Phoenix Farm & Equestrian Services

10/03/2023

Please share with your horsey friends!

07/23/2023

Excellent article

https://www.horsenation.com/2023/07/17/training-in-the-right-way-what-is-dressage-and-why-do-we-do-it/?fbclid=IwAR0CYic4i2RTOb6ylrNwERSNu3BgJpapcCVpOuWG1sU1DCi51dnXfoCqfbs

"Whenever you see a rider and horse in harmony and balance, performing their jobs fluidly and enthusiastically, you are witnessing the product of horse training and riding in the right way. No matter what, that is a product of what dressage was initially meant to be." Gwyneth McPherson is an FEI rid...

05/28/2023

ARENA GROOMING PATTERNS 🚜

Horse arena footing doesn't stay in prime condition without consistent maintenance. Regularly grooming your arena will keep sand and additives well mixed, and will keep your surface level. Here are some suggested grooming patterns. Change up the pattern each day so that your tractor doesn't create compaction.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ARENA MAINTENANCE 👇
https://premierequestrian.com/horse-arena-maintenance/maintenance-101/

05/19/2023

Absolutely

S***k your baby horse.
I don’t mean beat them. I don’t mean give them a little tug on the lead rope. I mean a rude horse deserves and understands some rudeness right back at them far better than a sweet whisper in their ear.
I mean, when your c**t or filly is running you over or throwing their ass at you or throwing their feet at you or snatching at you with their teeth, S***K THEM. Their mama would never tolerate that behavior from them. The old babysitter gelding in their pasture would not tolerate that behavior. YOU SHOULDNT TOLERATE IT.
They don’t like you because you’re sweet to them. They “like” food, water and safety.
You want your horse to be fed so you bring them food.
You want your horse to have water so you keep water in front of them.
What do you do when you want them to be safe? You discipline them when they are unsafe. You teach them to respect humans and make good choices. When they don’t respect humans and humans get hurt what happens? THEY ARENT SAFE. They can’t be treated when they are sick. They can’t have their feet cared for. If they are hurt you can’t fix them. If something happens to you? What happens to your sweet dream horse? They aren’t going to be safe. No one wants a disrespectful dangerous horse. I don’t care how pretty they are. I don’t care how much money you paid for it. I don’t care what names are on its papers. If it’s a complete s**t, it’s a complete s**t and the good horse owners? They don’t want it! I don’t want it! You know who does want it? The meat man.
If you love that horse, don’t be afraid to give it a s***k when it’s rude.
Credit to the OG author Melissa McPherson White

04/19/2023

Excellent Denny-ism, as always

Rein contact

On the heads of 99.99% of horses being ridden, there is either a bridle with a bit of some sort, a hackamore of some sort, or some other type of bitless bridle.

Attached to that head device, from the bit or from some other contact point, run reins or ropes or some other types of lines, which in various ways feed into the hands of the riders.

Generally speaking, most of this has to do with steering and going at a pace that the rider wants, and with stopping.

Control is the main reason for bridles and their various attachments, and here is where there is an enormous range of degree. We see some horses trussed up like the proverbial Christmas turkey, with lines going every which way, often connected to bits that appear to have been designed to stop a charging bull rhinoceros.

Other horses are ridden in very light to virtually zero contact, being asked to balance and steer, stop and go in far more subtle ways.

I think that a large part of this immense variety must be related to the particular need and desire for control of the particular rider.

Some riders are total “control freaks”. They must “own” every footfall the horse makes. Some do this in rough ways, others through years of schooling, but either way, that control is front and center.

I watch some riders walk, trot and canter, even on the most uneven terrain, on almost floating reins, leaving it up to the horse to figure out how to use its various body parts.

Other riders want to have a horse trained to be within the constraints of leg to hand, but who generally leave the horse alone unless they feel the need to intervene.

Some horses handle constraint, some resent it, some battle to get away from it. Some riders have great tact in the application of control, others want total submission, many fall between the extremes.

Horses are able to be ridden by humans in large measure because they can be controlled, but the application of that control can cause the horses huge misery if it is done badly.

Much of learning “how to ride,” to put it in simplest terms, has to do with how the human deals with reins.

03/14/2023

Actual quote told to me by various people over the last 6-7 decades---words used might vary slightly but the gist remained constant---

“You have to make that horse more afraid of you than the thing he’s scared of.”

Another variation, same general idea---

“You have to show him what will happen to him if he doesn’t do what you tell him to do.”

