Do you look at others and wonder how they do the magical things they do, with their horses? With their lives? They must be Magicians, right! Do You wonder, Will it ever be possible for YOU?

Welcome! I’m Paige Wilde and this is my podcast, A Leg Up; the MAGIC of Horsecraft and Life; This is a podcast aimed at helping YOU access the Magic needed to find joy in the shitstorms of your life, AND, to connect like one of the Wizards in the World of Horsecraft.

I don’t care whether you ride your horses forwards, backwards or sideways - if YOU are struggling to find the connection that you always dreamed of, this podcast is for YOU! In fact, since we will be examining what it takes to succeed in life and to overcome our obstacles and debacles, you don't have to be a rider at all. Our horses and our stories are a metaphors to inspire you and to show you how WE ARE ALL THE SAME!

Join me as we explore the ingredients needed to find joy in our shitstorms, AND to create Magic with horses. Together, we'll examine whether feel, connection and resilience are learnable.

Spoiler alert: they ARE!

Turns out, the Magic Sauce ALL Wizards in the World of Horsecraft are dipped in ... is the same as the Magic Potion that Remarkably Resilient People use, to find joy in the chaos of their lives. We’ll check out these ingredients by sharing stories with the most extraordinary humans I know, renowned for their Wizardry with horses, AND for overcoming stupendous obstacles.

As an International competitor in the equestrian sport of 3 Day Eventing, I was one of those people seemingly BORN with the magic. In the horse world, the consensus is that the 'Magic' is not teachable.

I am here to call HORSE SH*T and demonstrate that it IS!

I know, because I LOST the Magic. When bankruptcy, divorce, homelessness and cancer came calling, they stole more than my health – they stole my identity. With my frayed nervous system, horses fled my touch. Thankfully, the ultimate shitstorm trifecta of cancer, chemo and covid 19 gave me time to study and I cracked the code! I am regaining the Magic a little more, every day!

And my interviewees? Join me for a mini-series of interviews with my friends and peers in equestrian sport as we share stories of resilience and connection.

Carmen Theobald – the Queen of Connection - How trauma inspired her to live wholeheartedly and courageously and help others do the same

Leslie Grant-Law – Bullet Proof Bitch of Eventing … or just a regular gal? Leslie is known for her no bullsh*t candor and will dispel our misconceptions about what it takes to succeed

Tyk Maynard – Master of Magic with Horses – his pursuit of connection and the path that lead him to Liberty work with horses will open your eyes to possibilities

Kim Walnes – known as ‘Mother Goose’, Kim is The Mother of Resilience – we’ll explore what it takes to come back from a broken life, how horses can help humans in their spiritual growth, and what they most want us to know

Denny Emerson – The Master of Reinventing Life with Horses – Denny has owned his mistakes in a way that allows us freedom to do the same, opening the doors for change and greater harmony to our riding and our lives. We’ll explore what we could do with new understandings of the science of connection and a time machine, to connect with a shared horse from our past – Speed Axcel

This is a podcast to inspire anyone who ever felt like a Muggle in a world of Magicians – We are ALL the same and ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! Listen in, to get a Leg Up in Horsecraft AND Life!

Welcome to the first episode of my first podcast – my ‘Mission Episode’; where you will find out what led to my theories about the magic of ‘feel’ being learnable and to discovering my superpower. Turns out, I can find joy in a shitstorm! I talk about how my life’s trajectory was blown onto a new course by the blow of a young horse’s hoof … and how a little Mustang named Cimarron outed me for having lost the ‘magic’ I was seemingly born with. In the end, you will see that we are all the same, that anything is possible and that YOU can do it, too!

To learn more about me and read my blog: https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca

Sign up for the beta version of my courses in development: https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca/courses

I am a certified HeartMath practitioner. To learn more about HeartMath and their tools, check this out: https://www.heartmath.com

Music credit: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Today’s show is all about the elements of connection. In my experience as a coach, many riders struggle to access the elusive ‘feel’, instincts and timing needed to work the magic they witness in others and have always dreamed about having for themselves. It turns out, the same ingredients needed to establish these things, are also the foundation of resilience. I know, because I once had the ‘magic’ with horses and lost it, through my response to trauma. Two workshops on the science of sentient communication and nervous system regulation were key to unlocking this lost gift, and to discovering I had a superpower: I can find joy in a shitstorm! And YOU can, too.

