05/24/2025
Oh my yes the benefits of Seeing The Work Through. I might add here the benefits of having seen the work from the beginning. Acquiring a horse that is already 'well started' without participating / witnessing the history of a Foal being handled up to their 3 to 5 yr old education can leave lasting questions.
•On keeping your horse•
(Especially if you are a trainer)
It's not just owners, but professional trainers that are rotating through personal horses.
They tell their audience that the more different horses they train, the more experience they get.
They also frequently say that they want to move up a level and their current horse isn't capable or suitable for that goal. It's a cycle every couple of years it looks like.
Both those things may be true, to a point. However these people are no longer seeing how their work matures, how it holds up over time and how it progresses through the life of that individual horse.
The horse industry prioritizes young prospects that can perform younger, sooner, and harder.
I would like to counter this with the idea that a program is only as good as the seniors it produces!
I want to see sound and content horses absolutely blooming between the ages of 18-28.
My mentors demonstrated this to me, as well as any other horseman I consider to be great. I hold teachers and professionals to a higher standard than regular owners.
When people move their horses on while they are still at the age of being profitable to sell, so they can move to the next young prospect they are robbing themselves of seeing their work through.
They are robbing themselves of the skills needed to bring out a horse to their full potential.
They are robbing themselves of the strength of feeling one's knowledge bottom out, and being able to work through that.
This kills off the opportunity to master feel.
Yes.
This is what is missing.
Seeing work through to the end.
I would like to say that in order to truly become advanced in training, it is important to keep your horse.
This is to witness the longevity and soundness of your work, to have a chance to watch it age and mature in front of your face.
I also believe it is vital to experience the depth of friendship that is possible with a horse that can only be forged over years.
Yes a variety of horses is excellent and necessary but we've taken that out of context.
This may not be feasible or realistic for everyone, and that is ok. Excellence is not feasible for everyone.
Yesterday I wrote about how the age at which we start horses to ride indicates what values we hold in our horsemanship.
I believe people would stop riding 2 year old horses if more of them witnessed how their horses aged instead of moving them through their program.
Today, I am following that up with writing about how keeping your horse may be the key to mastery.
The theme here is there are no shortcuts to honest, brilliant work.
Let's celebrate bringing a horse to their potential throughout their entire lifetime, instead of literally using them up before the age of 10.
And while we're at it, check out the health and happiness of your trainer's or programs senior horses to know what quality they bring to the table.
In this photo I am riding my first pony who has been in my life since I was 12. He is downhill built, post legged, had a neck injury that almost took his life, and yet him and I are still improving every single year over the last 10 years!!
I do not believe I've developed him to his full potential yet.
What are the people with significantly more expensive and talented horses going on about, when they say that they can't move up a level with the horse that they have?!
I will risk banishment by saying it may be more to do with a human skill issue than said horse's capacity 🤐🤐🤐
It does take extraordinary skill to bring out the best in an ordinary horse. There is no way around it.
I am a firm believer in slow burn, lifelong development for every horse. I start them with the intention of spending our life together.
Keep and develop the imperfect horse you have.
This may just be the gem we are missing right now.
Thank you for reading.