Our program believes it is important to pursue goals that are respectful of the horses needs.
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Each horse needs a unique training program that fits the emotional and physical demands asked by his rider.
Got another 1Tuff Stall Mat installed.
Some people have asked me if they hold up because they are only 1/4” thick. Obviously in my line of work…the horses that come here terrorize stalls. They still are holding up perfectly. 🤷♂️ The best part of them is they only weigh 100lbs. So meat heads like me can install them myself. If they were 3/4”…they would be to heavy to move.
www.stallmats.com or call Andy Burelle Five 8 Zero -798-6644
Sometimes we have to be a good example to the horse. They are great imitators. They become what’s inside you if your not careful.
My seven year old daughter got to learn a great lesson today. Not every ride is going to be amazing. Sometimes you take the good with the bad. Tomorrow might be better. Don’t fight the bad rides. Just accept it for what it is and start afresh. My Dad used to say “Manana”. I hope she remembers this lesson because life won’t always throw good days your way. I’m thankful to the horses that teach such good lessons .
As we come into the Holiday season, I am thankful for all the good people in my circle. Phil Oakes has been a friend of mine for many years. He's an amazing horseman and a genuine amazing human being. I got to visit with him about his Juvenile Court Program he does at his ranch in Ga***rd, MI. Its worth a few minutes of your time.
One’s character finds its expression in their art of riding and behavior. The horse is always showing us what is inside us…and is always trying to make us better.
He who is judicious becomes a master.
The Inspired becomes an artist.
The technician, a control freak.
The violent, an abuser.
The one who has a bad temper becomes unfair.
The worried gets frustrated
The impatient becomes unhappy.
The prudent, an eternal student, even if they are already a master.
UNKNOWN
When I started taking Cinco to the rodeos in June he was deceivingly immature. He seemed quiet on the outside but when adversity showed up, He would let his nerves cause him to become angry. Pawing, pulling back, running backwards etc.
After 2 months of long road trips and late nights together….1000’s of kids wanting to pet him…bucking bulls, ropers, loud music, bright lights…
Cinco has learned and is still working on some valuable life skills.
✔️How to breath first
✔️How to be patient and wait for me
✔️That the world is dangerous but it’s not always after you.
✔️That he is strong enough to be without other horses
✔️That he is in control of his emotions…still working on this one
All that said…the greatest gifts are ones that don’t look like gifts. That force you to look at yourself. There is no way out that you can take to make it stop. It’s just the cards your dealt. That’s where you learn the most about yourself. It’s where you grow.
Couple people asked if I'd share the trailer loading video from the Michigan Equine Network Podcast. I don't generally like to post videos because there are so many variables and approaches that could be relevant according to the specific situation. No video will solve your problems...but here you go. If it helps, great. I could do an hour-long podcast on just this 3-minute video.
If your done with chores by 7pm check this out. I’ll have a segment on tips for loading horses.
My search for peace seems to be always corrupted by my worry of the world. But then I see how children move around horses…with pure love and faith. I need to be more like my kids. I’d be a better rider…and a better human.
Matthew 19:14…”Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”
The best I can tell so far…for myself…is that riding horses is a starting place for me to find focus and practice inner peace with an 100% truthful accountability partner. He never lies about what’s inside me. He never tells me I’m perfect when I’m not.
And to honor his hell I create for him in order to find my peace…I can spread that peace to the world.
When Cinco (5 yo trakehner) came to the house…he was pretty worried and anxious about the banners on an indoor arena, random shadows, anything really he could make an issue, he tried. He needed a comparison to contrast with in order to realize his world really wasn’t that bad.
I feel like Cinco some days. I make problems bigger than they really are or need to be, when in reality…my world really is pretty good. Sometimes I need a greater entity to check my perspective. 😉
Episode #3 EXPLORING MICHIGAN TRAILS HORSEBACK
Chad Simpson / Brandy Miller / Margot Slater / and Jenny Cook join us on the show to breath fresh ideas of where you can ride your horse this summer. Plus giveaways to all of our live viewers.
😂
🙋🏻♂️
Provided to YouTube by TuneCoreHorse People · Chris PetersenHorse People℗ 2023 Diehard Cowboy RecordsReleased on: 2023-04-28Auto-generated by YouTube.
Everything is better with friends! 🐴❤️ Leon took a moment to check out Brandt Clark - Horseman during a Dressage & Para-Dressage Clinic last week.
Brandt gave riders new ways to think about communicating with their horses— with focus on breathing, intention, and rewarding the smallest changes. It was an amazing experience for all! (Especially for Leon 😂) A huge THANK YOU to Brandt for sharing your time, knowledge & great stories!