Join me for a conversation with my friend and mentor in Equine Facilitated Learning, Carmen Theobald; an Advanced Eponaquest Instructor certified with Linda Kohanov. Carmen specializes in the horse-human connection and helping us access the clarity, connection, and courage we need to live an authentic life. Together, we revisit the ‘ahah’ moments that lead me to a deep dive into nervous system science and a conviction that the ‘Magic of connection’ is learnable. We’ll talk about the pre-requisites we need to connect with others – horses OR humans. 

If you ever wondered how it is that your coach can connect with your horse at a level that eludes you, or how some people pull off seemingly superhuman feats of resilience, listen in. This show is for you, if you are looking to develop the qualities you need to become more resilient, to deepen your feel with horses, or to enhance your connection with horses and the people around you. 

Together we will explore:

* How vulnerability is a both a superpower, and a strength we can build for connection

* How horses recognize when we are incongruent (when what we show on the outside doesn’t match what we feel on the inside) and why it matters

* How horses communicate through their energy field (and how we can to)

* The ingredients needed for ‘The Magic of connection’

* The foundation we need for ALL healthy relationships – horse or human

* How our nervous system functions, the states of fight, flight, freeze and why it matters

* How to use our breath to connect with others

* What pressure and release can look like – the roots of Liber work with horses

*Note: Todays show comes with a trigger warning, as it discusses trauma and our responses to it.

LINKS:

You can find me at: https://www.facebook.com/paige.wilde1

https://www.instagram.com/wilde_paige/

https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca/

To discover more about HeartMath and tools that measure our nervous system states through our HRV (heart rhytms):

https://www.heartmath.org

To check out Carmen and what she has to offer: 

: https://horsesensenorth.com/

: https://www.facebook.com/horsesensenorth/

: https://www.instagram.com/horsesensenorth/

To learn more about our course ‘The Music of Horsemanship’: 

Get ready to meet and love my friend Lesley Grant-Law. You will resonate with Lesley if you have ever looked at someone else's life and wondered how the hell they did it??? Lesley will tell you! Lesley's superpower is her honesty and ability to be gritty and real. She just LOOKS like a fairy tale princess, and we often assume that anyone who lives a life with horses is living a fairy tale. 

That is partly true. There IS a dreamlike quality to ANY life we create around horses when we strive to do it to the highest level possible … but Lesley will tell you what it takes if you were NOT born a Rockefeller, OR with boat loads of ‘talent’. 

Lesley has been short or long listed for the Canadian team 8 times, a reserve for the Pan Ams twice, and would have represented Canada in Beijing, were it not for a heartbreaking last-minute lameness with her horse Timber Spirit. She is married to British riding phenom Leslie Law, and together they run their successful business Law Eventing, while at the same time raising their son Liam and running off to soccer practices. 

Recently, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of weeks with them at their farm in Ocala Florida and witness the reality of what it takes to pull off what looks like magic … but in reality is something quite different … and perhaps even attainable for the rest of us ‘Muggles’. Together we’ll look at:

~ How Lesley deals with self-doubt

~ How she made it to the top without being born with a silver spoon

~ How her superpower has more to do with being like a cockroach than being talented

~ How tenacity can turn into ‘feel’ and make magic with horses

~ How ANYTHING is possible!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/leslielaweventing/

https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca/podcast

https://www.facebook.com/paige.wilde1

https://www.instagram.com/wilde_paige/

Music credit: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

To any horse-crazy girl from the 80’s, Kim Walnes is already an icon. Many of us know her as ‘Mother Goose’, famous for her unusual partnership with her horse, ‘The Gray Goose’ and their accomplishments in the world of International Three-Day Eventing.  

Kim’s unlikely background and her intuitive approach with an ungainly, fearful horse .. .and the odds they overcame together to succeed in the male-dominated world of Olympic level Three-Day Eventing, all with her two young kids in tow … is the stuff of legends! 

That someone like Kim EXISTED - with her propensity for talking out loud to the Gray with the absolute certainty he understood - shaped MY trajectory in sport, opening a whole other level of possibility when I aimed for ‘connection’ with my own horses.

Her life story is worth a Disney movie, if not its own Netflix series! Of course, if you have lived a ‘Netflix-series-worthy life’, you will know that as the mixed blessing that it is. As Kim said, “This resilience thing isn’t all sunshine and buttercups!”

