What My Horse's Tongue Taught Me About Healing | Nahshon Cook | LFRF 59

✨ "I've never used Baucher to train anything. I've always used Baucher to heal." – Nahshon Cook

✨ "Does your horse feel good after you've done what you've done with them? ... That's connection." – Nahshon Cook

Nahshon Cook is a classical dressage trainer based in Colorado whose path began riding donated horses as a kid at the Urban Farm at Stapleton, an inner-city youth program in Denver. Two mentors — Cynthia Spalding and former Cadre Noir rider Jean-François Fabier — introduced him to dressage before he was out of his teens, and after a detour through divinity school, Southeast Asia, and a stint training show and race horses in Thailand, he returned to Colorado and built a reputation for taking on horses other trainers had given up on.

The conversation moves through Nahshon's approach to kissing spine, poll and TMJ tension, and how he reads a horse's tongue as a barometer for what's happening throughout the rest of the body. He walks through three distinct flexion positions he uses to unlock the hips, stifle, and hocks, and describes rehabilitating horses diagnosed with DSLD and a herniated disc using Baucher-based flexion work, treats, and nervous-system regulation.

A rich, wide-ranging conversation that moves between technical dressage detail and questions of safety, mercy, and what it means to truly listen to a horse.

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What You'll Learn in This Episode

00:02:07 – How riding at the Urban Farm at Stapleton in Denver opened the door to dressage

00:06:13 – What mentor Cynthia Spalding taught him about feel, not just technique

00:11:21 – Learning from ex-Cadre Noir rider Jean-François Fabier and matching training to each horse's breed

00:19:18 – Leaving divinity school for Southeast Asia, and training horses in Thailand