with the brain thing?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:17

  Uh, can we, can we blend them?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:18

  Yeah, I think so.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:19

  Can you talk about hay before you ride in combination with the boat thing?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:22

  Yes, I just want to make sure to…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:25

  Well, I just want to make sure. Hold on.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:32

  Oh, okay. Yes, because I wanted to make sure.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:36

  We don't have to do it now. We can keep going with the brain thing. You can.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:36

  Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:38

  No, we could. That's great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:40

  Yeah, but I want to go back to the brain thing because that's where I'm going to end today.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:41

  You do it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:39:42

  Okay, you leave me.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:45

  Feeding before you ride, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:39:48

  So, beating before we ride, and the resistance to that, you and I have said multiple times, like, it's just, it's so upsetting. It's, like, physically upsetting, really, to…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:40:01

  to see that this is such a difficult change to implement. And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:40:07

  You know, working horses without being fed.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:40:10

  Oh, you know what? We should do this later because I'm going to talk about different dynamics. I'm sorry. Let's cut it out. Let's do it later.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:40:13

  Later.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:40:14

  Okay, you're right. No, that's okay. So, so if, if I, if I lead you back to my original question, what's happening in our brains when this new information clashes with something we already believe to be true? So we've, we've gone through the emotional.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:40:30

  Um, aspect, liberty, identity, and we're talking about the rational disagreement.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:40:34

  Yes, perfect. Okay, so I also wanted to mention this really cool paper from 2021 that went further into the impact of this individual neurobiology. And when I read it, and I sent it to you ahead of time because I was like, oh my god, this is so great. Like, I really did think like, wow, like this explains.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:40:51

  Perfect.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:40:54

  a few situations that I have been in. So it was a little bit validating. But the paper is called Self-Compassion and Resistance to Persuasion from 2021, Janina et al. out of France. And this paper looked at.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:41:10

  threatening health messages about soft drink consumption. So essentially, you know, a public health campaign and messaging around drink more water, not soda or soft drinks, right?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:41:20

  Uh-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:41:21

  And so, we know that a perceived threat to autonomy, which sort of mentioned earlier about this idea of it's a threat to my autonomy, creates resistance. And so, the resistance in these studies have been described as anger.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:41:37

  or resistant behavioral intentions. So, like, no, I'm not gonna drink more water, you know, I'm gonna drink the soda because I want to, you can't tell me what to do. So, the study showed.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:41:47

  That the most self-compassionate people act in favor of the arguments of the threatening messages, in other words, drinking water rather than the soft drink, whereas the least self-compassionate people do not.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:41:57

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:02

  Which is interesting because it turns out that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:42:03

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:07

  At least in the argument of this study, that self-compassion seems to buffer the effects of the reactant trait.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:16

  It's expected, and some of us are more reactant than others, right?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:23

  even amongst reactant individuals defined as like people who classically feel really angry after being threatened, that that is buffered by self-compassion. And since we know already from a lot of the self-compassion literature that self-compassion.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:42:34

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:41

  is associated with better emotional regulation. It sort of makes sense if you look at all these things together.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:42:48

  But so even among people who tend to be reactant and reactive to threat, if we're bringing this back to horses now, people who are going to be the most likely to be like, no, I'm not going to feed my horses hay before I ride because of X, Y, Z thing, or no, I'm not going to feed, you know, give my horses access to forage.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:08

  That the most self compassionate among them.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:12

  would be better able to modulate these feelings of anger when they arise.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:43:16

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:18

  And I just sort of paused really when I read all this and thought, well, this is fascinating.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:23

  Because it shows…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:25

  First, the individual variation of all of this that like you're delivering the same message. So in this study, it's like all the people in the study got the same public health messaging. It's not that the self-compassionate people got a gentler message than the non self-compassionate people.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:42

  It's the same message, but one group of people is receiving it in a different way.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:43:47

  And I think this is really a good lesson for all of us when we often blame ourselves. And I'm sure we'll talk a little more about like, well, how do we phrase things? And what should we do? How can we present a message that is going to be more likely to be.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:43:58

  Mm, uh-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:44:06

  integrated, you know, in a meaningful way that we often blame ourselves for, like, we should be better at this. And yes, there are things I think we need to pay attention to.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:44:17

  Also, it's true that no matter what we say and no matter how we deliver it, sometimes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:44:23

  it's going to land in a different way or always it will land differently person to person. So yeah, I just saw that paper and I was like, wow, this is really interesting and has nothing to do with horses.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:44:35

  Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder too, like the people who are most self-compassionate, I wonder if that, that also then sort of extends then to the people who are most compassionate towards their horses. 'cause I, I mean, I.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:44:48

  I have a ridiculous level of compassion for horses, and I know you do as well, and it… to the point where…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:44:57

  it physically hurts, like, I feel something when I see horses with no hay, and I don't, you know, I've worked in racing stables where, you know, we'll do the afternoon shift, and if I'm just there, like, on an initial visit, and just observing, and I go, none of these horses have hay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:03

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:45:13

  It's 3:00 in the afternoon.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:14

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:45:16

  and they don't get fed hay before they're ridden in the morning, it's making me almost feel like I want to throw up now, just saying it out loud! I know! And, like, you just… and I… I remember, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:21

  Yeah, I have, like, my heart rate's going up. You're literally hearing this. Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:45:29

  not sleeping on those nights, because I just… I lie there and think about what's going on physiologically for the horses. And I mean, as nutritionists and vets, like, we have a very detailed.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:36

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:45:42

  image, I guess, in our minds of what is going on physiologically, but do you think the people who've got self-compassion are also.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:46

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:45:50

  more likely to be compassionate towards their horses, and therefore seeking out ways to make their… I mean, it's a…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:45:55

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:00

  I don't know. And the thing that I'm…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:03

  thinking about. So one of my sort of theoretical orientations in my own therapy practices comes from compassion, focused therapy, which is a whole sort of.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:16

  way of…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:16

  Thinking about humans and animals.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:19

  Delivery of clinical services, but… And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:24

  Paul Gilbert is sort of the founder of this, among other people, but he talked about the three flows of compassion, and in compassion-focused therapy, the, um, the model is, like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:37

  to start with three flows of compassion. The first is, of course, compassion towards others.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:43

  There's compassion towards yourself, or self-compassion, there's, like, a whole literature, really, just on that. But the third flow is actually, like, receiving compassion from others.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:46:47

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:46:53

  And so there's a a myriad of ways that that these, the flows of compassion, all integrate with our soothing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:04

  and our threat.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:07

  systems, which is sort of fundamental to this way of thinking about humans. It's like an evolutionary-based approach that combines.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:18

  other… other therapeutic modalities as well. But the flows of compassion.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:24

  Is a really key piece.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:27

  This might not be relevant to this podcast at all, we should probably just delete all that, but I think…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:32

  My short version of the answer.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:36

  They're not the same. I guess what I was trying to get at, and we should cut this out, but I would say I don't think that they are the same necessarily. Because when we think about people, we can flip it around. People can be enormously compassionate towards another person.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:47:42

  Mm-mm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:51

  or an animal, and often their self-compassion is is not.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:47:52

  Uh, true.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:57

  At all.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:47:57

  Yeah… I…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:47:58

  approaching. We're doing a lot of work around self-compassion, compassion towards yourself, because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:06

  One of the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:07

  you know, strategies to help people.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:11

  Be kinder to themselves.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:13

  is to ask…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:16

  If someone you really cared about, a friend, a family member, someone you cared deeply about was experiencing exactly what you are experiencing, what would you say to them?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:48:25

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:26

  And often people will say, "Oh, I would tell them it's okay. I would tell them they're doing the best they can. I would tell them that they're doing well.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:48:31

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:39

  That it's okay that they're struggling.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:48:42

  And… and yet they're giving themselves a really hard time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, no, that's… that is… that's a really good point, so we can be compassionate towards our horses without having…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:42

  And yet, they cannot do that for themselves.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:46

  We cannot do that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:53

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:48:53

  self-compassion. But if we have self-compassion, we're more likely to make a positive change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:48:55

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:49:03

  In, like, we're going back to your water versus soda, soft drink, the people who had…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:06

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:08

  Well, I think you know what I took from that study, that it wasn't necessarily that the perception of the threat to their autonomy is lessened.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:17

  Right? Like a person who does not have.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:49:18

  Okay

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:22

  the self-compassion. Again, I need to, you know, I was not part of that study. I only just discovered that study, so we need to really look at their…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:49:26

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:30

  Um, discussion, but the way it was framed was…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:34

  That the perception of threat to autonomy.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:40

  was different, was substantively different in people who had self-compassion, high levels of self-compassion versus not. So…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:48

  If there's a message that says, yeah, maybe someone is sort of giving you some feedback about how you should spend your time or what beverage you should drink.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:49:58

  People who have self-compassion can say, "Oh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:50:02

  maybe that is a reasonable recommendation. And, like, I don't feel threatened, like, I'm not perceiving it as…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:50:09

  an affront to my personhood, or like a real threat to my identity, that it's…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:50:18

  I mean, ego comes to mind, but that's not really exactly right either. So I'm not sure I would totally I would make the connection that a person who is higher on self-compassion would also be compassionate to others. I would like that to be the case.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:50:33

  Maybe it's more likely that's the case than the opposite, but the opposite is absolutely not the case, unfortunately.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:50:38

  True. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. No, it's. I mean, so I love. I always say if I. When I'm old, I'm going to do another PhD and do it in psychology because. Just because, you know, it's like, I just find human psychology so interesting.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:50:51