Sometimes life is a full blown shitshow. In 1991, Kim’s life went from sunshine to shitshow in a second, when she lost her daughter Andy to abduction and murder. Kim’s world went upside down.

Not all of us have lost a daughter, but many of us know what it feels like to have the fabric of our lives ripped out from under us. So how do we cope? How do we find hope? I like to turn to our elders, like Kim, who show us that we CAN find joy again. 

Hearing stories of what they have survived has never failed to alter my perspective. Recently, I got to share stories with Kim Walnes, about her ancestors and what it took for her to find joy after the hardest tests of her life. Together, we looked for the commonalities. 

Join me for a conversation about:

~ Trust 

~  Endurance

~ The day when, “All of a sudden, the sun broke through” 

~ The story of her amazing ride, when she clung to The Gray’s mane with two transverse fractures in her spine, to come home with Team and Individual Bronze medals in the World Championships

~ And her stallion Gideon Goodheart’s message about the importance of connection

You can learn more about Kim and the movement that needs you support, to turn her life story into a film, by following the links below.

Kim’s website: http://thewayofthehorse.com 

Kim’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063750034342 

These are the two trailers for the documentary project:

2021 EQUUS Film & Arts Fest - Mother Goose The Kim Walnes Story - Trailer (by Tory Kelly, and this won an award at the Equus festival) 

(teaser) Mother Goose -- The Kim Walnes Story  (By Sybil Miller)

You can find me at: https://www.facebook.com/paige.wilde1

https://www.instagram.com/wilde_paige/

https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca/

Music credit: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music

A

Tik Maynard is a lot of things. He is an athlete, a writer, a teacher, a horseman, a husband, a business partner and a father, and as near as I can tell he’s not done! Tik is definitely still open to evolving and wearing more hats. That’s because at his core, Tik Maynard has an insatiable curiosity about life and is a consummate learner. 

In this episode, we talk about

~ Tik’s philosophy when it comes to pivoting at Life’s crossroads

~ The most important qualities of a good horse trainer

~ whether or not ‘feel’ is learnable

~ How each Partnership is Unique

~ The importance of clarity and intention

~ How he is getting closer and closer to riding as art, rather than sport

These qualities carried him through a major turning point in his life, when his athletic career in Modern Pentathlon ended abruptly with a shoulder injury, and at the same time a relationship ended with a broken heart. At 26 years old, he had some choices to make. Born into a family of horse people, he didn’t initially choose horses. With a mother who studied the art of dressage to the Grand Prix level, and a father who was an International Three-Day Eventer come Grand Prix Show Jumper - it seemed kind of inevitable! Like a dying breed of horsemen, he was born into it, and there was much he absorbed and took for granted from growing up around horsey parents. It was time to make a choice. 

When Tik chose horses, he went all in. He made a list of the top names in the horse business and set off with an open mind and an able body in an exchange of labor for learning, known within the horse industry as ‘a working student position’.  His book In The Middle Are The Horsemen chronicles his journey in barns all over the world. He didn’t just choose one genre of equestrianism, but set out to find the common threads between ALL great horse people, including dressage, jumping, eventing, and even some ranch work and Natural Horsemanship and Liberty training. 

Altogether, the journey produced a uniquely well-rounded human who lives to share his knowledge and passion with others. Tik currently owns and runs a training center in Citra Florida with his wife, Sinead – one of the world’s best riders in the sport of Three-Day eventing. While they are both pursuing international athletic careers and raising two young children, they are equally passionate about teaching and can be found online and at clinics at the links below. 

https://www.copperlineequestrian.com/

https://www.equestrianmasterclass.com/tik-maynard-masterclass

https://www.facebook.com/tikmaynardcompany/

Tik is the author of In The Middle Are The Horsemen, published by Trafalgar Square Books, 2018.

You can find me at:

Denny Emerson is an old dog in the horse industry, showing us that it is never too late to learn new tricks. 

Denny’s life with horses began with the pure pleasure of riding bareback around his neighborhood on his first horse, Paint; then to riding Morgans in saddle seat and endurance races, and eventually to success in international sport that included a Team Gold at the World Championships in 1974. Born in 1941, he was taught by a generation who grew up with horses: horses plowed our fields, horses drove us to town, horses were used in war. As the world of horse sport exploded in North America, Denny was on the leading edge, learning from Captains and Colonels in the high-pressure world of International Three-Day Eventing. Throughout it all, there was an attitude of, ‘Don’t let him get away with that! You gotta show that horse who is boss!’ As Denny says, “I drank the coolaid. I was a product of what I was taught as a kid. It took a long time to outgrow that”.  

