07/17/2025
There was a time when the horseman didn’t have to prove himself on the internet.
He wasn’t looking for you, he was looking for himself.
If you wanted to learn, you followed. You showed up. You stayed quiet.
Because what he lived went far beyond the horse.
It was a way of life and as the student, you wanted to embrace all of it.
You never heard him use words like “nuanced” to try and sound ahead of others.
He wasn’t trying to rise above anyone, he was just trying to get it right.
If people didn’t like him, they passed by.
No clicks. No conflict.
Just another morning, another horse, another ride in silence.
Every horseman that’s ever truly influenced me, I had the privilege of learning from that way.
In person. In real time. In the dirt and the wind and the quiet.
And it’s dying.
Now the horseman has to be online.
Has to cut truth into soundbites and reels.
Has to fight to be seen, or be forgotten.
Masses scroll past, half-reading, barely watching.
Bits and pieces of theories strung together.
Anyone can say anything on here and many do.
I’ve made posts. Some do okay, some don’t.
Maybe because I’m not flashy enough. Maybe because I still believe you should live it before you teach it. Still, I've met some amazing people along the way.
But here’s what I know:
If mentors today don’t learn how to navigate what social media is doing to riders,
We will lose them.
They will lose themselves.
They won’t know how to find their way back home in their horsemanship,
Because no one showed them the trail.
My own life, my relationship with horses, I share it with you all.
Definitely not because I think I’ve got something you don’t,
But because I want to remind you of what YOU already know.
What you’ve felt in your bones, even if the noise has drowned it out lately.
Quiet, steady, lived truth doesn’t always trend.
But it lasts.
