31/08/2026
If there is one thing the horse world loves, it's a buzzword. In fact, despite now being part of the the world of horses for over 25 years, our founder grew up in a non-horsey house old and often felt a bit confused about the meaning of certain words, yet felt too shy to ask.
Holistic. Accredited. Certified. Evidence-based. Natural. Regulated. Bodywork. Release. Alignment. You see them everywhere, but how often do we actually stop and think about what they mean?
We thought it might be useful to start looking at some of them properly, because some of these words do have quite specific meanings, while others are much more open to interpretation. And sometimes a word can sound very official or impressive without really telling you very much at all.
Take “qualified”, for example. If someone says they're qualified, that's great… but qualified in what? Who was the qualification through? What did they actually have to do to achieve it?
Or “holistic”. It's a word that gets used all the time, but ask five people what they mean by a holistic approach and you could get five slightly different answers.
That doesn't mean these words are bad, misleading or a red flag. Most of the time they're not. It's just useful to understand what someone actually means when they use them so we all have a shared understanding.
So, we are starting a new Horsey Buzzwords Explained series where we will pick a word or phrase each time and have a look at what it means, what it doesn't necessarily mean and, where relevant, what you might want to ask when you come across it.
Hopefully it'll help make some of the language used across the horse world a little less confusing.
What horsey word or phrase would you add to the list?
