Every horse in every minute gives off a certain energy. In fact every creature does, we are just very bad at reading it. Most people can feel the energy shift when a horse tenses and bolts off or sighs and softens through their body after something stressful. But can you Read more
Last week I wrote about forcing horses to comply to our demands. If you didn’t see that article, check it out here. What was interesting to me is the conversations that article brought up. It seemed that everyone took something different from the article, but there was a common theme Read more
As a trainer one of the most difficult tasks I am faced with is determining whether a horse’s problem is due to pain or due to purely poor behavior. Figuring out the root cause of the problem is essential to fixing it. For instance, if I have a horse with Read more
Most people assume being a good rider is the same as being a good trainer, which is far from the truth. Good riders learn proper position and aids. They learn how to ask correctly for skills and ride well trained horses. However, when a horse doesn’t respond properly a good Read more
I think there is a lot of confusion in the horse world about when you should keep a steady pressure and wait for the horse versus escalating your pressure to get a response. I want to be very clear that I think both of these tactics are not only valid, Read more
For a while now I have been feeling like maybe I prefer to do groundwork over riding. I felt like I found reasons not to ride so that I could stick to the ground work. However, I realized that that isn’t true at all. It’s not that I prefer groundwork Read more
This last weekend I was away at a schooling show at the Woodside Horse Park. It was a fantastic opportunity to expose younger / greener horses and riders to a multi-day show at a busy facility. However, I saw a lot of riders who had forgotten that their horses aren’t Read more
As horsemen and women we are constantly striving to make our horses better. Many of us put our horses in training so that they become more educated, we take lessons to learn how to how to work them better, and we constantly read articles in order to provide better care Read more
As some of you may know, I went to a clinic a few weeks ago with the wonderful and talented Amber Lydic. I learned so much from her in such a short time, but what has stuck with me the most is about my release. If you know me or Read more