Twin Pines Performance Horses

01/02/2026

I’m incredibly grateful for the trust my clients place in me and the horses I get to work with every day. As things continue to stay busy, I’m setting clearer boundaries so I can show up fully for the horses and the people who depend on me.

Going forward, calls and texts will be returned during business hours. Messages outside of that time will be answered the next business day unless it is urgent or emergency situation involving a horse.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support it means more than you know.

01/01/2026

New year. New standards for your horse.

If you’ve been:
• Feeling like you’re going in circles (not the good, intentional circles. The same issues, different day kind)
• Avoiding certain rides or situations
• Waiting for things to magically click
• Looking at the calendar and realizing spring is closer than it feels
• Wanting your horse actually ready by summer, not “we’ll get there eventually”
• Thinking this is the perfect time to get those colts started right

This is usually the moment people finally say,
“Okay… it’s time.”

At Twin Pines Performance Horses, I don’t do quick fixes or cookie cutter programs. I focus on correct foundations, clear communication, and building horses that are confident, rideable, and prepared for real life, not just the arena.

I have limited training openings going into 2025.
If you want honest work, thoughtful training, and progress you can actually feel, let’s talk.

📍 Sisters, OR
📩 Message me to see if your horse is a good fit.e

12/31/2025

12/31/2025

A new year doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel.
It means getting honest about what actually works.

12/29/2025

Failing to prepare a horse for the human world is negligence.

A spooky, reactive, herd bound horse or a horse with behavioral issues is usually a horse having a hard time navigating human life due to a lack of correct exposure, experiences, or training.

Horses are prey animals. They are meant to have a flight response, to be suspicious of new things, and to rely on a herd. Those instincts kept them alive long before we put them in stalls, loaded them in trailers, and expected them to function in a human designed world.

Reactivity isn’t misbehavior or disrespect, it’s a lack of clarity. Horses don’t understand our expectations, environments, or routines unless we teach them. Until they’re shown how to process pressure, new situations, and change, their default response is to react first and think later.

Farriers, vets, tack, hauling, deworming, new environments are part of a horse’s life, but it’s the owner’s responsibility to make sure the horse is mentally and physically ready for those interactions.

Yes, there are absolutely situations where pain, trauma, or past experiences play a role, and those should never be ignored. But using those factors as the explanation instead of addressing the discomfort or doing the work to build new, positive pathways only keeps the horse stuck in a cycle of stress and confusion. By not preparing them and keeping them “sheltered” from real work experiences is actually causing them more stress when they need to be in those new environments or exposed to new things.

Horses didn’t ask to be domesticated, ridden, hauled in metal boxes, or separated from their friends so it’s our responsibility to help them navigate our world.

Teach your horse real life skills. I promise, you’ll have a happier, more confident horse because of it.

12/29/2025

✨ 2026 Show Season Opportunities ✨

As I start mapping out the 2026 show season, I’m opening the door to one or two horses that would be a good fit to be shown next year.

This would be ideal for an owner who wants their horse consistently prepared, ridden, and shown, but doesn’t necessarily have the time or desire to campaign themselves.

For the right horse and partnership, I’m offering a reduced monthly rate in exchange for a committed show agreement for the 2025 season.

If you’re interested in chatting about a potential show partnership, feel free to message me with details about your horse!

Twin Pines Performance Horses

Located in Sisters, OR

12/24/2025

Twas the night before Christmas at Twin Pines Barn,
Not a horse was asleep, though all should have been now.
Horses in stalls, full of opinions and sass,
With hay nets hung crooked and shavings a mess.

Preston stood tall like he owned all the land,
Vinnie side eyed him, unimpressed, unamused, unplanned.
Scout gave a snort, not impressed in the least,
Like someone had canceled her regularly scheduled peace.
While Tuna sang carols (loudly. Off-key. Too long).

Buddy leaned over like, “Hey… you awake?”
Annie looked on with a long-suffering sigh,
As the children ran circles, convinced they could fly.
Toupee just strutted, quite pleased with his flair,
Unsure of the plan but fully aware.
JB blinked sweetly, two thoughts drifting through,
Both of them kind and neither in a hurry to move.
And Penny just watched like she knew something more, plotting quietly near the front of her door.

Pan watched the chaos with zero concern,
some lessons, he’s decided, they’ll just have to learn.
Maggie stood bright eyed, young, sassy, and sweet,
Certain that Christmas was hers to complete.
Andy the pony, no bigger than cheer,
Stood perfectly placed like he’d always been here.

The barn lights were glowing, the night crisp and still,
Until someone nickered just because they could.
The trainer lay dreaming of sleep she won’t get,
Of alarms, of grain buckets, of stalls left to set.