The idea behind both of these statements is that fear and force are useful horse training strategies. If the horse sees something that scares him, and he won’t go, punish him until he does go. If the horse won’t get in the trailer, make it so painful that he goes in. If a horse stops at a jump, hit him and spur him. If you put your leg on a horse and he doesn’t move away from the pressure, kick harder. If that doesn’t work, use your spurs. That will make him move away. If a horse gets strong while you are cantering or galloping, get a more severe bit. If a horse won’t put his head down, strap him into draw reins.

It is a long list. There have been all sorts of ways and strategies and types of equipment created to make horses do what humans want them to do.

I started riding about 70 years ago, got my first pony in 1952, and the “You have to show that pony who’s boss” concept was pretty much standard procedure.

There are two big problems with the fear and force approach. The huge one is that it works. Horses do usually submit to pain and fear, and when they do, it reinforces the idea that it is, therefore, a valid training theory.

The other problem, though, is that while fear and pain do get the horse “to do as he’s told,” it leaves the horse basically fearful, nervous, anxious, on edge, so although the horse may be rideable, he is never calm and relaxed about it. He may seem so if he has been brutalized to the point of total submission, but even then there can be things that trigger his resistance.

The good news about all this is that in 2023, there is a whole lot more knowledge about kinder, gentler training methods. The bad news about all this in 2023 is that many riders don’t know about these better ways, or do know, but choose fear and force despite it.

