About Equithink
Equithink explores what becomes possible when horses are given more opportunities to learn, investigate, make choices and influence their own world.
What began with enrichment puzzles and learning theory has grown into a much bigger question:
A different way of looking at horses
Hi, i’m Emmie. Horses have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Like many horse people, I learned how to ride, handle and train them long before I ever learned much about how horses actually learn.
Discovering learning theory changed that.
I began to understand what was happening underneath the training methods I had always known, and I discovered positive reinforcement — a way of teaching in which the horse can work towards an outcome he values.
When I started using it with my own horses, training began to feel different. They became increasingly eager to participate, offered ideas of their own and often seemed just as interested in our sessions as I was.
That made me curious about something much bigger than training.
What happens when horses are given more opportunities to think for themselves, solve problems, make choices and influence what happens around them?
That question led me from training into enrichment, puzzles, choice and control — and eventually to the much larger questions we are exploring with Equithink today.
And I don’t build Equithink alone
Behind every Equithink idea is Sander.
I tend to come up with the questions, the experiments and, occasionally, ideas that sound slightly impossible.
Sander is the one who looks at them and asks:
“Okay… how can we actually make that work?”
He is the technical mind behind everything we develop — broadly skilled, endlessly practical and able to turn wild ideas into real, workable solutions.
From mechanical puzzle systems to electronics, switches, prototypes and new technology, he is the person who helps transform an idea from “wouldn’t it be interesting if…” into something our horses can actually use.
Equithink simply wouldn’t exist in the form it does today without him.
Meet the rest of the team
Nono
Junior Play Consultant
Plato
Senior Play Consultant
Spuni
Senior Treat Taster
Geisli
Puzzle Analyst
Our puzzles are developed, tested and made in the Netherlands
— with plenty of feedback from the team above.
What is there in you that I have never given you the opportunity to show me?
We don’t know where all these questions will lead.
That’s part of what makes them worth asking.
We want to keep learning — with the horses.
Start your horse’s puzzle journey →