Teaching Takeaways Fine Print Farms April

The Franch Part two

News of a large equine hospital closing broke this week. No warning. It’s a scary time to be a horse owner.

If you are having a hard time string the trot, relax your ankles and lift your toes. Your ankles act as shock absorbers. When you are grabbing with your toes, your ankles are braced. Your seat will be braced. Your body will resist the movement instead of flowing with the movement.

Teaching Takeaways The Franch Part One

Password: May25

Trainer’sTip

Stop riding what you don’t like. Too often I watch riders frustrated with their horse, negotiating with their horse, begging their horse. They keep riding forward hoping for change in the next stride. It ’s a trap we can all easily fall into. We need to stop.

Zoom moved to Friday

Part of our survival instinct is to remember negative events and work to avoid them. This makes us really good at recognizing all the things our horses do wrong. We like to remember those things and carry that baggage with us to every ride. We inadvertently set our horses up to fail because we unpack that bag and review all the negative evidence right before we get in the saddle.

One of the hardest part of the horse business for me is taking educated risks. I don’t like risks. Which mares to breed? Which foals to sell? Which foals to hold back? This requires me looking into my crystal ball to try and predict the future. If I had not bred one of my favorite mares 20 years ago to our stallion that we just purchased, I would not have Aspen. If I hadn’t frozen semen 20yrs ago, I wouldn’t still be making money on Cooke County ETC or getting foals. If I w

May Master Zoom 5/21, 7pm cst

Horses learn when they feel safe. Your horse won’t feel safe if they are receiving a lot of mixed signals from you. Some ways we create mixed signals for our horses:

Fine Print Farm March 2025 part two

The devil is in the details. It does little good to practice exercises poorly. If I told you to practice right turns and you were given no other details, you might be happy as long as you horse moves to the right when you ask. You might not even pay attention to which leg they are turning around or which way their trunk is rotating. So your right turn may be extremely poor.

It’s all connected. That bulging left you feel under saddle is also your horse sucking in behind you while you are leading them. It’s shrinking the circle lunging left track and dragging you out of the circle right track. Evading left getting in the trailer? Yep, same problem.

April Master Zoom Recording

Favorite Things Friday

Everyone wants the horse that can do anything:

Simple things you can do with your horse that will have a positive impact on posture and relationship.