02/14/2023

Matt Cecily Brown
4d
·
☁️ Thursday Thoughts ☁️
To all the students we’ve loved before (past and present)
There’s a lot we’ve worked on together over the years, and many lessons we hope you’ve learned as our student. Many technical, many philosophical, and many that don’t only apply to horses and riding, but to life in general. You won’t remember all of these lessons; hopefully many of them have just become second nature to you by now. But these are some of the most important ones we hope you keep with you forever.
🔹 Loving your horse is the most important thing you can do as a horse person. And by love I don’t mean kissing and giving them treats, I mean always having a love, a respect, a sense of treasuring your horse in everything you do with them and every decision you make for them. The second we lose sight of that love for them then we’re more likely to use them, or treat them as tools or stepping stones on our path rather than partners that we cherish and who’s well-being is more important to us than competitive goals. Often when we get the closest to achieving a competitive goal is when it’s the easiest to lose sight of the love that we have for them, and when we’re most likely to use them.
🔹 Treat your horse like a horse. An animal, with different motivations, instincts, and fears than humans. The second we fall in to the trap of thinking horses process things the way we do, the more likely we are to treat them as if they owe us something, or to take their behavior (good or bad) personally.
🔹 Your horse doesn’t owe you anything. No matter how much you spent on them, what your dreams are, how well you treat them, how talented they are, or how easy their life is, they don’t owe you success or certain behavior. All they can do is be a horse.
🔹 Read the writing when it’s on the wall. Even though it seems like your horse is capable of something, or you want it to do a certain job, go a certain way, make it to a certain important event - sometimes things just don’t work out the way we want them to. Don’t force things, if something feels way too hard then it probably is. If the horse truly isn’t suited for a job, no amount of training, supplements, joint injections, or discipline will make a horse do a job it’s not mentally or physically suited for.
🔹 Don’t blame. Don’t blame your horse, your coworker, or your trainer. Don’t blame your bit, your saddle, the footing, the weather or the judge. Take personal accountability and see how you can do better to meet the challenges you will face next time.
🔹 Be a good student. Of the horse and of the sport. Listen more than you speak. Watch more than you show. Get off your phone, there are learning opportunities ALL AROUND you every day. At home, watch your trainer ride and teach throughout the day. Observe horses in their fields, and stalls, it’s amazing how much you can learn about a horse and horse behavior just watching them exist in the world. At a show, go watch warm up, the lunging area, watch people in the wash stall, watch the grooms work. At a clinic, don’t just be there for your ride, watch every ride, every session. If you can’t afford to ride in the clinic then go and watch. Set fences, listen and observe. Stay off your phone and don’t chat with your friends during the sessions. Immerse yourself, be hungry to learn, assume you know nothing still.
🔹 While it’s your trainers job to teach, it’s your job to become educated. You don’t need a fancy barn or the most expensive tack to have a well fed, well muscled, happy horse.
🔹 Help out. Bring the barn help coffees and snacks. Thank them. Try to make their jobs easier. Clean up after yourself and your horse. Appreciate how neat and tidy your barn is? Help keep it that way and don’t leave a mess in your wake. There’s no such thing as “not my job” in horses. If something needs doing, just do it, whether it’s your job to or not.
🔹 Leave everything better than you found it. Every space you enter, every bit of tack you borrow and use, every person that you interact with. Leave a positive impression.
🔹 If you borrow something, return it in excellent shape, and don’t assume borrowing something once means you have free rein to use it whenever you want. If you used a bit and liked it, buy your own immediately. Clean out the trailer if your horse shipped in it, clean and sweep the tack room if you used it. Treat other people’s things as if they are precious.
🔹 Be thankful, humble and appreciative. Of your horse, your barn help, your trainer, your fellow students, fellow competitors, horseshow organizers, volunteers, your farrier, vet.
🔹 Let the horse professionals in your life have some down time. Don’t text or call your trainer, barn manager, vet, farrier after business hours unless it’s a true emergency. And also know that it may take them a bit to get back to you. If you don’t want them glued to their phones while they teach you or ride your horse, if you want them to be semi on time to your lesson, then know that they can’t always text or call you back right away.
Let them have lives. They will do better work.
🔹 Be self sufficient. Don’t expect others to do things for you.
🔹 Be involved in the care of your horse. Be at the vet appointments. Know when he’s due for shoes. Be interested in what it takes to make your horse tick.
🔹 Don’t take anything or anyone for granted.
🔹 Trust the process and do the work. Know that training is a long process and there are no quick fixes, so resist the urge to follow trends. Just because everyone is riding with a certain dressage coach right now doesn’t make that person the right fit for your horse. Observe, take everything in. If there’s a coach or a piece of equipment that’s trending right now, take the time to think about if it’s right for you and your horse. The magnetic mask isn’t going to magically make your horse jump clear if you can’t canter in a rhythm to begin with, the coach of the month isn’t going to magically make you score better in one lesson if your basics aren’t solid already.
🔹 Be a good sport. Things won’t always go your way. You’ll mess up, someone will get in your way in warm up, unfair things will happen. Laugh it off, have a good attitude, be kind and move on. Smile, we’re horseback riding.
🔹 Make positive contributions to the spaces you’re in and the people you’re around. Don’t talk s**t or be negative. It sucks the life out of every space and situation.
🔹 Have high standards and don’t cut corners. Details matter.
🔹 Don’t judge. Don’t assume. Everyone is doing their best, everyone is still learning. No one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes.
🔹 You’re always training your horse. You can train them to do good things or bad things. And you’re always training yourself. You can practice good habits or bad habits, and know that when the pressure is on, it’s what you’ve practiced that will come out. So practice good, train good, act good.
🔹 Aim for best effort and progress. Don’t aim for perfection, you’ll always be disappointed because in horses it doesn’t exist.
🔹 If you find the right horse for you and you take good care of it so it lasts, you’ll have to retire it one day. If you find the wrong horse for you, and you can’t sell it, you’ll have to retire it one day. If you are in horses, you will have to retire at least one some day. Do right by your horses, even the ones that aren’t right for you.
🔹 Never stop learning.
🔹 When you finish a ride, good or bad, PAT THE HORSE. Always thank your horse.
🔹 We are lucky to do what we do with horses. Never lose sight of that.

02/11/2023

"When your elbows leave your sides your shoulders are even more prone to tension."

01/15/2023

01/14/2023

Super comme exercise

12/17/2022

Just had to share, breath taking

https://www.facebook.com/the.fei/videos/3158641391057518/

12/08/2022

I like him as a trainer. Don't let your horses have bad manners, regardless of their sizes. When he got nipped, the owner didn't even see it!

Cute miniature horse bites and kicks!! Here is a cute miniature shetland that is mean and will bite and kick out! Time for some changes to be made! Try not t...

11/30/2022

Great ad! LOL
https://mymodernmet.com/wear-a-helmet-danish-road-safety-council/?fbclid=IwAR0fzvvrsRJNLvlHCjCSoj-7dhyL5vIFYbZNszdiaOOQNj3zy-4CF7ZcHmA

If anyone knows how important it is to wear a helmet, it’s the Vikings.