  No.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:50:54

  And it was, um, just leading on from that, my partner Ryan was talking to a very close friend of his who has a beef cattle station in Outback Queensland, and they have lots of horses, and Ryan was saying.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:51:11

  to him, you know, you should grab Nerida's app and have a look and see, because there's buffelgrass out there, which is a high oxalate grass and can lead to bone conditions. And his response was, but what if I find out I'm doing a terrible job?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:51:19

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:51:26

  And… and that, to me, and Ryan's explaining this to me later, it was… it was an… it was a real aha moment for me, because I thought, ah… like, I'd never… I'd not considered that this is partly, you know, getting people to use, you know, we… we had, um…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:51:41

  built FeedXL back in the early 2000s, so it was one of the first readily available nutrition calculators on the market, and it still exists, and we've now got the My Happy Horse app, and it's always felt.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:51:56

  Like, it's a hard thing to get people to accept news.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:52:01

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:01

  for lots of reasons, but this was not a reason I'd considered before. Um, and it's really interesting that it's actually, you know, is it…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:52:02

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:12

  is it that we're making people feel inadequate, or… or, in this case, guilty? You know, what if… what if I find out I've been doing a terrible job, um, or ashamed?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:23

  And then I'm going to add the next one in on the pile here because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:52:26

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:28

  I have a situation for myself, and it's really interesting to look at yourself. But one of one of our horses, Popcorn, was, I mean, I bred her, and she, a trainer coach, hopped on her without my knowledge, and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:44

  just yanked on her mouth, like, just, it was terrible. Um, and I'm so furious about that, but ever since then, she's not been the same, like, she can't handle.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:52:44

  Mmhm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:52:57

  just pressure on her mouth, and, like, she'll stick her tongue out and shake her head around, like, it's… I'm gonna say wrecked her, it's a little bit dramatic, but it's really hard for anyone to ride her with a bit. We can ride her in a bossel, and she's perfectly happy, but then, you know, I can't really put young kids on her in a bossel, because you don't.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:05

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:14

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:53:16

  And we had a bit fitter come out, and, you know, we must have tried 15 bits on this horse, trying to find something that was going to work for her. And this is, you know, 18 months after the incident.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:24

  Wow.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:53:29

  And we had a body worker, and she's like, oh, maybe hyoid bone, and the bip fitter said something about hyoid bone, and I've literally, I've not even googled it, I've literally gone, nope!

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:53:39

  nope, I do not need something else to know about with horses. Didn't even know the hired bone existed. And, you know, I mean, I know enough to know that it's connected down through their shoulders or something, but.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:46

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:48

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:53:52

  I don't want to know, because I think if I learn about this.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:55

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:53:57

  Then there's a whole other aspect of managing horses that I wasn't aware of, and I literally… I still haven't… I still haven't looked it up. I know I need to, but I'm… like, I feel myself resisting.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:53:58

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:03

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:10

  I appreciate your boundaries.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:13

  I really do.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:54:15

  It's, you know, is it, is that, I mean, there's the, you know, the example from Ryan's mate, who's like, what if I find out I'm doing a terrible job? And then this one, like, is it because.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:54:27

  in my situation, I just… I can't cope with another thing that I need to manage with horses. I mean, I could, obviously, because we're ever-expanding, but I don't want to have to cope with another thing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:31

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:40

  Right. I think both of those questions are really important. Like, I'm really going to keep them. We're going to do both of them if we can. Because first of all, the hyoid bone question, right? Let's start there because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:54:54

  what you're expressing is so real and so important. And I really I meant it when I said, like, I appreciate that you have a boundary right? Because, in addition to readiness for change, we also have to assess capacity for change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:55:10

  So in a scenario like you're describing, which by the way, I'm sorry you had to deal with all that. That sounds really…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:55:18

  It's so frustrating, so upsetting. It's like there's a lot of emotion there already by the time someone says, hey, have you thought about your horse's hide apparatus, right? But the situation you're describing is like, I cannot cope with another thing.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:55:24

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:55:35

  Inherently, there's going to be limited progress because what you're describing in my mind is overwhelm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:55:42

  And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:55:44

  Um, interestingly, just to keep… as if on cue, honestly, as I was prepping for this, um, conversation, I received a text from a friend who manages a large equine operation that said, and I quote, well, there were some expletives in there, but I'll keep those out, I'm too overwhelmed, and everything is wrong.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:02

  She said.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:03

  So this is like not the time, right, to have a conversation about hyoid apparatus, to use your example, or like anything else, anything that requires like time, effort, anything that's stressful. This text is telling me in that moment, like where that person is.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:56:03

  Ah, oh well.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:19

  And that's actually really helpful, I find. So what's great about that, even though it might be hard to hold another person's stress, is that, like, this person knows she's overwhelmed. You know you don't want to read about the high ed apparatus, right? So that's extremely helpful, because right there we have a sense of what her capacity is, we have a sense of what your capacity is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:40

  Another example that comes to mind actually from this week from a consulting client I spoke with, she said, the gator's broken, there's no money to fix it.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:49

  So if I'm paying attention, I will now know not to make any recommendations that require use of the gator.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:56:56

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:56:57

  right? And if I wasn't paying attention, and I did suggest things that required the gator, I might contribute to the frustration that clearly already exists over a broken gator like we've all been there, and probably lose the rapport and the trust that's essential for building the relationship that's going to enable me to make reasonable recommendations for this farm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:18

  You know, in the future.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:57:19

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:20

  So…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:21

  I mean, this is such important.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:24

  piece of all this, because if we go back to your phrase of, I think you called it, knowledge overload, which I love, like, this is a reality, even if we have lots of capacity.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:34

  And even if we have equipment that works, and even if we had financial resources, we might not be overwhelmed at all. And there's still knowledge overload because there's a lot of information out there. So another example from a consulting client, I had someone say directly to me.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:57:51

  You would appreciate this. That she wanted to be able to make decisions about her horse's diet, and essentially just have the knowledge that was being used in that moment to help her.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:01

  So when we… when this was said, we were looking at the horse's diet, and I was just calculating some things and looking at the products, like feeding rates and so on, that she was feeding, and it was sort of a funny moment, and I'm very clear, like, I'm not a nutritionist, you need to talk to Nerida, you need to get the, you know, My Happy Horse app, but I'm just, like, looking at, like, what.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:58:19

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:20

  And it was just a funny moment, because this person had sought me out to help her, but then also expressed that, like, she wanted to be able to figure it all out herself.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:30

  And I'm thinking of this example because I wonder if her expectation for herself.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:36

  of being able to know all these things is partly a function of all this information that's available now, like, instantly on the internet, like, endless sources of information. Um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:49

  So as you say, so rightly, it's like this knowledge overload thing is just a reality in the horse world.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:58:54

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:58:55

  But just because you have access to all kinds of information, it doesn't mean you know how to apply it or how to sift through it all to make meaningful change or make decisions and like balance your horse's diet, for example, right? So I think.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:00

  Mmhm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:03

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:59:09

  This is an interesting…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:59:12

  and timely question, I guess, like, especially with all the debate around AI, and I realize I might be taking this question in a direction you were not intending at all, but I think that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:59:22

  this is part of the dialogue around how horse owners access information, how they use it, who they get it from, like, and then what they actually do with it. Because that's gonna impact the change piece, and resistance to change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 08:59:37

  Like it's overwhelming enough, I think, to be able to sift through. Even good information is overwhelming, let alone like all the misinformation or like AI generated summaries or substitutes for you or other people.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:44

  Mmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:47

  Yeah, any… any…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:51

  You can start to feel.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 08:59:53

  like, well, this person says this, and then this person… and this is a classic in the horse industry, right? Like, the Facebook group said this, and then my vet said that, and then my riding coach said this, and… and I read 10 articles online, and… and listened to a podcast, and… and… and you get… you get to the point where you just…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:00:10

  breeze. And don't change anything, because you're not sure which way to go. And I find… and, you know, it's funny, often I can see myself out feeding my horses and closing the big gate that I close when I feed a lay, to stop her from going in and putting… because she's like a giraffe, she's huge.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:00:14

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:00:27

  So she'll come in and, like, stick her head over the fence and eat other horses' feet if I don't… if I don't shut her out of this sort of thing. And… and it's… it's not, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:00:28

  No.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:00:38

  it's not uncommon for me to be closing the gate, just going, I am so glad I know as much as I do about feeding horses, because every day I feed them, I go, yep, nailed it again! You know, like, I… there's just this confidence that comes with doing what I do, and then I step out into areas that I am not familiar with, even within horses, but, like, definitely, like, raising.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:00:55

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:00:59

  kids and, uh, you know, doing all of these other things we do, relationships, like, there's all this other stuff in life that we do, that it's… it's so easy to go, whoa, I don't know what to do now because I'm confused.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:01:14

  Yeah, there's overload. There's just total overload.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:01:17

  Oh.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:01:18

  And maybe that's part of the hyoid bone thing for me is like, well, I don't know.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:01:21

  I think that is part of the hyoid apparatus.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:01:24

  I… I don't know highway apparatus. I… I… I'd say I don't even know what it's called, because I haven't… I haven't read up on it, but I… I guess I don't know, like, what is my source of truth?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:01:36

  there, like, who do I go to to find out without getting information? Because I know in nutrition, right, that there's all this information that's really bad, like, I've just… I've brought it up a few times, but there's a lot of information around the benefits, and again, the heavy use of sarcasm and using.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:01:45

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:01:55

  quotation marks of resistant starch in horses' diets. Like, there is no benefit of resistant starch in a horse's diet anywhere.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:01

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:02

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:02

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:02:02

  And yet we have lots of information trying to tell people that there is benefits to feeding resistant starch. So I see it so clearly.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:02:14

  In… in our profession, but then when you step out of your area of knowledge, you start to question what's good information and what's not.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:14

