Life Lessons part 1

Favorite Things Friday

May Master Zoom

7pm cst!

Pain creates panic. Our horses are prey animals. As such they are masters at hiding pain. The weakest horse in the herd gets eaten. By the time your horse is expressing lameness or undesirable behavior due to pain, they have been in pain for a long period of time (unless it is a traumatic injury). If they are exhibiting changes in body use, gait and hoof morphology, the pain has been there and hiding for awhile. Having recently had surgery with uncontrollable pain, I can at

If you and your horse had a wreck, your horse is hurt too. It is easy for us to find our bumps, bruises and sore spots. We treat and baby those aches and pains. How many of us think about those same bumps, bruises, and sore spots in our horses after a wreck? We need to and they need the same attention we give ourselves. Your horse will compensate and hide discomfort because they are a prey animal, it’s what they do. But eventually you will notice they are stiff, unwilling

I absolutely love this posture correction solution. I bought mine a few weeks ago at the podiatry seminar. I use it at my desk every day. It has help with my back pain because it engages your core. The Anywhere Saddle Chair from Wendy Murdoch.

Having horses is expensive. Most of us try to save where we can. Investing in good equipment and proper care is important but expensive. I have a few musts for horses leaving my program. It’s to keep the owner and horse on the best track forward in their relationship. Some owners head the advice. Some don’t. The ones that don’t usually end up with far more problems.

Don’t train weakness. I don’t believe any of us intentionally do this but by not riding with intention we inadvertently do it. So what does unintentionally training weakness look like? Here are some phrases you may find yourself using when you unintentionally train weakness.

If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend that you do. You will look at your horse differently.

A day late. Sorry. It’s hard to get life at home back in track after being out of town.

I just spent two fabulous days learning! I’m super exhausted so this will be short. But expect some detailed posts coming up as I recover from surgery.

Video has been taken for the next video exercise.… Infinity. This will be available to our Master level subscribers. It will include the good, bad and ugly of transitions , half passes, leg yields, and lead changes. I hope to have it completed before my surgery. If not I’ll be working on it during recovery. Regardless it will be out by May 1st.

They talk to us. We need to be more educated listeners.

Work that walk. The spine is very mobile in the walk. We can have a lot of influence in the spine good and bad. If we don’t pay attention to straightness, bend, activity in the walk, the rest of our gaits will suffer. The muscles need to be recruited at the walk to be used effectively in trot and canter.

Favorite Things Friday

Stop normalizing obesity in horses. As a society we have learned to accept obese animals as healthy and normal. It is not. Our domesticated horses live pretty cushioned lives. They don’t have to travel for food. They get the same quality year round. We have essentially eliminated their normal cycle of storing and spending. We have turned them into a cycle of storing only. Obesity changes hormones which regulate functions in the body. These functions affect everything from bre

There is no “winning” or “losing” in horse education. There is no “war” or “battle” to win. When we have this type of mindset while educating our horses, we are ultimately setting ourselves up for failure.

Some of my favorite things

March Recording and April Zoom info