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
Your horsemanship is your journey and yours alone. Enjoy it. Or it will drive you (and your horse) mad. It is one of the great pleasures of life.
"We don't expect the child to write his name the first day or two in school. As soon as he learns to sit down in class and listen to the teacher, he is not immediately expected to write his name.....but we expect immediate learning from a horse. We expect the horse to go from kindergarten to the eighth grade, to high school, to college without enough time, preparation, or consideration for his thoughts and feelings. We often don't even get him into a learning frame-of-mind before we begin to train him. We don't even have him relaxed and confident, where he can sit down in class and just listen. We skip all that preparation because we are so superior, or neglectful, or lazy. Because we haven't prepared ourselves to recognize the horse's feelings." - Ray Hunt
Photo of Ray by Eclectic Horseman Magazine.
It is easier to market human characteristics on to horses than it is to market horse characteristics on to horses. We are not the same. They don’t have all the bad stuff that’s inside us.
The art is in two completely different species…acting as one.
You must have an appreciation for the art before the accomplishment
“If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
I don’t always line up with this guy but this is spot on.
The way a horse is can always be attributed to two things, nature, and nurture. Everything a horse does, how it responds, and what it understands, is a combination of what it learned from its life experience and what it inherited in its genetic makeup. This is true of all species with a complex nervous system.
When we attempt to work with a horse we can only focus on the ‘nurture’ side of what shapes their behaviour. We have no influence on the ‘nature’ side of the equation. But we are even more limited than that. Not only can we not affect their genetic disposition, but we also can’t affect their past life experiences. We can’t undo what has already been done or teach a horse to unlearn what it has already been learned. We can only try to influence their future experiences to achieve the training outcome we desire.
It’s important to appreciate that training does not help a horse to ‘unlearn’. The behaviours and responses we want to change during training are never eradicated. They don’t suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke the moment they learn a different response.
Our training provides layers of new learning to our horse’s understanding. Each new lesson adds another layer to what the horse already knows. But lurking underneath are the layers from lessons learned before. None of the past lessons are removed. This is true whether or not those lessons came from us or from a bee sting.
For this reason, nothing a horse learns is unlearned. When we teach a horse to no longer buck when carrying a rider, we are training a new layer of learning that sits above the old layer. But the old lesson of how to buck when a person sits on its back still exist. All the new training does is to change or suppress the triggers and ill feelings that caused the bucking. Therefore, the moment those triggers and ill feelings re-surface, so does the bucking.
In time, the old lessons that first taught our horse to buck with a rider are so heavily weighed down by the layers of new lessons that it can seem almost unimaginable that anything could trigger a bucking storm in our horse ever again. But it’s not true. The bucking lessons are still in there if you dig deep enough.
It’s important to remember that training does not eradicate old or unwanted behaviours. Training simple overlays the old lessons with new lessons. Old behaviours or unwanted responses are still there waiting for us to screw up and trigger the old emotions that caused them to exist in the first place. That’s why sending your horse to a trainer, without becoming more skilled yourself, has limited benefit. If we don’t step up and learn how to reinforce and build upon the new lesson, it won’t take long before the old behaviours appear again. They are always there, lurking and waiting for us to fail our horses.
Photo: I've been in Minneapolis the past 10 days teaching a clinic and working with my friend, Ellen Kealey. Here is Ellen helping Smoke to line up to the fence. Smoke carries a lot of inner worry and Ellen is doing a great job of layering new lessons and new feelings on top of Smokes old ones.
GOD only pressures your evasions…he’ll let you find the path.
2505 W Michigan Avenue
Clinton, MI
49236
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| Wednesday | 9am - 5pm |
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As we come into the Holiday season, I am thankful for all the good people in my circle. Phil Oakes has been a friend of mine for many years. He's an amazing horseman and a genuine amazing human being. I got to visit with him about his Juvenile Court Program he does at his ranch in Gaylord, MI. Its worth a few minutes of your time.
Couple people asked if I'd share the trailer loading video from the Michigan Equine Network Podcast. I don't generally like to post videos because there are so many variables and approaches that could be relevant according to the specific situation. No video will solve your problems...but here you go. If it helps, great. I could do an hour-long podcast on just this 3-minute video.
Episode #3 EXPLORING MICHIGAN TRAILS HORSEBACK Chad Simpson / Brandy Miller / Margot Slater / and Jenny Cook join us on the show to breath fresh ideas of where you can ride your horse this summer. Plus giveaways to all of our live viewers.
Another successful first ride with my head trainer Maia. 😂 ”sugar beats vinegar “ Gabor Foltenyi right Glenda Warner?😉
Top line work when it’s 88% humidity in Michigan
