The Peaceful Warrior Arena

12/24/2023

12/24/2023

Great way to spend Saturday morning in the barn

09/08/2023

Thank you to Tyrell (Decisive contracting Ltd) and aurena sharp for the beautiful fence and sign !! We love how it turned out 😁

08/27/2023

Perfect weekend for a birthday !! If you see Scott around wish him a happy birthday 🎂

08/22/2023

Good horses - great friends that u get to share your passion with and sunshine equals a great life !!

08/22/2023

I am a little late with this post 😉 congratulations to aurena sharp and family for the purchase of Rip😁 he is going to the best home !!

04/08/2023

03/20/2023

That’s a wrap for hot heels till the fall ! Thank you everyone that came out this winter!! Everyone got so much better 😁 Bring on spring !!

03/18/2023

I think someone (Scott) is pretty excited for spring to come ! Was out in the outdoor for six hours moving snow !! Bring on spring 😁

03/06/2023

Rough life of a rope horse around here !

02/02/2023

Best place to go on a cold day !!

01/24/2023

Someone is happy to take his three year old out for his first trail ride !! Maybe Hitch was happier 😁😁

10/28/2022

For my fellow barn owners/ trainers out there!

Lessons learned long and hard in the horse business as a professional..

1. It's easy to fall in love with your customers. They become a family who you spend a lot of time with. However, in the end they will do what's best for themselves. And, for you and them, those paths may not be the same. Prepare to get your heart broken. Keep business and personal relationships separate.

2. People will not always trust in your experience and will second guess you. They will think they know better because they read it in a book, or saw it online. Don't try to be all things to all people. Do what you are good at. Run your barn in a way that you can sleep at night knowing that you did right in your mind by them and their horses. The clients opinion of that may be different than your beliefs, but you have to live with choices that leave you at peace. That may mean confrontation, hard conversations and even asking people to move on for your own peace.

3. Horses are easy 99% of the time. It's the people who come with them that make things complicated.

4. Remember that horses need to be horses.

5. People will always judge you, and have opinions. The better you are, the more haters will have opinions.

6. Success isn't measured by ribbons and show placings. It's measured in happy animals and the quality of their lives.

7. There is always an exception or quirk that doesn't " follow the rules" in horse care. Do what works, not what the books say works.

8. When you get annoyed by seeing somebody's car pull in to the barn, it's time to let that person move on. Your barn should be a happy place. It literally only takes one bad sour apple to ruin the whole atmosphere and dynamic in a barn.

9. Let it go.... if someone moves on don't be upset by it. Ignore what they say. Don't take it personally. Every barn is not a good fit for every person.

10. This is a business. If a person or horse isn't working for you, or the compensation isn't offsetting your cost, it's time for them to go. The exception to this is your retired horses, see #11.

11. Horses only have so many jumps, so many runs, so many rides. Don’t waste your horses. Teach your students they aren’t machines. You owe it to your retired horses to have a safe, comfortable and dignified end. Your schoolies worked for you. When the time comes they can no longer do that, either give them a pleasant retirement, or put them in the ground where you know they are safe. Do not dump them at auctions or onto other people where you are not 100% sure that they will be cared for.

12. There is no shame in euthanasia for a horse owner. Always better a week too early then a second too late. Do not judge anyone for their reasons for doing this.

13. Most clients fall Into two categories. Those who are "high maintenance", open in their opinions and will confront situations head on. The second is the quiet type who will not say a word and will not openly talk with you about their expectations or issues. You have no idea they have a problem until it's too late. The people in between these two are the clients you want. They will be long term and make life easy.

14. Know your worth. KNOW YOUR WORTH. Your time and experience has a monetary value. Don't do things for free, even if you like the person. Every bit of time or effort you give to clients has value. So when you don't value your effort, neither will a client. They will come to expect "freebies", which always leads to resentment from someone.

15. Be honest. It's not always easy. But in this business it takes forever to build reputation and seconds to destroy it.