When out in the aisle arose such a clatter
A horse lost his blanket. Again. What’s the matter?
So out went the boots, hair in a braid,
Muttering “I love this” while choices were weighed.

With a pat and a snack and a quiet “goodnight,”
She tucked them all in by the soft barn light.
Now dash away Preston, now Vinnie, now Scout,
Now Buddy, now Tuna no midnight escapes, no sneaking about.

Sleep tight, sweet horses till morning is near,
Merry Christmas from Twin Pines see you at feed time, dear.

12/07/2025

Deck the stalls… or whatever that Christmas song says 🎄🎁

12/05/2025

Every trainer has gone through phases where the work feels heavier than usual. Not because of the horses, but because of the pressure wrapped around the process. Not right now, not every day… just seasons we’ve all hit at some point in this career.

Burnout as a horse trainer doesn’t come from long days in the saddle. It doesn’t come from the miles, the repetition, or the tough ones in the barn.

Burnout comes from the pressure.
The expectation that every ride should be a breakthrough, that every horse should be progressing on a perfect timeline, that you should always be proving something.

And a lot of burnout doesn’t come from the horses at all.
It comes from the owners.
The urgency, the comparison, the belief that training should be linear, fast, and flawless.
It comes from carrying other people’s expectations on top of your own.
It comes from feeling responsible for results you can’t force.
But horses don’t work like that.
Training doesn’t respond to panic or pressure.
It doesn’t care how badly you want it to be “further along.”

It responds to purposeful action, not rushing.
To consistency, not intensity.
To a trainer who shows up steady even when the results aren’t loud yet.
To patience that doesn’t crumble when someone else asks, “Why isn’t he doing it yet?”

Progress returns the moment you stop strangling it with expectations.
Breakthroughs show up on the quiet days. The days where nothing big happened, but something finally made sense to the horse.

Work with intention.
Guard your energy, it’s part of your skillset.
Let go of the pressure (yours and theirs).
Focus on the horse in front of you, not the timeline behind you.

12/04/2025

Everyone wants the trainer who listens to the horse…
but the horse needs an owner who listens, too.

Even the best timing, feel, or skill can only go so far when a horse is carrying discomfort they can’t explain. Training sits on top of whatever the horse is experiencing in their body so when something is off, the work will always reflect it.

Because so much of what we call “behavior” is really just the horse trying to cope with something we can’t see yet.
A horse with teeth that need floating isn’t being “fussy. A horse with unbalanced feet isn’t tryin to be “stubbon”, they are just trying to stay comfortable.
When gut health isn’t supported, focus gets replaced by tension and worry, and it shows up in ways people often misread as behavior. Tight, uncomfortable muscles don’t soften or stretch into new shapes they brace, because that’s what pain teaches them to do.

You can’t out train discomfort.
You can’t out train a body that’s struggling.

You can only support the horse so training finally has a fair chance.

Ethical training isn’t magic, it’s teamwork.
The trainer shows up with knowledge and feel.
The owner shows up with care and responsibility.
And the horse finally gets what they’ve always deserved, a body that feels good enough to learn, and humans who don’t overlook the things that matter.

12/01/2025

Somewhere along the way, the horse world got really good at teaching maneuvers and really bad at teaching self regulation.

We drill circles, patterns, softness, headset, impulsion, all the technical stuff but skip the one thing that actually makes a horse reliable… their ability to manage their own emotions when life gets loud or confusing.

And the truth is, most horses today aren’t misbehaving. They’re overwhelmed, underprepared, or never taught how to cope in the first place.

You see it everywhere…
Horses who panic the second the rider gets tense.
The one that blows past pressure because thinking isn’t an option.
Horses who explode under pressure instead of thinking through it.
Horses whose bodies look trained but whose minds are barely holding on.
Horses so micromanaged they don’t know how to make a decision.
A horse that looks “playful” while frantically bolting around pasture
isn’t having fun… it’s trying to outrun a feeling it doesn’t know how to handle.

We traded real foundation for fancy movement.
Patience with pressure.
Emotional fitness with mechanical obedience.

But self regulation IS the foundation.

It’s the skill that keeps a horse safe, sane, adaptable, and able to return to center when their brain starts to spin.
A regulated horse is confident.
A dysregulated horse isn’t trying to “lose it”,
they simply don’t have the internal brakes to slow the momentum once their feelings start sn*******ng.

And the wild part? Horses are born knowing how to regulate.
We just train it out of them when we rush, overcorrect, or never give them space to process.

The modern horse world loves the polished end product but the real magic is in that messy, unfiltered space where a horse learns to cope, think, and handle life without unraveling.

We don’t need more horses with buttons.
We need more horses with bandwidth.

11/27/2025