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:32

  Yeah. Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:33

  For sure. And I think, you know, there's the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:38

  Information overload piece and the I have boundaries and I can't deal with one more thing. Scenario. Which understandably leads to serious resistance, like I'm just not doing this right now.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:02:55

  and then going back to the comment about, well, what if I do get information, and that information makes me feel bad, makes me feel guilty like this is really big, right? The like, what if more information tells me I'm doing a bad job

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:05

  -

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:06

  -H

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:03:18

  Or taking it to the next level, what if more information tells me I am bad? I know you're a big Brene Brown fan, and I am as well. So this would fall nicely into what she talks about in terms of I did something bad versus I am bad

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:27

  Uh-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:03:36

  Where the I did something bad is guilt. And the I am bad is shame, right? And so guilt is behavioral. Like I did something, did something bad and

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:43

  Mmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:44

  Mm-mm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:03:50

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:03:54

  be adaptive and motivate, then we can actually make some change. So back to the Gibbons model, there are a few types of resistance that also come up in Ryan's friend's response.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:09

  We've already mentioned emotional resistance, identity resistance, and then also rational resistance, but there's also something that's named in this model called habitual resistance. So this is where people have a will to change, but established habits and routines make it difficult to adapt.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:04:15

  Uh-huh.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:04:27

  Oh, yes, please, please share. Yeah, if you can. Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:29

  to new processes. So the scenario I think I shared with you about the dry lot.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:04:37

  Which is a beautiful question.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:39

  situation would fall would fall into this right where there's like a how do I?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:04:40

  Until you realize…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:04:46

  Umm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:48

  enrich or improve my dry lots, which is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:52

  Beautiful question. I agree.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:04:57

  Until you realize there's no forage in the dry lots.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:02

  And so…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:03

  you know, pause, Katherine, pause, step back, assess, like, where's the readiness? What's the readiness? Because there's readiness for some changes, like, I want my dry lots to be better. Well, that's great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:16

  The perception of what things.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:05:17

  Mmhm. Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:18

  are going to make dry lots, quote, better. Like, there's nothing that is on the list of enriching, in quotes, a dry lot that is going.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:26

  to outweigh the fact that there's no FARG in the trial.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:27

  And it's just like really pausing. Like I find myself, you know, when things get really hard and we sort of don't know what to do, just like just taking a breath is generally good. Because I had to really think about like, well, where do I go from here? Like, you know, because you can only.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:33

  provide the information you're providing. In this case I am being asked for my opinion. So I'm going to give it, which is, you know, there are going to be scenarios that we see things, and we're very upset by things. But no one really asked us, and then we have to regulate. We'll talk about that, I'm sure. But.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:50

  In this scenario.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:05:52

  I mean, I really thought, oh yeah, well, this is habitual resistance. So, like, I want a thing, and I want to feel good about this thing, but I'm really not willing to do the thing that actually would make the substantive change. I want, you know.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:06:05

  Yeah… I…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:07

  some enriching scratching area or something. And I'm like, okay, well, I mean, okay, like, and then we're sort of.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:16

  at an impasse. I mean, if you don't want to put forage in a dry lot.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:20

  I guess that's your call, you know?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:06:25

  Oh, it nearly makes me, it nearly makes me cry. It goes back to the benefit and disadvantage quadrant two, because, you know, the benefit is so high, but the perceived and maybe real disadvantage too, you know.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:32

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:35

  Thank you.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:06:44

  Forage, so it's cost and it's labour and it's it's mess in the dry lot, because all of a sudden there's… depending on how you manage your hay, you can ever use

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:06:47

  I'm like, put straw in a hay hut, like, I don't care what it is, like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:06:58

  Yeah, yep, yep. And it's probably a good time to just bring in the physiology here just really briefly that, you know, 50 million years of evolution says that horses spend a majority of their time eating

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:07:18

  And that is their enrichment, you know, when they're chewing, and it's one of my favorite things is to watch, and I say this all the time on the podcast, so people will know this, but it's one of my favorite things to just sit and watch horses chewing, because they, you know, dreamy, droopy eyes, and there's saliva everywhere, all over their mouth, you know, they're truly… I was showing one of my nieces yesterday when we were saddling up to ride

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:07:23

  Room.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:07:32

  Yeah, so fun.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:07:43

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:07:45

  Of course.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:07:48

  As we're all going to pony camp next week and she was like, yeah, so, so fun. And she was like ready to go, you know, she wanted to get on Poet and Ride, but we just bought him out of and he'd been in the track. And this store in a hay hut, as you called it, out there

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:07:53

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:08:03

  Oh, sweet.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:07

  But I wanted to make sure that he had enough lucine alfalfa in his gut before we rode. And so I said to him, just wait for a minute, Rem, like, we're not ready yet. So instead of putting your bridle on and just having you on him and standing there, I said, just let

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:27

  Eight

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:28

  So she stood there with him, holding him and letting him eat, and then I can show her. I said, see all the all the saliva on his lips now. I said, that's what we want. That's, you know, that's part of what makes him feel comfortable and happy when you're riding him. But, so, you know, there's so much physiology around why a scratching post is going to do absolutely nothing in a dry lot and having forage, even if it's just

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:08:36

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:08:43

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:45

  straw for them to chew on because we can't in the 0.01% of the time we've been in a horse's lives, we cannot rewire what is going to make them happy. Like that it's just… their physiology is so set in stone

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:54

  That… it's… and it's not going to change anytime soon, so, you know, it's… it's… it'd be like…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:08:56

  Snacking.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:08:58

  had to be like me not feeding my kids for days, and going, well, here's a soccer ball. Like, be happy. You know, like, you know, we're starving here, and you're giving us a soccer ball?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:01

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:04

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:05

  Hierarchy of needs. Hierarchy of needs.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:09:05

  It's, you know, like, that sounds ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud like that, but that's essentially what this person is saying is, how do I enrich my horse whilst also… and they're not… this is the… this is the really difficult thing professionally around this space. Like, they… that person doesn't want to hurt their horses, and… and they don't want them to…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:22

  Of course.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:09:25

  Be unhappy or to have acid literally burning holes through the top part of their stomach and causing really severe pain and big welfare issues.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:30

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:09:35

  But there's that… they don't… they don't see that that's what's happening, they don't know that that's what's happening, but then there's also this resistance to me and the hyoid apparatus.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:09:48

  You know, there's this resistance to also knowing, because once you know…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:09:54

  Then you have to change something.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:56

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:09:59

  And when people know and then still don't change, that's…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:03

  really hard to to deal with.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:10:04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:07

  That's that's really hard to deal with. I know you and I are very.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:12

  We're empaths around that, and, like, it's really…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:16

  hard. It's like, there's an automatic assumption of, like, when you know better, do better. But I think one of the reasons this conversation is so important is that it's not even as simple as that, even though I would love that to be the case.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:10:17

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:10:21

  Yeah. Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:29

  Like, if you know better and you're not doing better, well, why? Why, why, why? And the social worker in me is like, okay, we have to really brush away, like, what is on the surface and see, like, what is going on.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:10:34

  Mm-mm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:43

  underneath, and that's readiness for change, capacity for change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:48

  personal and, you know, really individual, emotional.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:10:55

  self-regulation sort of characteristics, right? That each person just responds to things and perceives threat differently. Like, it's just all…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:10:57

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:05

  And your benefit and disadvantage, and then there's the urgent and important as well, you know, like, is it… because, you know, if a horse injures itself, like, cuts its leg open badly.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:05

  Related.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:10

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:14

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:17

  That gets treatment. And with the people that we're talking about, that would get immediate treatment because it's urgent versus.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:19

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:22

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:25

  you know, a horse that has… and in fact, Elay's probably a good example of this, like, there's just something niggly there with her that I can't put my finger on. It's like, is it the girth? Is it this? Is it that? Like, everything… it's like, we keep working through…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:40

  stuff. And part of me goes, what if there is something fundamentally wrong with this horse that we can't fix?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:46

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:48

  You know, and I don't…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:11:49

  These horses should only know how much we worry about them.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:11:50

  I don't want to know that. You know, there's a part of me that doesn't want to know that. I mean, we are… we do… we continue to try and figure it out with her, but part of me is just like, what if…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:12:02

  what if there is something that, you know, an injury from racing or whatever, that would mean that, as a seven-year-old, we'd have to retire here? And I… I don't… I don't want to go there. So it's so, like, what you're saying is so… is… this… this jobbing, and it's funny, I'm sitting here going, part of me wishes I hadn't asked you to do this podcast, because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:07

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:09

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:12:23

  Now, now when I'm working with people, there's all these models that, you know, and like, you understand them so beautifully because of your social work, and I probably understand them now just enough to be dangerous, but…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:29

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:36

  No, no, I think you understand them quickly.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:12:38

  But knowing… knowing there's so much going on and having to think about, well, how do I… how do I try to…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:42

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:12:45

  bring about change in this situation versus how do we bring about change in this situation? Because it's… it's… depending on what's underneath that resistance to change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:47

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:49

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:52

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:55

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:12:57

  Yeah, I think on the one hand, it is, I hear that from you that it's like, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:04

  complicating things is a negative or a frustration, and I think it also can be liberating.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:14

  To realize that

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:16

  It's like, what is within your locus of control and what is outside of that? Like in my office right here, I have this thing that my students look at, it's a blue dot. And inside the blue dot is things that I can control, right?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:13:24

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:29

  My thoughts

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:31

  my actions, my attitude, asking for help right outside the blue dot like

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:35

  Mistakes other people make, what other people say, what other people think, the weather. Like, all that's outside of my control.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:43

  And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:45

  with the horse related, you know, challenges.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:13:50

  The fact is they do feel personal and they do tap into emotions that are very, very real. You and I have talked about whether, like, does this feel like it's an attack on us personally? And I'm like, always like, yes, it does feel that way.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:05

  But.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:06

  We have to go back to like, is that in my blue dot? No, if it's not, then it's not. Then I got to work on my own stuff.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:14:09

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:13

  then it's like, I need to figure out how to self-regulate so that I can cope in this situation, because this is out of my control.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:20

  If we're finding that we're spending a whole lot of time and effort and emotional investment on things that are outside of our control.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:28

  Then, like, then we gotta figure that out.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:14:30

  Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. See, I was up early this morning and thinking in the shower, as you do, and I was like, wow, I've got a real sense of anxiety at the moment, and I haven't… I don't…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:14:46

  um, thankfully, don't experience anxiety as a normal part of life, um, at this point in time, but I recognise it because I did spend many, many years in a very anxious state. And not… nothing to do with the horses, but, um, but I could feel it this morning. I was like, wow!

