Journey Horse

12/07/2025

Still such a good example

05/07/2025

Beautiful long canter stretch without any change in balance or tempo. He's actually reaching forward and down moving into the contact. It's a very different feel and for the horse it is a reward and release. It's also a great skill for redirecting a horse whose body is getting tight from collected work to do this and easily return to collected work. A great reward for the tempi changes he just completed. THIS is in the Schooling Ring!

29/06/2025

Celebrate a Life of Legacy:
88 Years of Linda Tellington-Jones & 50 Years of the Tellington TTouch® Method

📅 Sunday, June 29th
🕑 2 PM EDT | Free on Zoom

Join us for a very special FREE webinar to celebrate the 88th birthday of Linda Tellington-Jones, and the 50th Anniversary of the groundbreaking Tellington TTouch® Method – a revolutionary approach that has transformed the way we connect with animals and ourselves.

✨ Linda’s influence spans continents and species – from horses to dogs, cats to elephants, wildlife to people. Over her lifetime she has:

🐴 Revolutionized the horse world with a gentle, trust-based approach to training.

🐕 Created a method now practiced in over 35 countries and translated into 17+ languages.

📚 Authored more than 20 books on animal care, training, and interspecies communication.

🏆 Received international recognition for her pioneering contributions to animal welfare.

🌍 Inspired thousands through her compassionate, intuitive, and science-informed work.

In this heartfelt celebration, Linda will share stories of the animals, events, and extraordinary people who have shaped her journey – and invite you to share your own memories and inspirations from your path with TTouch.

Whether you’re brand new to TTouch or a long-time part of our family, this is a moment to reflect, rejoice, and reconnect with a global community devoted to kindness, connection, and change.

💖 Come ready to be inspired.
🌿 Bring your stories and smiles.
🎈 Let’s celebrate together.

🎟️ Registration is FREE – follow the link to join us live!
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/kInfEa0xRier4Y8B82rNww

28/06/2025

27/06/2025

As flight animals, rushing through an exercise uses muscles for flight. One of the hardest lessons is to recognize the very subtle ways horses end up 'being' in flight mode... it doesn't have to be fast

"Take away the inertia." This is something I often find myself saying to students when they are riding various exercises with their horse. What do I mean by this? Usually, it means to slow down and help the horse move in a very step-wise and deliberate manner. This prevents the horse from throwing his body around while over-exerting his/her large mover muscles which can override and de-activate the deeper muscles that play such a vital role in organizing the horse's body. When a horse trots over cavalletti poles, for example, by surging forward and tightening his neck to pull the body along, he/she has activated unhelpful muscles (in this case, the ones that pull weight forward onto the forehand). Inertia has taken over. When we are building strength, we want instead to minimize the horse charging or flinging himself through exercises. Take away the inertia so the horse then synchronizes his different muscle systems to simultaneously organize AND propel the body.

26/06/2025

I didn’t grow up in a barn with chandeliers.
I didn’t get handed imported warmbloods or winter clinics in Wellington.
I rode whatever I could afford, wherever someone would let me ride.

I’ve hauled to shows in rusty trailers older than my horse.
I’ve trained in hand-me-down tack and boots with holes in them.
I’ve patched things together, gear, horses, life, with sheer grit.

No grooms. No sponsors. No trust fund.

Just work. And love. And more work.

Because dressage isn’t supposed to be about glitter and gloss.
It’s about a conversation, one you earn, stride by stride, over years of showing up.
It’s about feel. Patience. Timing. And truth.

I still muck my own stalls, braid my own horse, and coached myself from old VHS videos and borrowed books.
And still, I ride.
And its not for glory.
It's because something in me needs this.

So no, I’m not the polished rider with the perfect setup.
But I am the rider who never quit.
Who showed up when no one was watching.
Who forged something beautiful from sweat, stubbornness, and a secondhand saddle.

Call it blue collar. Call it rough around the edges.
Just make sure you call it dressage.
Because it is.

And it lives in my blood.

03/06/2025

Pros ride every stride. There is a big difference between being a rider and being a passenger.

Perhaps the biggest difference between a professional horseman (term inclusive of women) and an amateur is that the pro knows that they are always training or untraining a horse when they ride. Horses never stop learning while people stop learning when they prefer their comfortable illusions of self satisfaction. Horses pay attention to every rider's mistake during a ride. They log rider errors with meticulous accuracy, and they enter each experience into their massive database that they instinctively keep in order to survive. All this while riders blissfully "enjoy the ride".

Years ago I sold a nice mare with a gift for jumping to a family with a teen rider. I didn't hear from them for three years until they called offering the horse for sale to me with the implication that the mare was somehow flawed. I questioned them, looking for more specifics. Basically, the horse stopped being the dependable jumper she was three years earlier. I inquired about injuries, etc. but there were no circumstances that explained the horse's new unwillingness to jump except she had been untrained to jump. I explained what most probably had happened and they would not hear of it.

Here on Facebook we hear all kinds of "reasons" for nonperformance. The hyper-empaths go immediately to pain in the horse as the universal cause. The hormone focused people go there. Saddle fitters are apt to blame saddle fit. Every narrowly focused horse person has their specific "reason" why a horse is not performing, but the substantial truth usually is that the rider untrained their horse. All the other reasons might have contributed, but if a rider rides not believing that every halt, every turn and every footfall is a lesson to their horse, they risk untraining their horse.

Real horsemanship is consciousness, or to use the more contemporary term, mindfulness. As a spiritual teacher I knew years ago said, "You can't get away for the day". We need to embrace the challenge of being as present as our horses. Not a small task.

29/05/2025

24/05/2025

I have personal experience with this young mares dam line and wholeheartedly recommend her.

24/05/2025

Wholeheartedly recommend this young mare. I have personal experience with her dam line