11/27/2022

Equine Voice Australia (E.V.A.) ·
Cat Dee ·
1d
·
Why soak feeds? 💧
The natural diet of horses is grazing. Fresh forage is 70 – 80% water, so horses actually eat a lot of water. Even on very wet grazing, they still need to drink as well, as the food needs to be mixed with plenty of fluid to get through the small intestine’s 20 metres or so and numerous curves. In this part of the gut, the food (now called ingestate) is around 90% fluid. When a horse eats hay for instance, which is only 10 – 13% water, the horse has to chew a lot and this releases saliva which helps to add fluid to the mix. Water for the saliva comes from the blood, which in turn will draw on reserves in the large intestine, which needs to be replaced by drinking. Many horses dunk their hay in the water container, which is actually very sensible of them, albeit annoying for us as it will need cleaning out every day.
Dried, pelleted feeds are 10% water. Different feeds absorb different amounts of water – forages will take up 2.5 times their volume of water and beet pulp, 5 times. Straw is not very absorbent, taking up a lot less water and is one reason why it is not a favoured feed and has a reputation for causing impaction colic.
We always suggest pelleted feeds are offered soaked. This restores their natural hydration, increases bulk and slows eating rate. It aids digestion and can help reduce the chance of choke. Horses choke because they did not chew the food sufficiently. If a horse chokes, we need to look at what went wrong for the horse. Hungry and greedy horses may bolt their food and fail to chew it sufficiently. Young horses who are teething may fail to chew properly and horses with dental issues just cannot chew well. Even with good dental care, the teeth will start to let the horse down at some point from the late teens on and by the time they are 30 it is inevitable that the molars are worn out and will start to fall out if this hasn’t already happened.
We are accustomed to soaking beet pulp and rightly so. It is not difficult to soak feeds and enables very valuable and nutritious forage feeds to be offered safely to all horses, good chewers or not.
Soaked feeds are very palatable but need to be fresh. Feed within 12 hours of adding the water. Use an amount of water that suits your horse. Some love a soup, others prefer more of a crumble texture. You can use warm water to speed the process along and offering a warm feed is appreciated by many horses in the winter. Don’t let the requirement for soaking put you off feeding the very best forages to your horses.

11/26/2022

Something to think about when working with and training horses.

11/26/2022

Shared from Aging Horsewomen Intl. ™
well written

Before backing your young horse, please read -
A horse ages roughly 3 times faster than a human.
So a 90 year old human is a 30 year old horse. Both very old, usually arthritic, don’t have many of their original teeth left, and very likely retired and enjoying the finer things in life.
A 25 year old horse is a 75 year old human. Some are still happily working but some prefer retirement and an easier life. Often depending on just how hard a life they’ve lived.
A 20 year old horse is a 60 year old human. At that point where the body doesn’t work like it use to but the brain is all there and wants to be active.
A 13 year old horse is a 39 year old human. Middle aged, prime of their life where their knowledge and physical ability are about equal.
So let’s get down to the babies and work our way up.
A 1-1.5 year old horse is getting their first adult tooth, this happens at 6 years old in a human child.
A 3 year old horse is a 9 year old child. A child. Not ready for work by a long stretch. We have moved past sending children down the mines.
A 4 year old horse is a 12 year old child. Often will do odd jobs for pocket money, maybe a paper round, mowing lawns etc. Basically a 4 year old horse can start a bit of light work experience to learn the ropes.
A 5 year old horse is a 15 year old teenager. Think they know it all, cocky, and ready to up their work and responsibilities. Still quite weak and not fully developed so shouldn’t be at their physical limit but can start building strength.
A 5.5 year old horse has just cut their final adult tooth, this happens at 17 years of age in a human.
A 6 year old horse is an 18 year old human. An adult. Ready to work.
An 8 year old horse has achieved full fusion of their final growth plates. This happens at 24 years of age in a human. This is the age it is safe to push a horse for their optimal performance.
Pushing your youngster too hard too young will result in the failure of many body parts. Joints, spine, tendons, ligaments as well as their brains. Waiting another year or two at the beginning could give your horse an extra 10 years of useful working life. Be patient with your pride and joy!
Written by Vikki Fowler BVetMed BAEDT MRCVS

09/13/2022

Absolutely

Try this---

If you can't do it, and if you find it causes discomfort to stretch this far, well, obviously you are being disobedient and need to be strapped into the human equivalent of draw reins or some other type of leverage device, so that your body can be forced into this shape.

Doesn't make any sort of logical sense, does it? Why, then, do humans do it every day to so many horses?

It goes beyond bad horsemanship to force horses by mechanical methods that they are powerless to resist. No wiggling or self justifying needed.

08/10/2022

Love this! Credit to Meg Kep