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:14:50

  So you recognize it when it's there.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:00

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:03

  That's something that I haven't built for a while. And I realized it's because, you know, Pony Camp is a week away.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:11

  Yeah. Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:11

  And the feeding schedule published on the website, you're gonna die when you hear this, the feeding schedule published on the website is.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:20

  Um, one biscuit of hay in the morning.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:23

  And pellets and chaff. So 6.30 in the morning, they get one biscuit of hay, and then they get pellets and chaff, chopped hay, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:34

  And it does say if your horse needs more feed, you can bring it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:38

  But it also…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:39

  So everyone should be bringing seed then.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:15:41

  I know. And, and so I, I read this like weeks and weeks ago and I know like Pony Club Australia has got a really beautiful welfare code and it, it says in that welfare code, horses must not go longer than six hours without feed. And that's not a recommended time. That's the maximum that if you go beyond that, there's actual, like it's actually, they, they can, they can take.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:49

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:53

  Oh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:15:59

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:16:03

  disciplinary action. Um, and that, you know, their recommendation is, like, if a horse is at a trailer, or in a stable, or, you know, during a lunch break, um, they must have forage.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:16:05

  Oh, boy.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:16:16

  And… and that they also say, like, don't… because they bring all these horses in, and they… we've… we've made do not feed signs for all of our horses, because, you know, we take… we take all of our own feed. But, you know, you bring all these horses in, and then they get this…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:16:31

  wheat feed-based, murine-based pellet, which… Katherine's eyes would just float open. So, you know, you imagine for all these little insulin-dysregulated ponies that are bound to be there, and then you're all of a sudden giving them grain, not to mention black starch flow into the hindgut and changing them… like, there's so many things wrong with this feeding system.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:16:35

  Oh my goodness.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:16:48

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:16:51

  And… and I have…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:16:53

  worked with Pony Club Australia in the last month, and they've been amazing. They've made this beautiful document that's got, you know, this is how we feed at camps, and it specifies, like, hay at lunchtime. Every horse must have a hay overnight. If horses are standing around doing nothing, they must be allowed to graze.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:17:07

  Wonderful. Oh, I'm so relieved to hear that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:08

  Or have, hey.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:10

  So it's… yeah, it's great, except there's still been no communication from our club. And I'm… I'm starting to go, what am I going to do if I get there on Sunday afternoon and realize, because I… I can't…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:17:13

  Exactly.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:24

  I can't watch this. I can't… and in fact, we haven't done camps, because I can't stand being there and watching this…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:31

  feeding regime, which is common across my state.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:35

  So, and it's actually making me shake speaking about it now, just going, what am… because I'm going to have to say something.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:41

  Because it's against the welfare code, and I have communicated this to them.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:17:41

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:17:47

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:17:47

  Like already weeks ago saying you need to follow the welfare code like there's this whole kind. So big breathe out and a steadying breath from Katherine. But it feels like a big situation.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:01

  But I've also had conversations with pony clubs in our local area, and have been told, you know, well, this is the way we've done it for the last 30 years. No interest in change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:18:02

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:18:09

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:13

  So this, you know, so there's this, like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:16

  strong resistance to change in this organization. That we're still doing things the way we did them.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:22

  30 years ago, when I was riding as a kid at camps, and I shudder to think now, and you know, it's funny, I look back and go, my horse always lost so much weight.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:32

  During camp. And we didn't know anything about horses as a family when I was growing up, so we would have just followed. And this is my worry, is that the people who are not horse people that go to these things, and there's a lot of them.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:18:36

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:43

  They think that because the organization they trust is telling them to feed this way, then that's…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:18:49

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:50

  That's okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:52

  It's hard.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:54

  It's

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:18:55

  I can understand why your body is telling you something's not right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:18:59

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:00

  You know, like that's just like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:03

  Like, hey, hey, hey, hey, there's something wrong. Like, you're…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:19:07

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:07

  The body never lies.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:19:09

  Yeah, no, your body's always right. And I was explaining it to my brother, who is a professor of meat science, and his area of specialty is dark cutting meat, which is when, if a cow is sorted with not enough glycogen in their muscles.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:12

  It's killing you.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:14

  Gosh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:21

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:24

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:19:25

  there's not enough glucose to create lactic acid, and it doesn't acidify the meat, and then the meat goes dark, and then it's less acceptable to consumers. So that's his area of specialty. And I was trying to explain.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:33

  Wow.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:37

  No.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:19:39

  this situation to him, and I said, in my industry and in my work.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:19:44

  This is as serious the equivalent for you would be if people had had cattle ready to be slaughtered and someone was in that yard and chased them around for hours before slaughter and then expecting a good result. And he was like, oh, like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:19:55

  Hmmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:00

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:20:01

  He got it then because that's, you know, you don't want anything stressed.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:07

  Yeah. Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:20:08

  Um, so, yeah, it's, you know, how to… how to… because I… I don't know how to say to them on Sunday, we cannot do this. This is not… it's a… it's just… it's not right that we have horses in this situation for a week.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:22

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:25

  This is such a sticky wicket because…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:28

  I mean, you're in such a particularly.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:32

  challenging position, given your…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:36

  Professional.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:20:38

  Mmm

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:38

  Given your profession, I mean, what I'm thinking about is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:43

  How do we decide like?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:20:47

  What are our boundaries, right? Because fundamentally, one piece is like, well, is anybody asking for our opinion about a particular feeding practice? Like, I wish that they had reached out to you and said, like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:00

  Wow, Dr. McGilchrist, as the leading expert in this, like, this is our feeding protocol for pony camp, and we noticed that you're going to be participating with your horses. What do you think?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:21:12

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:12

  I mean, that would be amazing, but they didn't do that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:15

  So so you're still you're going.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:20

  And it's like, I think one of these things is like you put it on a spectrum of like on one end is like you go and don't say anything, if that's even possible. On the other end of the spectrum is like we don't go.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:33

  Because there might be a…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:36

  You know, uh…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:39

  It might feel that for a variety of different reasons, it's like, it's just not something that you…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:44

  can support. I feel awkward because I'm not trying to tell you what to do at all. I'm just trying to be like, okay, well, how would we think about something like this?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:21:46

  No, well, and that's…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:21:49

  And that's what that's what we've done is we've just not gone because I can't I can't stand there and watch horses because, you know, the research around this is that there's a really cool paper that essentially creates a pony camp situation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:53

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:21:54

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:22:05

  And it shows that 70 or 75% of horses at the end of 5 days had gastric ulceration.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:22:13

  So, with that feeding schedule that is proposed, 70-75% of those horses, by the research, and I would argue it's going to be more, will have gastric ulcers. And then we go and stick our kids on them, you know, and expect them to behave, go and jump, and do barrel racing, and, you know, hack and rider classes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:13

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:22

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:28

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:22:33

  Without bucking the kid off, because they're in such a foul mood by the… by the end of the week, and it's… yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:33

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:37

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:40

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:42

  I mean, I think…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:45

  Gosh, my…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:50

  Similar, something that's as close to similar, but not nearly as.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:22:56

  specifically terrible and objectively terrible. And you're in this position where you have this expertise. But I was thinking about that. You know I have a relationship or have had a long standing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:23:10

  and sort of valued relationship, you know, with a particular equine facility where the management practices are quite different from mine. And it's been an evolution, really, to figure out, like, how I can navigate that. Um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:23:25

  And stay true to my values, and at times, I've thought, well, maybe I just can't go anymore, I'm just not gonna have horses there, I'm not gonna do it, just like you were saying. Um, because it's, you know, too upsetting, and…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:23:32

  Hmm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:23:36

  I think sometimes we have to make that call for ourselves. So I think it's important to like have a boundary, you know, around exposure to things that really might fall into the like. This is not okay category. But practically, if it's helpful like what this has meant.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:23:52

  with this particular situation is that if my horse is there overnight. First, I stay on premises so that I'm responsible for all his care, and I give him a hay pillow, and he has forage 24-7, and I'm doing a lot of hand walking, and the horse has, you know, a hay net at all times, as we always talk about if we travel anywhere, off-site, and so on, right?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:24:09

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:11

  But I'm not making a big deal about it, or even talking about it, but it's certainly obvious.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:17

  that my horse is the only one with hay in front of him, you know, all the time. And if anyone asks me about it, I'm happy to say it's important that he have forage in front of him at all times, and just leave it at that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:24:20

  Yeah, well.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:24:27

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:28

  And if there's more curiosity, then I'll take the person's lead.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:33

  Back to the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:36

  shame and guilt piece, it's like, my goal is not to shame people who are doing things differently. I typically just find myself doing my thing, like, I'm staying in my own lane with my own horse, or even without a horse. Like, I was actually in a situation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:24:49

