Your horse did not grow up dreaming of being ridden. They didn't long to get in trailers and visit new places or get passed off from owner to owner, herd to herd. Horses want to be horses. We require them to participate in our dreams and desires which go completely against what is natural for them. So when you feel frustration rising...when you think you aren't advancing fast enough...when your horse has a bad day...they didn't wish for any of this. Their dreams are food, fri

I love my continuing education. One course I took with Ida Hammer and Deb Davies, they explained how the feet are sensory organs that are like 4 little brains. The feet gather information from the environment. The more substrate you expose those feet to the more adaptable they become. (Obviously if there is pathology, there are limitations and considerations).

Wisdom Wednesday

If you don't want your horse to play with you, you better give them friends. Horses that live in isolation often see any interaction with you as a game or play time. They need to express that part of themselves through interaction with another being. The problem is horses play rough. Bite, kick, rear, spin and they need to.

A day late. We are dealing with management of many horses during an extended rain event.

Well Texas is getting ready to be rocked by winter. 70 tomorrow and 14 for a low Sunday with 48hrs below freezing.

If your horse doesn't improve how they use their body, your hoof care provider is limited to how much improvement they can make on the feet.

Let it go...

If you do not have a good connection with your horse on the ground, do not expect to have a good connection in the saddle.

Goals are a funny thing. They can get us motivated and inspired. They can also make us feel insufficient if we don't meet them.

How a movement is ridden is more important than how many times the movement is ridden. Too often I see rider's fighting their horse over a movement and they ride the movement poorly just to check the box and say the movement was completed. They will drill the movement hoping that continuous repition will improve the quality. Poor quality repeated will not produce great quality. This is part of the reason I stress no more than 3-5 repetitions of any movement regardless of

The average age of rehab horses at my house right now is 8yrs old. The equivalent to a 24yr old human. They are plagued with multiple...

Carrying a human is a job for a horse, not a hobby.

Wisdom Wednesday

A day late. I'm traveling.

Wisdom Wednesday

Learning is uncomfortable. If you are comfortable in your learning, you probably are not be challenged enough. If you are comfortable you are not changing enough. Learning begins where our comfort zone ends.

I was going to get on here and say I had a terrible day. But that is not true. I probably had the absolute worst hour of my teaching career. How I let it affect me the rest of my day is on me. There was a lot of good today! Much more good than bad. But isn't funny how we can let the one bad thing override all the good. We become fixated on that one negative thing and let it affect our perceptions of a situation, our opinion and our emotions. What if we let the good do

Humans are too busy for horses. We are always moving and fidgeting. We are picking and fiddling. We need to quiet our bodies and minds. We expect our horses to be quiet and responsive. But we we are giving them too much stimulation and too much useless information. We need to become better at being in the moment and recognizing all our busyness is giving the horse too much useless information. They are trying to process it, usually by getting busy themselves. Then we

It is fulfilling to do the fun things with our horses visible to other people. Trail rides, shows, clinics, riding with friends, etc. To prepare for the fun, we must be committed to the everyday work to prepare our horses. If you want to enjoy your horse during outings, you must show up for your horse when no one is watching. You must commit to the work each day they develops the skills and partnerships. When you don't commit, your horse pays the price. It isn't fair to expec