MK Horsemanship

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Cuba City, WI
MK Horsemanship

A whole-horse approach focusing on trust, balance, and connection. Offering Lessons, Training, and Clinics

10/02/2025

Mounting at the mounting block

Mounting is a topic I care greatly about. One of the most dangerous places to be around a horse is with one foot in the stirrup and your other foot on the Mounting block or swinging over the horse's back. Mounting is where a lot of nasty accidents happen.

I see many horses get anxious when they know their riders are going to try to mount. These horses start squirming around, swinging their hind quarters away, or just straight up leave. Mounting often means moving and getting anxious, instead of getting calm and still.

The first step to teaching your horse to stand for mounting is to teach your horse to be responsive to your body language and your energy. Your horse needs to be able to speed up, slow down, back up, and go to the left and to the right on the lead and on the lunge line. It's important that your horse is tuned in and moving with you, and feels safe to do so.
If your horse is reactive and anxious about what you are asking them to do, they won't be able to focus on coming up to the mounting block thoughtfully and relaxed.

The second step is to be able to stand anywhere by your horse and they stand calmly and with straightness. A lot of horses are used to only standing still and being pet when people are at their head. These horses often become squirmy or anxious when their human stands anywhere between the girth area and the hind quarters. It's good to make it a habit to choose different areas of your horse to pet. When we only pet their head they will always try to face us and it makes it difficult for them to be straight and parallel with the mounting block.

The third step is to walk your horse thoughtfully up to the mounting block. Just before you get to it, stop your horse softly and step on the mounting block. Then very slowly ask him to move forward just a half step by gently asking him to follow the feel in the lead rope forward. If he doesn't follow it, take your opposite hand and ever so gently tap him with your finger tips until he starts to shift forward. As soon as he shifts forward stop tapping and let your hand lay softly where you were tapping until he stops. This teaches the horse to move in small thoughtful increments when getting positioned by the block. Spend lots of time petting your horse and let him know he's right where he is supposed to be.

Horses learn very quickly to line up and stand relaxed by the mounting block because it makes sense to them and they feel safe. I usually practice this for a couple of sessions and then they pretty much have it down.

Below is a picture of my student learning how to teach Lindy to stand calm and straight at the mounting block.

09/30/2025

Bridling

When I interned at a ranch in Montana, nobody was allowed to bridle any of the horses without supervision until they could prove that they could do it with softness, patience, and awareness. They knew that bridling done wrong could make some pretty defensive, tight, and frustrated horses. It took about a week before I was allowed to it without supervision.

A lot of people bridle their horses the same way they load a difficult horse on the trailer-
as soon as they can get the bit up to the horse's mouth they push, pull, and shove the bit and bridle on the horse. Much like shoving a horse on the trailer and slamming the door before they run back out. All this teaches the horse is to get defensive, tight, and frustrated.

Before we can bridle a horse they must trust our touch and soften and give to it rather than tighten, brace, or even try to evade. After we have proven our hands trust worthy, we teach them to bend to the left and to the right by looping a halter around their neck and asking them to follow the feel we offer them from side to side. From there we can halter them and then later on help them follow that same feel to accept the bit and bridle.

It takes a considerable amount of patience and awareness to bridle a horse in a way that makes them search for what we are asking rather than evade. One wrong move on our part and our horse might feel it's more safe to get it's delicate face and mouth away from our prying hands. Its important thst we take the time to learn what kind of hands a horse feels they can trust and melt in to.

09/29/2025

A few years ago I was riding in my teacher's clinic and learned a valuable lesson I will never forget. I was on a little bay horse that I had previously worked with on a bolting issue. The horse had made great progress and I thought he would be the perfect candidate to ride in the clinic.

The little bay was nervous being in an indoor arena with other horses around and a crowd watching- he did everything I asked him to, but nervously and with some difficulty because he was feeling tight. As my teacher gave us different exercises to work on all I could feel was tension in the little horse. I was doing everything I was instructed to do... why wasn't this horse changing for the better?!

As I started to come around to the end of the arena where my teacher was, she stopped me. She touched my leg and said that it wasn't allowing the horse to relax. I was tightly holding my leg in what I thought was the "perfect position" and it wasn't doing the horse any favors.