  I might have told you about this, but I can't recall. This year I was at a barn where I was very uncomfortable with the management, and I tried my best to take the good and leave the rest. And I now have more information to help me make decisions in the future.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:05

  I was at another clinic in the spring where horses were stalled. Like, it's a similar situation to the first one where I'm, like, hand walking the horse for hours, and I'm keeping him out of the stall, and I'm, like, eating lunch with him grazing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:17

  But I'm just there as a participant. So this is, like, where it's, like, what's our role, and what's the boundary? Like, I'm not anyone's veterinarian in that scenario. I, as I said to you earlier, I don't even tell people I'm a veterinarian. I mean, the cat's out of the.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:24

  Mmhm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:29

  Hmmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:32

  I don't know, because right? Because I don't want people asking me questions about their horse at a clinic right like I'm just there with my horse like I'm not a husbandry consultant in that scenario. I'm just there with my own horse.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:33

  Every month. Katherine's a veterinarian.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:41

  I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:43

  Yeah, there is a horse owner.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:46

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:48

  Now.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:49

  If I'm being asked for my opinion.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:25:52

  either informally or formally, then that's a different story. You know, I think that falls maybe closer into where you might be because you're already in communication with the organization. So then my priority is to approach the conversation nonjudgmentally and with curiosity.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:25:57

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:10

  Which can be very hard, but I think it's important. And this is where understanding readiness and capacity for change, I think, is so essential. So if you know that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:26:12

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:23

  Put the organization.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:25

  is…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:27

  ready for change, or wanting change, or have capacity for change, they just, for some reason or reasons, you know, haven't done it, that's… that's good to know, and they might be more open, right? Um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:39

  But these are all variables that are going to impact, I think, like, A, how we personally behave or how we choose to behave and what we do with our resources, and B, like, how we communicate.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:49

  Or if we even bother, because I think it's important to understand, like, our role, and whether or not our opinion is being asked for.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:26:58

  I mean, in, in, in this case though, like there's a, I mean, the organization has changed. So, so as an organization, Pony Club Australia has a welfare code and, and it, it is, it, it's not, it's not a recommendation, it's mandatory.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:26:58

  You know.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:04

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:08

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:13

  Right. So they're in violation of an already established code.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:27:13

  that people feed that way.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:27:17

  Yeah, potentially. They may, you know, we may get there and there'll be a lot more hay and people told to feed their horses hay all the time. But I don't know that yet. And it hasn't been communicated out to us as.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:19

  Potentially.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:25

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:27:32

  participants yet, um, which is why, like, you know, I'm… it's getting so close that I'm starting to feel… to feel anxious about it. So… but, you know, organizationally, they… they have changed. It's just… then it comes down to the individuals who are leading the club.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:32

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:27:38

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:27:48

  And I think it… I mean, it brings all of this in, you know, there's resistance to change for so many reasons, you know, that we've done it this way for 30 years. Like, if they…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:00

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:01

  If they change and do it differently, does that then feel like an admission of.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:07

  They've been doing it wrong for the last 30 years, and then depending on whether people's identity is tied up in that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:14

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:15

  Because, you know, if it's something that your identity is not tied up in, or you don't have an emotional attachment to it, you go, oh, great, like, you know, let'.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:21

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:23

  Right. And how unfortunate that people are so wrapped up in their identity being to like not have horses fed according to their physiologic needs, you know? I mean, I think obviously I'm being snarky about that, but there is a way to like deliver that in a way that's like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:23

  But…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:31

  Yeah, it's…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:32

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:28:36

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:40

  praising… so rather than saying what we should not do, can we flip and say what we should do? Right. So, like, I don't think…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:28:49

  you know, overall, if we can be if I'm not being asked formally for my opinion. For example, I'm just observing. I'm going to places. I'm play, you know. See things with my own horse.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:29:00

  Uh-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:03

  I try to be quiet about what I don't like and be really loud about what I do like.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:29:08

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:29:10

  Yeah, I love that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:10

  And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:11

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:12

  And I and I think it makes a difference. You know, I'm a big believer in, like, just praising the crap out of things that you see that are great with horses. You know? Like, if I'm in ride camp at an endurance ride and someone's horse has a gorgeous top line, I'm gonna say, like, what a beautiful top line on your horse.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:29:19

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:29:27

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:27

  You know, loud enough that other people can hear me. Like, I'm gonna do that. If I'm at a clinic that, like, the farm, the host farm is really great with management, and I was just recently, and I will shout out Fieldbrook Farm in Massachusetts, so thank you very much.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:44

  Right? I'm gonna say, in that space, like, I love how the horses here are in herds and are outside all the time, right? Again, enthusiastically and preferably in front of other people.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:29:55

  So I guess that's my preferred approach. You know, there are some times when.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:01

  We have to speak up even if we're not asked for our opinion. And this happened to me last week at an endurance ride. There was some profoundly unsafe behavior on trail.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:30:05

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:12

  And I had to call that out, you know? And fortunately, this person eventually dismounted, and so we could move on down the trail without worrying about colliding with a very unhappy horse. But that's extreme, and I certainly don't like being in that position.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:30:21

  Mmhm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:30:25

  No.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:27

  Um, so…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:28

  Overall, can we praise the good?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:31

  Try to be quieter about the bad until or unless it crosses a boundary. And then when there's that boundary.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:40

  Like your pony camp situation, I mean, that seems pretty clear.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:30:42

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:45

  But like what would happen if people who are attending that pony camp decided they weren't going to go?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:30:52

  There's knowledge on the part of the organizers, but there's also acceptance on the part of the people who are going.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:30:56

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:00

  Because it is…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:03

  sort of interesting, I don't know how many people we're talking about, but, like, of all the people who are going.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:07

  How many of those do you think are bringing their own food and own… like, that they're doing exactly what you're doing, and they're like, oh, well, this plan that they're providing doesn't even mean anything to me, because I'm not following it anyway. I know what's right for my…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:20

  And I'm gonna come with my own feeding plan, like I go with my own hay bag to the place where horses have no food.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:31:20

  Mm-mm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:31:25

  Yeah, it's such a… it's such a weird… I don't know, I mean, you can see how ancient the practice is, just like… like, who… like, you know, we never go somewhere and just rock up and let the organization feed our horses something that's completely foreign to them, you know? Like, even changing… even changing hay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:40

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:31:44

  And I had, um… I do a lot of work with Kiramar Racing. It's a big racing stable in Australia. And they sent me a message last week going, have I had some… some colleagues?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:31:56

  And I'm like, okay, what's changed? And when we dug back through, they buy their hay, like, in big lots, so that we've got this nice consistency of hay going through. But this one stable must have run short on hay, bought some hay in, because they knew that they couldn't just leave horses without hay, so they just got some to fill the gap.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:31:59

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:32:17

  and we got colics in that little period of time. You know, this is many, like, I don't know how many horses are there, 60 or 80 horses or something, and it was, like, 3 or 4 colics, so it wasn't, like, widespread right through the barn. But I thought, isn't that interesting? Because you read papers about colic, and change of hay source is one of the things that will.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:32:17

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:32:20

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:32:36

  Sure.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:32:39

  will tip horses into colic. So, you know, it's not just the grain coming into these diets, it's also, like, everything's changing, like, their hay will be different in there, which you can't avoid, I mean…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:32:44

  Yeah, I would never bring my horse anywhere and like just feed what was there. I just wouldn't do it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:32:50

  Yeah. No. And we shouldn't.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:32:50

  You know, I'm not judging other people for doing it, but it is like an interesting practice that they expect people would do that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:32:55

  Yeah, but it's… it's this… it's just been hung on to for… for so long, and I'll… I'll move on. I don't… I don't want to get stuck on this, and… and in fact, we've been… we've been chatting for quite some time. I'm watching the…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:33:00

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:33:07

  Well, hopefully we'll cut out more than half of it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:33:11

  No, I don't think we'll cut out any of it. It's been, it's been so…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:33:13

  But do you want to do hay feeding hay before we ride? Because it actually seems like maybe relevant to your organizational piece.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:33:20

  Yeah. Yep. Was there a particular question?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:33:25

  You had asked, you said, let's use feeding hay before riding as an example, the low-hanging fruit. Why is something so simple, you know, so difficult?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:33:35

  Oh, yeah. Okay. Question. Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:33:41

  Yeah. Okay. Let me, let me ask you that one specifically, because it is, it is such a, it is such a, thing. So just, I mean, related, but moving on from, from my phony quandary.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:33:58

  feeding hay before riding is something that you and I both come up against, and it seems like, and we mentioned the fruit at the top of the tree, this does seem like the low-hanging fruit in horse management

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:34:09

  The lowest.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:34:12

  The lowest.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:34:16

  Yeah, it is. Because it's so easy, right? Like, you grab a piece of hay, when you grab your hole, this is how we do it. Yeah, a piece of hay, grab your halter, throw the hay where the horse is going to be tied up while you're tacking up, go get the horse, put it where the hay is, or, you know.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:34:28

  Whatever your system is.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:34:29

  And yet, we still regularly see horses, and sometimes…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:34:29

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:34:34

  And in the racing world, often it's horses that haven't had access to forage for several hours prior to work, and then they go out and work them on the empty stomach. And lots of people have seen me with my milk bottle. You know, when you do that to a horse, you're taking a horse out that has a completely empty stomach. It's secreted all of this acid in the bottom of its stomach. Katherine's pulling faces that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:34:35

  Mmhm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:34:56

  that perfectly reflect the way my body feels while I'm talking about this. And… and… because, you know, like, we… we know, and we can't unknow this stuff. Um, but they've got… and it… and it can get down to as low as pH 1. Like, it's crazy how low that pH can go in extreme situations.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:35:13