16. Remember horses are dangerous. Always use your best judgment and air on the side of caution when working with horses and students. Their lives and your own life can change in an instant.

17. Get paid up front. Keep good records. People don't go to the grocery store and ask for food they will pay for next week. Good business practices keep everyone honest and sets boundaries for clients.

18. Normalize passing on price increases. Service industries, especially ones like ours always "feel guilty " when raising prices. You are not there to subsidize someone else's horse habit. Prices have been going up on costs, so should your fees.

19. The buck stops with you. Your employees mistakes fall back to your responsibility. Always verify and check on important care aspects of daily activities.

20. Make time for family and rest. Too many of us get burnt out from the stress of expectations in this industry. In the end, boarders and students come and go. Your family is who you will have left.

Thanks for reading my thoughts. I hope it can help support some of you feeling burnt out, and maybe help some people who are starting out in their journey into this industry.

Written by Rhea Distefano

10/09/2022

The BoB Kjos memorial roping was held today what an awesome roping to go to !! Thank you to the Kjos family and all their friends for coming out in honour of my old friend Bob! He might be gone but not forgotten in our hearts !! Thank you to Greg and Louise Wilson for hosting and congratulations to all the winners !! Bill dyer and I were lucky enough to take home the memorial buckles that Maxine KJos sponsored !! hope to rope with you again my old friend Bob when I get there ❤️❤️❤️ Scotty

09/30/2022

Here's a glimpse of a horse trainers life in reality. We have a passion, usually starts almost at birth, we go after it.
We work for free to learn. Muck stalls, buck hay, build fence, drag arenas, wash horses, sweep floors and a thousand other tasks just in hopes of learning something about these amazing animals.
Endless and often thankless hours. To get lucky enough to get on some nasty suckers no one wants to ride. But you get on...maybe scared, maybe unsure, but you'd crawl in the middle of a red eyed lion just to prove to yourself that you can. You ride anything they run at you....
Then one day, usually years later, you strike out on your own. You become a trainer..But you still crawl on the bad ones and make the best you can of them. You still get je**ed around trying to lead a knothead to the barn, still get rope burns, get kicked and pawed and bit. Have runaways, broncs, flippers and ones that smash your legs into the fence. Often times risk your life...
Even easy day are abusive to your body. You are stiff and sore so often you don't even notice anymore. You ride, drive, learn, teach and soul search endless hours...
What little money you actually make you buy or replace gear, struggle to get a truck and trailer, find a place to train out of...yeah it's a real cakewalk.
Through endless hours of learning, failing, trying harder, wanting to quit, digging deeper, you learn to train well and maybe show well...
You start winning, winning starts to become habit...surely you have made it...nope.
You still ain't above mucking stalls or dragging the arena...you basically do what you did in the beginning..you just get paid a little more and have a different title...
After all of this, day and night, you still work crazy odd hours and hunger to get better.. working long after the help went home. Doing things they have no clue gets done. If we took a pencil to what we earned per hour we'd go hang ourselves...
Then...the clients. Some good, some bad, some amazing and some absolutely awful..
They go from singing your praises to saying what a poor job you did, how they expected so much more but fail to see what you had to go through the endless hours and frustration of set backs.
Then they decide to ride with another trainer down the road and suddenly they forget how overjoyed they were with all you had accomplished on their baby.

Remember why you started my friends...you started because of the love....hang in there, don't lose your passion, your heart and soul over people...keep doing it for the horse.

~copied from Cole Horses

09/05/2022

Another learning weekend of roping ! Such a fun clinic! Everyone did great and got better !

08/29/2022

Scott would argue but this is my favourite horse on the place !! Love the paddy’s Irish whiskeys ❤️

08/29/2022

Such a fun weekend of friends and roping !! Thank u bill and amber for having everyone out !!

08/22/2022

Was such a great weekend for a roping clinic !! Everyone got better and better !! Definitely a lot of goals and achievements were met ! Thank you everyone for coming out and participating 😁