She then cupped her hands underneath the heel of my boot and leaned against my leg and said let your leg feel the support and let it relax down into my hands. I immediately felt safe. After spending years riding with instructors yelling at me to have the perfect position, the perfect leg, the perfect heel- I felt the tension and expectations melt away as I let my leg go into her supporting hands. The little bay gelding blinked, sighed, and started to melt underneath me.

Then my teacher said that trying to be the perfect student and doing things "perfectly" isn't always perfect for the horse. If we are not seeing a change in the horse we are not meeting the horses needs no matter how perfectly we think we are doing things. The horse will always tell us if it's needs are being met to allow them to do what we are asking.

That day I learned that we need to be humble and vulnerable enough to listen to the horse. That it isn't all about forcing perfection and pleasing instructors. And that we need to acknowledge the tension within ourselves and where it comes from to truly allow our horses to melt underneath us.

Photo is of a different day on a different horse taking a lesson with my teacher learning how to let my legs let go and get long.

09/28/2025

One of the most detrimental things we can do is expect our horses to do what we ask just because we give them nice things- nice home, nice saddle, turnout, treats, feed, love...

If we are going to handle our horses, ride them, and ask them to do things, we are going to have to make sure we are giving them the things they need to do those things easily and do them well. We need to make sure we do things the way the horse NEEDS us to.

If our horses aren't understanding or responding the way we want them to chances are that we are not giving them what they need and so we need to change something.

09/27/2025

Some Pictures of yesterday's lessons in beautiful Galena IL 😍. I absolutely love going to Galena, the big hills and woods are so beautiful.

This couple has been taking lessons with me the past couple months and are doing a phenomenal job learning the fundamentals of horsemanship and the horses show it!

09/26/2025

Yesterday Biscuit's person came for a lesson to practice all the things Biscuit learned here in training the past 3 months! I love watching horses and their people grow together🥰.

09/18/2025

There are lots of habits to create and mistakes to be made when working with horses. Some things can't be perfectly created over night like our seat, or skills. But some things need to be learned and practiced immediately or we risk a lot no matter what kind of horse we have.

Wrapping the lead rope around our hands even loosely holds risk. At worst we lose a body part or get dragged, at the very least we get a rope burn. Every horse can get scared and move to fast for us to correct a rope wrapped around our hand.

We should never give ourselves an excuse to not prioritize safe rope handling skills. I have spent and still spend hours practicing safely handling ropes, lunge lines, and reins. These things are our lifelines with horses... but used incorrectly they could be the very opposite of a lifeline

09/16/2025

Training horses Biscuit and Faith enjoying snacks and a good roll after having great training sessions and a nice hose down 🥰

09/15/2025

Happy Monday!
Can you find the kitten in the picture???

09/13/2025

Think cooler 😎 not hotter🥵

It was hot today and we were all sweating, so I pulled out the umbrella and introduced it to the horses.

09/09/2025

This morning's thoughts

There are things in this world that are simply black and white. They are not deep, nor does bringing feeling and emotion help. Some things simply just are.

There are also things that are very deep. They require feel and emotion, exploration and maybe a lifetime to understand. These things deserve and demand a lot of energy.

When we spend a lot of time and energy on the black and white things, we are often trying to make the situation or thing something that it simply is not. Our time and energy gets wasted and we become frustrated, emotional, and hung up on something that just doesn't exist the way we are trying to make it to.

When we don't spend a lot of time on feeling, emotion, thought, and exploring the deep things, we miss out miserably. We miss the opportunity to grow, build, and feel. We miss out on the magical things of life.

As with all things in life, us humans seem to want to pick sides. We want to believe everything is black and white, or we want to believe everything is deep, emotional, and full of feeling.

Today I challenge myself to ask where my energy is going and if I have the right expectations of the situations I encounter today. Do I have expectations that will help the situation flourish? Or will my expectations make things difficult, frustrating, and tiring?

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Cuba City, WI
53807

Telephone

+16086420030

Website

http://mk-horsemanship-llc.square.site/

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