  But then when we work them on an empty stomach, all of that acid is either squeezed or splashed up to the top, and because the top doesn't have any natural protection from the acid, it just is… we know that it is going to start burning holes through that… through that stomach lining.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:35:26

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:35:29

  So, and, and I mentioned, you know, the comments that I've seen in the last few months, like it's a straight road to colic and I don't know anyone who feeds hay before we ride. So, and again, it's a, it's such a short question and there's so much behind it, but why is.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:35:44

  such a simple change. So difficult for so many people. Like, some people will say it, too, and they go, I didn't know that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:35:50

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:35:52

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:35:53

  And immediately, they will start doing it. I've had people stop me at shows and go, you were the person that told us to feed hay before, um, we ride, because I'll do, like, a, you know, when we're away with the school, or whatever, like, I have done little five-minute, like, you've got to understand this, and please, because I can't stand…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:35:54

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:06

  Sure.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:09

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:36:11

  um, seeing horses in, in stables with no hay, so I have to, I have to say something, and that's how I do it, and people who take it will take it, and people who don't, don't. But I've literally had people stop me and go, thank you so much, because the difference it has made to our horses has been so amazing, you know, they're comfortable, and so they're happier and calmer, and, and just, it changes horses when you.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:11

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:21

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:36:31

  you start doing this.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:31

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:36:33

  And yet it's so difficult.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:36

  It is. And I mean, I would really.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:40

  Remember the positive interactions that you're getting from those people, because that's what's going to lift us up when we are…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:36:44

  Mmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:36:47

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:36:49

  situations where… I mean, this… not… this working horses who have not had forage, it's so upsetting. I mean, it's like… it is really one of those things that is, um… you and I… we talk… have talked about it frequently, it's like…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:05

  It's super upsetting.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:08

  And if I were to sort of draw on my compassion around it, I would say that the same dynamics are operating here as anywhere else, as we've been talking about.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:19

  And everything that we've been talking about can be applied.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:23

  But that requires, to be very honest with you, that requires a generosity of spirit that I do not have all the time.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:37:30

  Mm, mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:32

  And this is such a low-hanging fruit, and it is so basic, and it is so simple, and it's like, every person, like, no matter what you're feeding.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:41

  program is throughout the course of the day. If you are riding atop a horse.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:45

  You have an opportunity to be with that horse while you're getting ready to ride.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:37:49

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:37:50

  even if you're throwing a bareback pad, like, it's like, there's not… there is really not a world in which you and I can imagine that this isn't, like, a totally doable thing for every person, and yet it still doesn't get done. So I'm just, like, to truly name that as, like, that's why.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:37:59

  Uh-huh.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:38:05

  It's very hard to have generosity of spirit with this particular thing.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:38:10

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:38:27

  And this is where I think engaging horse industry groups and equine sport governing bodies and veterinary associations would be great because this is, as we say, a very simple thousand percent research based, unquestionably important.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:38:29

  for horse health and welfare practice. And, you know, to me, the horse industry could decide that it cared about this and put some money and effort towards a public information campaign, like, just like anything else that we decide horse owners need education on. I mean, biosecurity comes to mind.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:38:47

  As an example, and when I really dreamed this up, I mean, nobody asked me, but, well, I guess you asked me, but no one, you know, in the industry, like, beyond asked me, but I have thought about, like, there are people who are good at marketing and branding, and they could work with AAEP, for example, to come up with some, like, feed your horse before you ride little logo.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:07

  And start popping it on printed materials and pens at conferences or whatever.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:26

  This is a multi-tiered system.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:27

  um, answer for this question in my mind, because on the one hand, it is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:27

  Just as…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:27

  subject to all the dynamics and all the contextual features and all of the change readiness dynamics that we've been talking about in this conversation. And yet, it is so simple.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:39:32

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:37

  And so…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:41

  misunderstood, I guess. I don't even know if that's the correct — I don't know that it's misunderstood, but the penetration of this as a practice is pretty low.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:39:50

  It's better than it used to be, I have to say, but… but it is… it is still there. And I mean, there's… there's going to be the… there's going to be another quadrant here, too, like, level of awareness. You know, there are still people who are 1,000% unaware, as I was, as a…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:50

  It seems.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:51

  Better than it used to be.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:39:59

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:40:01

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:40:05

  as a, um, you know, prior to being a nutritionist, I had no idea. Even when I was doing my PhD, this wasn't because I was so focused on the small intestine and the hindgut, like, this wasn't something that…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:40:11

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:40:16

  You're busy. You had a lot of other things to do.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:40:17

  But yeah, I had the rest of the gut to deal with. But, um, you know, it wasn't something that I sort of knew, and I can't really remember the exact moment that I learnt it, but I remember getting the awareness of going, ah, gastric ulcers.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:40:34

  okay, this is… this is where… because when I first started as a nutritionist, there wasn't… so I guess it's still relatively new that we're talking about this, like, in the last sort of… can we call the last 20 years relatively new? It kind of… it kind of…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:40:45

  Hmm. Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:40:50

  You're aging both of us.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:40:52

  Yeah, it kind of is, but so there is definitely still people who are unaware, but there is also definitely these people who are fully aware.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:01

  of… and either will deny it to hang on to their own beliefs.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:01

  Hmm…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:05

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:06

  Or just don't do it for…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:11

  Whatever one of the reasons, one of the many reasons we've talked about.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:11

  Right. Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:15

  One of the many reasons. And if there's truly, if this is like people are in pre-contemplation, like there's really no intent to change.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:16

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:25

  No logo on a pen, even to use my example, is going to change that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:30

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:31

  And that stinks, you know, when we reach for them.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:32

  Yeah, because it's the horses that suffer in… I mean, it is in all the cases, but in this, it's so acute, you know, like, it only takes 5 days, as that research showed, of not enough forage and 5 days of work, until a horse is ulcerated.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:35

  The horse is a snuffin'.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:39

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:43

  Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:45

  It's awful.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:41:49

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:41:58

  you know, so, so many people have changed, and I love that on social media, like, when you see, there was a beautiful, um, I think it was Barrel Racing Babes or something like that, the Instagram account or the Facebook, um.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:09

  Oh, good.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:42:15

  group or whatever, and she had water in a bucket and was slopping it backwards and forwards and said, this is your horse's stomach with no food, and then filled it with hay. And that got shared thousands of times, so I find that people get very passionate about this particular topic, and once they're on the train of feeding hay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:18

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:20

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:42:37

  Before you ride, they are, they're big supporters of it

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:39

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:40

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:41

  Oh, I didn't want to interrupt you.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:42:43

  But there's still, it's just… and the pony camp is not… I don't want to go back there as such, but it's a really good example of this is… this is what's, you know, we're not feeding hay before we ride. We're riding them all morning, not giving them lunch, and then going out and riding them again in the afternoon.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:44

  But.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:46

  Oh, no, go ahead.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:42:58

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:00

  So

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:03

  Oh, sorry.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:05

  That's all right. It's still, so it's a lot like I see it, I see horses, you know, I go to events now and most horses have got hay when

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:05

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:08

  And it probably varies, like, discipline to discipline, too, because to be honest, you know, endurance, like, I… one of the reasons that that's my discipline is because I'm very comfortable with.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:16

  tied to their truck or float, or

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:20

  the horse care practices, like you don't see it's, you know, there's good and bad everywhere. I'm not saying endurance is perfect by any means, but.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:29

  You would never see horses not eating, mostly, because they have to eat.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:34

  to perform in the discipline. So, I think it also goes back to a little bit of what you said of horses being so, um… you didn't use the word stoic, but I was thinking of it as, like, they're…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:44

  they're sort of fine until they're not fine. And then there's a disaster.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:47

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:43:49

  it's… it's not to their benefit for them to be so tolerant and so resistant of such, um, subpar management practices, you know? And I think that's, like, if horses were having acute, obvious.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:43:58

  No.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:44:04

  issues, either with performance or health, I would hope, I would think that people would do things differently, you know? And of course, in the Icelandic horse world, this is, I mean, this is like a whole other topic, but these horses are, you know, a thousand years.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:05

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:44:19

  of being fine.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:44:21

  with all conditions, environmental or human, for that matter. And, you know, it doesn't serve them in all cases, because humans don't perceive that they have needs.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:25

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:31

  Yeah, yeah, and it, and it, it, it's, this is a, so often the not feeding hay before you ride, and then the, the, the symptoms of that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:42

  are often behavioural.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:44

  But then they're interpreted as…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:44:47

  That's behavioural, you know, and the horse has worked harder, or worked more often, or fed less hard fed, or whatever, you know, like something trained in a different way to try and overcome those behavioural issues, and all the horse is trying to tell you is, my stomach hurts because there's nothing in it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:02

  And the acid from the bottom of the stomach is getting up to the top of the stomach, and my evolution said that that would never happen.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:10

  And I have no protection from that acid in the top of my stomach, and I need to use the protection that evolution gave me, and that was to have it constantly full of porridge.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:45:10

  Exactly.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:45:22

  Exactly. You know what we need is the study… we need to combine forage before riding and the 21 behaviors of the ridden horse in pain, and, like, apply the, you know, ridden horse pain ethogram to bed and…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:32

  Ah, yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:34

  Oh, I'm surprised that that hasn't been, that hasn't happened. Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:45:36

  Fed and unfed horses.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:40

  Yeah, I think that'd show… that'd show so clearly that that… that that would be… it'd be a hard study to do, because you'd know that there's horses being ridden with them. We can't be involved in that, because we'd know that, um, there was horses that were being.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:45:41

  I'm going to get you guys together.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:45:52