Like most successful athletes, he brought a lot of intensity into the arena. Denny was very successful, bringing home medals in Eventing for the US team and competing and coaching successfully to the Advanced level until he was 60. The last horse Denny rode at the Advanced level was a hot, worried little mare named Speed Axcel, who proved to be a catalyst for change as he looked for another way with horses and handed over her reins to me twenty years ago.

Now Denny espouses a slower, kinder, gentler way with horses. He has gone back to his roots, riding for pleasure, enjoying the scenery of his beloved Vermont countryside from the back of a Morgan horse, and writing about what he wished he’d known earlier, in hopes of helping others evolve and avoid some of the mistakes he made with horses over the years. It is a powerful thing, to watch a powerful person own their past and make changes in their life.

Join us for a conversation about:

~ how learning the meaning of the German word, losgelassenheit changed his approach

~ the anxiety threshold and the importance of staying below it

~ Making haste slowly

~ what defines a good trainer

~ the long, slow process of change 

~ the trap of letting your agenda own you

~ How he lives by the Maya Angelou quote; “Do the best you can with what you know. Then when you know better, do better.”

Look for daily inspiration on Denny’s Facebook page and read his books, How Good Riders Get Good, Know Better to Do Better; Mistakes I made With Horses (So you Don’t Have To) and Begin and Begin Again, The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses at the links below.

 https://www.facebook.com/Tamarack-Hill-Farm-109161715946/

https://www.horseandriderbooks.com/store/begin-and-begin-again-with-horses.html

You can find me at: https://www.facebook.com/paige.wilde1

https://www.instagram.com/wilde_paige/

https://www.paigelockton-wilde.ca/

Music credit: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

When I met William Micklem in February of 1989, I must confess that I had no idea of who he was. Forgive me, but I was only 18 years old, and the Internet hadn’t been invented yet! 

Nowadays, if you haven’t heard of William Micklem, a quick Google search will tell you that he is one of the horse world’s most iconic figures. His articles appear in respected publications like The Chronicle of the Horse and cover topics from breeding sport horses to the evolution of our sport, and the importance of producing happy horses. He is a sought after speaker, a published author, is known for breeding multiple World and Olympic medal winning horses, for producing top level riders and for supporting the love and growth of good horsemanship from the grassroots level on up. 

His love for horses shines through everything he does, most notably spurring him to invent The Micklem Bridle; a more comfortable, humane bridle that accommodates the anatomy the equine jaw; which has won industry awards and been embraced by riders worldwide in every discipline of horse sport.

William has continued  to provide guidance and inspiration in my life since meeting him as the recipient of a young riders’s scholarship that brought me to the Glen Eagles Captain Mark Phillips Equestrian Centre in Auchterarder Scotland as an 18 year old. Since then, we have become unlikely pen pals through tumultuous times and I have come to admire him for his sunny, wholistic view of life. 

I interviewed him about horsemanship in an episode I am saving for lovers of horsecraft who review and share the show. I came back for this bonus episode – in this one, I asked for a legacy piece – the kind of advice he would like to leave for future generations, told through the eyes and experience of a brilliant horseman, with a broad lens. Man did he deliver! In today’s interview, he leaves a legacy of absolute GOLD in terms of advice told through story, allegory and easily remembered acronyms for living a life worth living in tumultuous times. 

Quote: “There is an inevitable progression, where you start off deciding that things are impossible. Then, with a bit more time and thought, you find that the thing you were worried about is just IMPROBABLE. And then, you come up with solutions that were INEVITABLE”

Over and again, he weaves together stories demonstrating that ANYTHING is possible.

Join us for a conversation sure to inspire and find out:

~ What the Three C’s in his acronym ‘CAL’ stand for and how they support our growth

~ The meaning behind his ‘Three Ups’ – Head Up, Heart Up, and Heat Up and how to apply them

~ How “Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It IS the way it IS!” And how it turns out the best, for those who make the best of the way it turned out.

~ Advice to stay curious, to be generous, and to grow yourself, BE yourself, and grow your team to do the impossible!

I trust you will enjoy today’s show. Below are some links for more information on William and a Blog post I wrote about my time with him. Let me know your thoughts and remember – caring is sharing!

Take a chance,

Paige

http://www.williammicklem.com/home.html