  I know.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:45:53

  Um, we'll have to edit this bit out, David, but is there any other… because we're going to have to finish it, um, because we've been chatting and chatting and chatting. We may split it into two episodes, maybe, but we'll see.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:03

  Oh, sure.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:46:05

  Is there any… I reckon… is there anything that you want to cover particularly? And then I'll… and then we'll jump to where people can find you, and I do want to ask you your magic wand question.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:05

  What did we…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:17

  Oh, yeah, I think…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:19

  I think we really covered. There's one.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:25

  David's going to have more work to do on this one than the last one. Sorry, David.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:33

  Oh, right. Being a good horse person. I think we covered that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:39

  Covered that.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:46:42

  And we did 10. I think you were talking about, you know.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:46:47

  We've sort of covered 10.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:46:49

  I think.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:52

  You wanted to mention something about a saddle fitter for…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:46:54

  Yeah, we don't need to… we don't need to do that one. But you've sort of talked about, you know, figuring out where people are at, and… and, you know, talking about the good, not so much about the bad, like, there's… there's been lots about…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:46:55

  See? Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:47:07

  Great. Just, are we being asked for our opinion at all? But I think that we covered that pretty much, you know, like, assuming we are or not. Um… Oh, the question about the, um… the… this doesn't feel right, but someone else is…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:12

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:22

  Ah, yep. Yep.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:47:23

  I mean, I don't know if that's, it's a very brief answer, but the phrase is about like power over relationships, which might be, I don't know, worth mentioning, but.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:34

  Yeah, and also there'd be herd, well, herd mentality and safety and stuff all built into that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:47:42

  Kurt, where is that?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:42

  I can, like, no, I just said that out loud.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:47:45

  Oh.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:46

  No, it wasn't written down. I can ask that. I can ask that one. Um.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:47:52

  Because it is an important one.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:47:53

  Yeah, it's pretty brief, or my response is pretty brief, but I think it's important if people want to, you know, if they're just to know that they're not alone, that sometimes it's like there's some trainer or someone who seems like they're…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:48:05

  the the big cheese, and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:48:07

  And you have to try and go.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:48:08

  If they're not feeding their horse before they ride, then…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:48:11

  Yeah. Yeah, well, it does tie in. Okay, so the feeding hay before you ride, I think, you know, continuing to educate and putting that message out there, getting it on some pens.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:48:26

  Um, but you know, as a, as an example, but it does, it just needs to be, um, well, when I say just, it's a complicated, it's a complicated thing, but I think the more people realize, the more people we have on the feed hay before you ride train, and then it will hopefully kind of snowball.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:48:40

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:48:41

  Social norming, making it normative to do it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:48:42

  Yeah, yes, which, which leads beautifully into, thank you for that segue, leads beautifully into, um, the next question, is that, um, there was a situation that you described, and I think a lot of horse owners will actually recognise, is you look at something and think, this doesn't feel right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:49:00

  But your trainer or vet, instructor, breeder, or perhaps even an entire industry, and the thoroughbred racing industry is a good industry as an example here, around you is saying it's fine. So it can be saying it's fine by literally saying it out loud it's fine, or saying it's fine.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:49:18

  Fine because it's what everyone does. So feeding raw corn, for example. In my life as a whole industry saying it's fine when the science has shown for a long time that it's actually not fine. So what is happening psychologically when our own judgment conflicts with an authority figure or a culture that we.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:49:19

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:49:28

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:49:38

  respect. Um, and I think this is something that horse people do come up with a lot, so how do we help them trust themselves.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:49:47

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:49:48

  When something doesn't feel right for their horse, and especially in that situation where everyone else around them is saying, it's fine.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:49:56

  Yes, I think this is really important because it comes up a lot and because there's a tremendous power.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:04

  dynamic in the horse industry around trainers.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:09

  industry, generally a particular discipline, even a veterinarian. Right? But so I want to mention this concept of a veterinarian.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:19

  concept that we call power over relationships, which those of us who've been in relationships that are unhealthy at times are familiar with this, right? And this is where one party has more power control.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:50:22

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:37

  or authority.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:37

  often at the expense of another party. And this can be in interpersonal relationships, this could be, um, I work with graduate students who are in a power over with their PI, um, in their PhD programs, and we might think of the relationships we have with trainers or the horse industry at large as falling into these power over.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:50:56

  dynamics. And so they really activate.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:01

  These other factors like self preservation, fear of rejection, fear of isolation. And then there's a.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:08

  perception that people are credible when they may not be on all fronts. And this is really big, because I think we trend towards having all nothing thinking patterns around people in positions of power.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:25

  Um, and…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:26

  I've been there in the horse world, I've been there in my personal life, I've been there, you know, like, we've all… it's a very common… I just want to, like, be vulnerable and model that, like, this is very common, and we…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:40

  need to rely on ourselves like you were doing, right? With like, I feel this thing. I feel worried. I feel anxious. Like, what is this feeling that might not be a cognitive thought yet, but it's like the body is saying something is not right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:51:55

  Hmm. Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:56

  And…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:51:57

  the body always knows, and the body never lies. So if we're in situations with our horses that are like drumming up feelings, or even like somatic sensations around like this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right, and we those might be familiar from non horse related.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:12

  parts of our lives, I would just really invite people to listen to that, and not ignore it, and recognize that, like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:20

  There is no emergency in the horse world. Like, these things in the horse world, it's not an emergency. This is not…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:27

  like.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:29

  life or death emergency in this moment that I need to do what this person is telling me to do. Like we can take a breath, we can pause, we can just take a moment to just check in with ourselves and be like, what is that niggling feeling I'm having? Okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:44

  And just be able to even develop.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:48

  a self regulatory tool for like in the moment. If you're with a trainer or something's happening in a barn that you don't feel comfortable with.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:52:56

  to be able to pause and say, I'm going to think about this.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:53:00

  Or I'm going to give that a minute. Or like, thanks for that information. I'll get back to you. You know, just some sort of like pausing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:53:09

  statement that can help you ground and regulate. Because if you're feeling that something is not right, it is not right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:53:14

  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:53:16

  So, it's… I mean, it can be an in-the-moment thing, or it can be just a really long-standing… I mean, not feeding hay before…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:53:25

  We ride is a good example of it. Feeding cracked corn to thoroughbred or any racehorse is another good example of it. You know, it's, it's these things that they're relics of the way things used to be done. But I think in some cases there's a, there's a fear.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:53:27

  No.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:53:41

  Fear around.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:53:42

  changing, because then you'd be doing something different to everyone else. And what if you're wrong, you know, like, and I think that's what it is in in racing is that, and I see this with young trainers. They come into the industry, and they're much more idealistic, and they want to do things differently, and they want to do things the right way. But training is a numbers game, right? Like you have to train lots of horses before you get the really fast ones that will go and win.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:53:47

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:04

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:07

  Great.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:54:07

  Win races for you. And, and they start to lose confidence in their own choices. And then they'll go and look at what the, the big trainers are doing. And so often, unfortunately, they're still feeding in a really traditional way.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:54:23

  And so they'll change.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:23

  Great.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:25

  Right.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:26

  Well, you know what I say to students is your old habits will always be there for you.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:54:26

  2.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:32

  Like, your old ways of doing things will always be available to you, so you could go back to doing that at any time.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:54:38

  Mm-mm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:39

  what would it be like to try something different? Like, we've been doing this for however long, or, you know, whatever the specific conversation is with the trainer, but, um…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:49

  It's like, we don't even have to necessarily argue the old ways, although obviously there's legitimate reasons why we could, but it's like, okay.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:54:57

  Well, OK, we've been doing that that way. So let's —.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:01

  try something different. Could we try something different? Even for, like, a brief, like, some sort of time-limited.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:08

  Period of time. Like, is there a willingness maybe like, can we do a dose control of this change to make it less scary? Like we're going to, for the next six months, whatever, it has to be long enough that whatever the changes that we're recommending, you would see benefit. Like when people are like, oh, I'm going to try to feed my horses.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:55:09

  Mm-hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:25

  free access to Forge, like, for the next two weeks. I'm like, yeah, let's not even bother. That's not gonna be worthwhile.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:55:31

  But yeah, but feeding hay before you ride is worthwhile, like, you know, if you haven't… because, you know, there's no downside, there's only upside.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:35

  Oh, that would be a great one. That would be a great one.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:41

  And if you don't like it, if you find that that is somehow really problematic, you can go back to doing it the way you did it before. I mean, I don't think anyone will do that. I really don't. I'm like, I'm that confident in this practice.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:55:49

  Yeah, oh.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:55:50

  No, don't.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:55:53

  yeah, yeah, that the change in the horse is going to be so noticeable that yeah, that they will. Yeah, they will change. And I will give a shout out here to Kiramar racing because they they have bucked the trend in Australian racing. You know, they've really stepped away from doing what everyone else does. Their horses have got hay all the time, and there's another trainer that I've been been working with just sort of.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:55:58

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:56:15

  Good for them.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:56:18

  um, on the side, uh, Mitchell Friedman, who, he sends photos now of horses after racing with hay bags in the tie-ups, and, you know, at trial, I know. So good, and it makes me, it makes me so happy to see, you know, there's.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:56:31

  change is happening, it's just so slow. I don't know, maybe, like, and it's always going to be, you know, like, we like to move quite quickly with things, so we're always going to want to speed things up, but.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:56:36

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:56:47

  It is there, and it is a joy to work with those people, you know, who do want to change, and they will take on these things, and try them, and…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:56:50

  Mm-hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:56:57

  And, you know, they're also seeing amazing success with it as well. You know, these horses are racing like crazy. So, um, yeah, I just, I just wanted to mention that, that it is such a, and you will have people like this as well, that we, we say, you know, try this, they do it, and then, you know, you get, you get the stories back of how much better, whatever it is.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:57:03

  Amazing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:57:14

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:57:18

  Whatever it is, is, but.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:57:19

  And promoting all that positivity, right? Like that's what would be just, I want to hear more and more and more great stories, like more and more support of all this. And that will turn it over eventually.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:57:26

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:57:29

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:57:31

  Yeah, and it, and it's the, you know, I mean, this, this comes down to being, we both do what we do because of the horses. It sounds so cliche when I say it out loud, but it, it's, you know, it is because we want this.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:57:47

  this better life for these horses? Because we've chosen to have them in our lives, and you said this right at the top, that, you know, we choose to have them, and therefore it is our responsibility to make sure that we're meeting their needs and managing them in a species-appropriate way, so that they are happy and healthy and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:05

  pain-free, and they have got friends, Forage and Freedom, like, um… all these… all these things that… it wasn't… it wasn't how horses were managed.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:16

  A long time ago, but we also didn't know how to manage them a long time ago.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:21

  So we need…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:22

  We also weren't doing this for fun as much. I do think that's important, right? Like, I'm not saying it was justifiable.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:25

  True, yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:31

  Ever, you know.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:32

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:34

  But there is something right now about.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:38

  We are not, by and large, using horses for transportation.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:43

  agricultural production. So this is for fun. Like, this is…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:48

  an activity for people to enjoy. Yes, I know racing is a gajillion dollar industry, that's okay, but it's still…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:51

  Yep.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:55

  It's still for people to enjoy.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:58:57

  For people to enjoy. It's still for people to enjoy. So I think the justification of poor management.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:58:58

  Hmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:05

  It holds less, I mean, not that it ever held, I'm saying, you know, water, but especially now.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:12

  I mean, what are we doing? Like, we don't have to be riding horses at all. We did need horses. We needed horses, right, to build civilization. And so, yeah, the practices probably weren't ideal. They weren't ideal.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:59:16

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:26

  But I just think it's such a different experience in like the horse human relationship that I actually wish people talked about more about like, what is this thing that we're doing with horses? Because it's for us the total luxury. It's completely unnecessary.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:59:41

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:43

  And I think it's okay to name that, even though I love it so much, right? And we all, it's like our lives, so many of us.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:50

  But…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 09:59:52

  It's for fun.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 09:59:53

  Yeah. And it just puts an extra emphasis on that. We need to do the best we can to make sure that our animals we keep for fun. And yeah, we literally.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:02

  Great. I mean, I'm sure that's unpopular. Like, I don't know if that comes across in a terrible way, but I think it's important to say.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:00:08

  No, it's…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:00:10

  Yeah, I mean, we don't ride them. I actually had a conversation with a gorgeous old gentleman, uh, last weekend, I think, at the, at one of our local shows. We'd gone down tomatoes jumping and, and he was, he was chatting to me about riding his pony to school.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:00:29

  So, you know, it was still, there's still people around too who used horses because they needed them for transport. And it was really, it was really cool sort of, you know, hearing your stories about riding this pony to school. And I think in Australia is still in.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:31

  Wow.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:34

  Amazing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:38

  Wow.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:00:44

  It's still in school.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:00:45

  legislation or whatever, I don't know what the right word is, but if a student rides a horse to school, the principal must provide the horse with feed. And so some cheeky kids somewhere realized just recently that that was the case. So they rode their horses to school and made their principal feed them for the day.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:48

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:00:56

  Nice.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:01:04

  That's amazing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:01:07

  That's amazing.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:08

  It was very funny, but anyway, I'm getting Deanna a rabbit hole there that we probably don't have time to go to go down, but we do need to wrap this up. We could talk about this for days

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:01:16

  Yeah. No, it's all good.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:01:25

  Oh my god, Marilyn.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:26

  And we're sitting on almost two hours. And you know, we've only just dug into it. We've scratched the surface of this. But I think as an industry

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:40

  What I really want to see is that we all continue to embrace change where that change

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:42

  Benefits

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:43

  our horses. But as we've seen from the iodine and the, and the, you know, CFCs and the ozone layer, like, change does take time.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:52

  So…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:01:54

  actually, before I do this, I'm going to give you a magic wand to create change, but before I do that, I want to ask you, where can… where can people find you? So, you now have Horses First Stewardship.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:02:06

  And you are available to work with horse owners. So can you, can you just let us know briefly, um, what it is you do, what services, what, what, how you can help people, and also where people can find you?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:02:08

  Dot com? Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:02:17

  Sure. Yes, I do now have a website since the first recording of our episode 44. So that's exciting. It's just horsesfirststewardship.com. And that's where people can find me. I'm also at horsesfirststewardship@gmail.com. And my goal is to.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:02:33

  Educate and support and advocate and just help people who are in the stages of change where they are wanting and willing.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:02:44

  to make some changes and have questions. And, you know, it's really a very natural outgrowth of the conversations you and I have had, which is pretty gratifying, actually. So thank you for all of your support with that. And yes, I, you know, there's a focus on track systems just because that's a particular.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:03:04

  um, you know, interests of mine, and I have personal experience with that, of course, but care and feeding practices, and then if people have just challenging, weird situations, you know, where they've spoken to a bunch of different people, and they feel stuck, and they want to talk things through, I'm very clear about boundaries around.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:03:05

  Mmhm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:03:22

  you know, I'm not your attending veterinarian, we need to figure out what the expectations and limitations are if I'm working with people from afar, but I'm happy to talk with people about species-appropriate husbandry.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:03:35

  Anytime. It makes me very happy to do this work, so.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:03:37

  Hmmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:03:39

  Amazing, amazing. So if you think Katherine can help you and she will be able to help you, I can say that with confidence. If you're in that space where you do want to change, then reach out.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:04:01

  out and get in touch.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:04:01

  So back to change and resistance to change. As I said, it does take time. And so if I…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:02

  Hmm.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:04:04

  gave you a magic wand, and you could make change with a single tap. What are the three feeding or other horse management practices you would change immediately?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:10

  Yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:11

  Mine are going to be very unexciting for people who've listened to us talk all this time, and have talked to me for more than 10 minutes about horses, because it's forage available at all times.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:23

  No solo horses.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:25

  And the third is like, how do I phrase this? I'm not saying I don't want horses in stalls like ever, because there are going to be times when horses are, you know, inside awaiting things, and that's fine, but no stalling or stabling as a default living environment.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:42

  Like, I would really like the word turnout to become something that people think, what does that mean? That sounds like a ridiculous word, because turnout presumes that a horse is confined all day.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:04:50

  Hmm… I see.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:04:56

  Mmm.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:04:56

  And I was thinking about this, I've been thinking about this recently, that like, what is turnout?

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:05:03

  You know, also…

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:05:06

  blends into this conversation about pasture and pasture management and what is pasture because Horse people often think about turnout just as liberation from confinement. We're not thinking about the pasture as like a nutritive or behaviorally enriching thing in a horse's life. And so I think to rethink that.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:05:26

  would be pretty transformative. So yeah.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:05:28

  Friends Freedom Forage. I mean, I know it's so boring, but it's very important.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:05:31

  What?

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:05:33

  It is, it is, and it's such a cool, um, yeah, Friends, Bread and Forage. It's so, it's so simple, three words, and you can sort of say everything that a horse needs.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:05:42

  That's right. That's right. So thank you for all you're doing to promote this and to really bring life to these important conversations, because it's…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:05:43

  Yeah.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:05:44

  I love it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:05:52

  Well, I can't do it without amazing people like you, so thank you for… thank you for being here, and thank you for all that you've shared today, like, that… that was a lot.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:01

  This is a metaphor for the time it takes to make change because we've been here for two hours.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:01

  The and and.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:05

  Yeah, just talking about change. Um, but, you know, it's such a… it is… and you've actually inspired me. I'm like, okay, to do my job really well, I need to learn more around.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:20

  this pace, and the human psychology of this pace, because.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:21

  Hmm…

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:23

  if… if… where… I mean, you've… you've got such a cool advantage, because you are a licensed clinical social worker, and you have all of this training, um, but for the rest of us who are nutritionists and scientists, I think.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:38

  You know, the more of this, and this is where, you know, as a community of horse professionals, we need to work together, because it's the horses that are gonna win.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:47

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:48

  Yes.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:06:49

  And that's all that's important.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:49

  Yes.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:06:52

  Exactly. And this is where the cross pollination, I think, is so important and exciting. You know, like, how can people like me help like with the communication? Because it's like teaching people to fish and fishing, right? Like, I love working with people. It's really wonderful. But you are in contact with.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:07:10

  vastly like the number of people you're in contact with will always exceed, right? And so that means for you to be able to have the skill to figure out where people are in their stages of change. I mean, that's going to make far more difference than me just yammering on about it.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:07:26

  Well, yeah, we're all in this together, shall we say? But truly, thank you, Dr. Katherine, that was amazing. I love that conversation. I always love our conversations, but just that the human psychology mixed in with the horse nutrition is just the coolest.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:07:30

  Right.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:07:44

  place to be. And, you know, there's lots of work to be done, but I think we're also learning the tools and have the skills to help.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:07:54

  the horses, and I thank you for your knowledge, and for being willing to share it, and for being willing to spend your Sunday evening talking about change in the horse industry.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:08:04

  Thank you for having me.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:08:07

  Thanks, Katherine.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:08:08

  We'll catch you on another podcast sometime soon.

  [Katherine Goldberg] 10:08:11

  Okay. Woo. Okay.

  [Nerida McGilchrist] 10:08:14

  Awesome. Thanks, Katherine.